I Am the Robot: Teen Collaboration in an Asymmetric, Virtual Reality Game

Virtual reality (VR) offers potential as a collaborative tool for both technology design and human-robot interaction. We utilized a participatory, human-centered design (HCD) methodology to develop a collaborative, asymmetric VR game to explore teens’ perceptions of, and interactions with, social robots. Our paper illustrates three stages of our design process; ideation, prototyping, and usability testing with users. Through these stages we identified important design requirements for our mid-fidelity environment. We then describe findings from our pilot test of the mid-fidelity VR game with teens. Due to the unique asymmetric virtual reality design, we observed successful collaborations, and interesting collaboration styles across teens. This study highlights the potential for asymmetric VR as a collaborative design tool as well as an appropriate medium for successful teen-to-teen collaboration.

Productive Development Partnership in Brazil

Brazil was one of the first countries to adopt significant health policies to better attend people with HIV. The integrated analysis of the high cost of medicines, public health, and access to medicines comprises an extremely complex task, and Productive Development Partnerships (PDP) was the mechanism used by the Brazilian government, with a view to technological development and training of national production complex. The PDP of atazanavir was formalized in late 2011, and the agreement includes the transfer of technology, manufacturing, and distribution of the drug. The PDP emerges as a solution found by the government to minimize the Ministry of Health drug spending and encourage the local production. However, one should not ignore that there are risks associated with regulatory barriers and problems in negotiations with the holders of technology. Thus, this chapter presents a case study of the successes the management information of the productive development partnerships in Brazil as a collaborative tool for global health.

Use of gamification as collaborative learning resources

There is no doubt that students in contact with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) benefit in various ways and advance in this new vision of the user of training. Gamification is a learning tool that is being used more frequently, and acquiring great relevance in the field of education, with the implementation and use of this support tool as a collaborative resource in a vital campus, it was proven that it is beneficial to improve the performance and quality of education in students who take the subject of Arithmetic and Geometry. At the ISOFODOSU. The purpose of this article is to present the results obtained from the intervention with students enrolled in the subject Arithmetic and Geometry in the academic periods September - December 2019, January - April 2020, on gamification in a virtual learning environment as a collaborative resource in combination with mobile devices. The objective set by the researcher is to check whether the use of this collaborative tool combined with mobile devices can improve academic performance, and increase the grades of students enrolled in the subject at the Salome Ureña Higher Institute of Teacher Training.

Padlet for Project-based Learning in an Entrepreneurship Course

Padlet is a collaborative online tool that is widely used to complement online learning. This study investigates students' perception of using Padlet while executing project-based learning activities in the learning of entrepreneurship content and skills. Participants were assigned to use Padlet to facilitate remote group work discussions. Once the activities were completed, they filled out an online survey to capture their opinions and perceptions of the use of Padlet in their respective projects. The quantitative findings revealed that more than half of the participants agreed that Padlet is a useful online tool to support project-based learning activities. They also agreed Padlet can be used to nurture students’ soft skills. Less than half still wanted to use Padlet if their internet connections were reliable. However, the rest were unsure of continuing using Padlet, and they indicated a preference to use other online tools. A few factors were identified to have also influenced the correlation between Padlet usage and assignments. Based on qualitative findings, although Padlet was viewed as a great collaborative tool supporting project-based learning activities in entrepreneurship education, it must be used with other online tools to overcome its technical shortcomings. Hence, modifying pedagogical strategies shall also be considered for making students participate actively in online discussion. In future, an in-depth investigation should focus on understanding the effectiveness of Padlet in entrepreneurship education in post-pandemic scenarios.

