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Background: Dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, hypertension, and abdominal obesity are important determinants of metabolic syndrome (MetS). Ample studies provide statistical data on the prevalence of MetS among the general public. Conversely, there is a paucity of data on the risk of MetS among different sedentary occupational groups. Objective: To assess the risk of MetS among female school teachers and to identify factors contributing to MetS. Methodology: The study was conducted among 256 female school teachers residing in Chennai city. A questionnaire was used to elicit information on the socio-demographic profile, diet pattern, physical fitness, and genetic history of lifestyle diseases. Anthropometric, biochemical, and clinical parameters were measured using standard methods. MetS was diagnosed using the harmonizing definition. Data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. Results: Results evince that 39.45% of female school teachers were diagnosed with MetS, of which 26.56% had three components, 9.77% had four components, and 3.12% had all components of MetS. Abdominal obesity (99%) and low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (96.04%) were the most predominant components. The least common component was diastolic hypertension (32.67%). MetS components were high among school teachers aged 36-45 years and 46-55 years. Age, fasting hyperglycemia, paternal history of hypertension, physical inactivity, eating out, and consumption of refined cereals significantly contributed to MetS (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Results highlight the need to identify high-risk individuals and promote a healthy lifestyle through various intervention programs. Keywords: Healthy lifestyle, metabolic syndrome, school teachers, sedentary occupation, Author(s): Sarah Jane Monica (corresponding author) [1]; Sheila John [1]; R Madhanagopal [2] INTRODUCTION Developing countries are experiencing rising epidemics of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Nearly 63% of deaths occurred due [...]

Many districts' transitions to a digital learning environment have led to the introduction of an endless number of digital instructional tools, leaving many teachers overwhelmed. 'A mile wide and an [...]

THEORIES FOR EDUCATIONAL REFORM SHOULD COME in two parts: first, a call for a personal philosophical shift for teachers to use best practice, and second, institutional change. Effective institutional change [...]

Instructional applications (apps) are educational software programs that can be accessed via mobile technologies (e.g., iPad, smartphone) and used to help students acquire various academic skills, including mathematics. Although research suggests that app-based instruction (AI) can be effective, there is a paucity of research comparing AI, to teacher-directed instruction (TDI) or to a combination of instructional approaches (CI) involving both AI and TDI in tandem. In an alternating treatments design, we compared AI, TDI, and CI conditions during instruction targeting multiplication facts with six students with learning disabilities. Results were inconsistent across students, and no condition emerged as consistently better than the others. Students completed social validity rating scales, and all approaches were favored by at least one student. Our results support findings from previous research involving similar comparisons between these instructional formats in which no (or minimal) differences across conditions were detected. We conclude that there may not be a meaningful difference between the outcomes achieved using AI, TDI, or CI for many students. Results are discussed in terms of directions for the future research., Author(s): Brian R. Bryant[sup.1] , Minwook Ok[sup.1] , Eun Young Kang[sup.1] , Min Kyung Kim[sup.1] , Russell Lang[sup.2] , Diane Pedrotty Bryant[sup.1] , Kathleen Pfannestiel[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) The University [...]

Over the past 20 years, consumer groups and policymakers have expressed concerns about the high-pressure selling techniques used during in-home selling, often highlighting the distinction between typical door-to-door selling, and [...]

This study stemmed from a concern of the perceived decline in students' reading motivation after the early years of schooling. This research investigated the effectiveness of online eBooks on eight grade 1 students' reading motivation. Eight students were given ten 25-minute sessions with the software programs over 15 weeks. Qualitative data were collected from students, teachers, and parents through questionnaires, interviews, observations and field notes. The results suggest the promise of online reading software programs in supporting early readers who have reading, motivation, and/or behavioural difficulties. Keywords: digital reading, early literacy, reading motivation, online, eBooks, constructivism. Cette etude decoule d'une preoccupation de la diminution percue de la motivation des eleves en lecture, apres les premieres annees de scolarite. Cette recherche a etudie l'efficacite de livres electroniques en ligne sur la motivation lecture huitieme annee 1, les eleves. Huit etudiants ont donne dix seances de 25 minutes avec les logiciels de plus de 15 semaines. Les donnees qualitatives ont ete recueillies aupres des eleves, des enseignants et des parents au moyen de questionnaires, d'entretiens, d'observations et de notes de terrain. Les resultats suggerent la promesse de programmes en ligne de logiciels de lecture en appuyant les premiers lecteurs a la lecture, la motivation et/ou de troubles du comportement., Learning to read proficiently in the primary grades is one of the cornerstones of academic achievement and the foundation for children's later success in school. Much of the research on [...]