A Tool For Comparing Relative Risks to Ecological Components Associated With Different Oil Spill Response Options

ABSTRACT Subsea dispersant injection (SSDI) applied to a deepwater blowout has been shown to be a highly efficient oil spill response (OSR) tool that, under appropriate conditions, can substantially lessen and delay oil surfacing as well as reduce the persistence of surface oil slicks. Bock et al. (2018) explored the relative ecological and societal risks associated with integration of SSDI into OSR strategies in the northern Gulf of Mexico using a comparative risk assessment (CRA) desktop analysis tool. The CRA analysis tool was developed with regulatory and stakeholder engagement and communication in mind; the user interface and emphasis on visualization of the assessment results were intended to facilitate rapid examination of the consequences of different spill scenarios in the presence and absence of SSDI and other OSR technologies. Using the CRA tool, decision makers are now better able to predict the nature and extent of the likely consequences to shoreline and aquatic valued ecological components (VECs) and environmental compartments (ECs), and examine the relative consequences of deploying different response technologies. The CRA tool has been substantially improved and has been redesigned from an Excel spreadsheet into a web-based application with enhanced interactive data visualizations and collaboration tools. The new web-based CRA tool is based on the Shiny application framework, an R based open source system for building interactive web-based applications. The updated CRA tool (https://nert.shinyapps.io/CRA_viewer/) now includes improved visualizations of the oil spill modeling results, depictions of the spatial footprint of different ECs, and the interactive exploration of the CRA results and intermediate calculations. Stakeholders are able to drill down into the components of the analysis and more easily explore the parameters that drive CRA scores, as well as explore alternative scoring options. The tool has also been modified to facilitate updating the CRA tool for new oil spill scenarios and OSR options. This web-based interactive CRA tool greatly enhances the usability of CRA as a collaborative tool for evaluating OSR options during planning and can also be used to inform the evaluation of response options during planning, training, and during an incident.

Learning Plant Biodiversity in Nature: The Use of the Citizen–Science Platform iNaturalist as a Collaborative Tool in Secondary Education

Biodiversity is a concept of great scientific interest and social value studied in different subjects of the secondary education curriculum. Citizen–science programs may contribute to increasing the engagement of students when studying biodiversity. This work aimed to explore the use of the citizen–science platform iNaturalist as a complement of the elaboration of herbaria in an outdoor activity for 4th course 16-year-old students in the Basaula Reserve. The platform iNaturalist was chosen for its suitability to develop collaborative projects in an educational context. The Basaula project was created and 122 students were trained to record plant species in an outdoor activity. A total of 32 species were recorded, among them the most abundant were beech (Fagus sylvatica) and holm oak (Quercus ilex). The students positively evaluated their experience, highlighting its adequacy to record biodiversity data and make a virtual herbarium. Students valued the innovative character of iNaturalist and its usefulness for research but also the opportunity to integrate mobile devices in school education. We concluded that iNaturalist is a valuable tool to carry out collaborative projects dealing with biodiversity in secondary education.

A Systematic Scoping Review on Portfolios of Medical Educators

Background: Heralded as a teaching, assessment and reflective tool, and increasingly as a longitudinal and holistic perspective of the educator’s development, medical educator’s portfolios (MEP)s are increasingly employed to evaluate progress, assess for promotions and career switches, used as a reflective tool and as a means of curating educational activities. However, despite its blossoming role, there is significant dissonance in the content and structure of MEPs. As such, a systematic scoping review (SSR) is proposed to identify what is known of MEPs and its contents. Methods: Krishna’s Systematic Evidenced Based Approach (SEBA) was adopted to structure this SSR in SEBA of MEPs. SEBA’s constructivist approach and relativist lens allow data from a variety of sources to be considered to paint a holistic picture of available information on MEPs. Results: From the 12 360 abstracts reviewed, 768 full text articles were evaluated, and 79 articles were included. Concurrent thematic and content analysis revealed similar themes and categories including: (1) Definition and Functions of MEPs, (2) Implementing and Assessing MEPs, (3) Strengths and limitations of MEPs and (4) electronic MEPs. Discussion: This SSR in SEBA proffers a novel 5-staged evidence-based approach to constructing MEPs which allows for consistent application and assessment of MEPs. This 5-stage approach pivots on assessing and verifying the achievement of developmental milestones or ‘micro-competencies’ that facilitate micro-credentialling and effective evaluation of a medical educator’s development and entrust-ability. This allows MEPs to be used as a reflective and collaborative tool and a basis for career planning.