This paper discusses the impact of introducing virtual simulation software, Logisim, in teaching an introductory digital logic course. It also highlights that students who are taking introductory computer science courses would be more comfortable using simulations rather than using physical equipment because there is no fear of damaging expensive components. The instructor who has taught this course using a physical lab has observed that the students take a lot of time to get familiar with the functionality of components hence consuming a lot of time from the assigned lab hours. Thus the conception of virtual laboratories in introductory computer science courses opens a new era in the learning and assimilation of practical concepts. Keywords: Virtual Labs, Simulations, Digital Logic, Observations, INTRODUCTION Practical components play a significant role in understanding courses especially in the discipline of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Though the importance of hands-on experience is understood, proliferation [...]

Boger explains the history, inspiration, success, and failures of using WordPress to create subject guides at the Stafford Campus Library of the University of Mary Washington (UMW) in Fredericksburg, Virginia. [...]

Summary This article assesses the Clicker 5 reading and writing software package to help people with learning disabilities and others achieve a better understanding of and participation in complex decisions [...]

Purdue University has opened up a Twitter-powered channel class to test the homemade software called Hotseat, which allowed students to key in question from their cell phones or laptops via Twitter or Facebook. However, asking 250 students to post questions on Twitter during class can cause ego damage if students get disorderly online. Insights on the experiment are also given.

If the 20th century was the era of the global institution--the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the multinational corporation--then the 21st century will be the era of the participatory [...]

The world today can be characterized by constant change. One such change is globalization: the integration of world economies into a single economy. Because of globalization, it is necessary for colleges and universities to respond with appropriate curriculum changes that addresses this new world phenomenon. Several institutions of higher education have developed a curriculum that has international business focus. Examples are Nanayoung University, University of Texas, Austin, Washington University, and more. Traditional international programs have received mixed reviews from the businesses community (Delaunay and Blodgett 2005). As a result Suffolk university has developed a Global MBA that is different and in line with the global environment in which business operates. However, the discussion about the internationalization of business education has thus far eluded the reality of curricular change (Ghemawat 2008). This paper addresses this through the design of a curriculum based on basic systems and ERP concepts. The paper develops a framework that suggests how the core MBA courses can be integrated with specific International factors to create an interactive MBA curriculum. To do this it is necessary to have a basic understanding of systems and ERP concepts and how system and ERP concepts are integrated. It is also necessary to understand how the integration of system and ERP concepts are applied to an MBA curriculum and the role of an integrated aspect of system and ERP concepts as a guiding framework and how it is applied. The framework does not propose or address any core contents typically covered by each course. As a result, it does not affect the 'independence' of the instructor developing the course. The framework developed suggests how each core course is integrated with each other and with the international factors., Systems Concept Systems concept is not new. A system has input, process, output and a feedback. Inputs are used by the process in generating a desired output or outputs. A [...]

In this paper, a pedagogical software for the design and analysis of loudspeaker systems is presented, with emphasis on training students in the interaction between system parameters. Loudspeakers are complex electromechanical system, whose behavior is neither intuitive nor easy to understand by inexperienced students. Although commercial simulation software provides computation of the equations governing loudspeaker systems, they are mainly focused on the final product and are intended for experienced audio engineers. The proposed software was intentionally designed for education and training purposes. This software allows students to investigate loudspeaker systems that involve complex interactions by illustrating their effects in real time, both in a graphical interface and in numeric values. Unlike other academic simulation tools in the technical literature, students can modify the system parameters, both graphically and numerically, and observe their impact on the loudspeaker responses: pressure, diaphragm behavior, and electrical impedance. Results obtained during two academic semesters showed educational improvement by comparing the outcomes generated by a commercial software and by the designed tool. Students reported very positive attitudes toward this experience and perceived their interaction with the simulation as being generally effective in improving their skills in dealing with loudspeaker system interaction. Index Terms--Audio systems, interactive computing, loudspeaker, simulation software.

THIS CASE STUDY reports on the progress of Navon, a 13-year-old boy with prelingual deafness, over a 3-month period following exposure to Logo, a computer programming language that visualizes specific programming commands by means of a virtual drawing tool called the Turtle. Despite an almost complete lack of skills in spoken and sign language, Navon made impressive progress in his programming skills, including acquisition of a notable active written vocabulary, which he learned to apply in a purposeful, rule-based manner. His achievements are discussed with reference to commonly held assumptions about the relationship between language and thought, in general, and the prerequisite of proper spoken language skills for the acquisition of reading and writing, in particular. Highlighted are the central principles responsible for Navon's unexpected cognitive and linguistic development, including the way it affected his social relations with peers and teachers.

Educational software tools are considered to enrich teaching strategies, providing a more compelling means of exploration and feedback than traditional blackboard methods. Moreover, software simulators provide a more motivating link between theory and practice than pencil-paper methods, encouraging active and discovery learning in the students. The use and development of educational software is a field that has grasped the attention of teachers and researchers from different disciplines and theoretical frameworks in the last few years. In this paper, the authors present SoftwarE for Learning Formal languages and Automata theory (SELFA), an educational software simulator tool, designed to improve the quality of teaching in Theory of Computation courses. The aim of this tool is to make it easier to teach and to learn the main concepts of this subject, whose level of abstraction makes both activities difficult. The main advantage of this tool over other software tools designed with the same purpose, is that it has been developed using web technologies. This allows the user to collect and analyze data on how and when a student or group has used the tool. These numerical data can then be used to evaluate the student's work. Index Terms--Computer-supported learning, formal languages and automata theory (FLAT) learning, formal learning environments, theoretical computer simulators, WWW-based course-support systems.

The Hong Kong-Netherlands project (HKNet) is presented as an example of an integrated learning activity among multiple international institutions that brings the reality of engineering management with professional communication into educational contexts. With the help of such project, virtual teams of students from different parts of the world are able to build websites on specific software topics that are then integrated into a single product.

An effective course in power electronics should ideally contain hands-on design and experimental work as well as theory explanation and simulations. In this paper, a software-reconfigurable e-learning platform for power electronics courses is proposed. The aim of the proposed system is to realize a platform capable of constructing a wide range of circuit topologies and control techniques, thus enabling students to gain a better understanding of power electronics converters through practical experiments. The proposed platform consists of a reconfigurable power electronics testbed, a Web-based distance laboratory, and a user interactive e-learning platform. The reconfigurable power electronics testbed can be configured by the students via a Web-based interface to construct a wide variety of converters and inverters. The Internet accessible distance laboratory system permits the instructors and students to remotely conduct experiments over the Internet. The integrated interactive multimedia material can support the educational environment of power electronics courses and can be executed on any modern personal computer (PC) without additional hardware. The advantages of the proposed platform include flexibility, friendly user interface, allow for distance waveform measurements, and removal of laboratory time and space constraints. The positive response from students indicates that the proposed platform is extremely useful for power electronics courses. Index Terms--Distance measurement, e-learning, power electronics, software reconfigurable.

As more school districts are stressing the importance of computers in K-12 classrooms, the availability of technology classes in pre-service teacher education programs is a high priority. While some programs might offer a class that provides skills-based instruction on various software packages, technology integration ideas are of the utmost importance for teachers. A solution to this challenge is to offer a pre-service class that delivers instruction on integrating technology in K-12 curriculum, but still provides students with the opportunity to gain experience with many educational software programs. Introducing pre-service teachers to pre-existing software while supplying practical ideas on how to integrate the software into their teaching can create a solid foundation for instructional technology in the K-12 classroom. A required technology class can demonstrate several different ways for teachers to use the software, giving them the freedom to create customized lessons that infuse technology with their content and provide an enriching learning environment that delivers traditional classroom content while giving students valuable experience with technology., INTRODUCTION Tools-based technology courses have been a staple of almost every college of education across the country. Tools-based classes generally concentrate on software functionality, enhancing the comfort level of pre-service [...]