Objectives: In recent years, the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Hong Kong have extended the implementation of 3D electronic models (e-models) into problem-based learning (PBL) of the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) curriculum, aiming at mutual enhancement of PBL teaching quality and the students’ skills in using e-models. This study focuses on the effectiveness of e-models serving as a tool to enhance the students’ skills and competences in PBL. Methods: The questionnaire surveys are conducted to measure 50 fourth-year BDS students’ attitude change between beginning and end of blended PBL tutorials. The response rate of this survey is 100%. Results: The results of this study show the students’ agreement on enhancement of their learning experience after e-model implementation and their expectation to have more blended PBL courses in the future. The potential of e-models in cultivating students’ self-learning skills reduces their dependence on others, while improving their communication skills to argue about pros and cons of different treatment options. The students’ independent thinking ability and problem solving skills are promoted by e-model implementation, resulting in better decision making in treatment planning. Conclusion: It is important for future dental education curriculum planning to cope with the students’ needs, and offer support in the form of software, hardware and facilitators’ assistance for better e-model implementation.

The study deals with the presentation of the results of qualitatively oriented research, which was carried out in the scope of determining the attitudes of parents to preschool education in the Czech Republic. The research is conceived as an entry into the field of the researched issue and aimed to support the effectiveness of the items of the questionnaire, which was subsequently created based on the parents’ statements from interviews. The research method was interview with 15 parents of preschool children. The main aim of the interviews was to find out their views on the compulsory attendance of their children in kindergarten. Compulsory pre-school attendance has been introduced in the Czech Republic since 2017/18 with the aim of reducing delays in the entry of children into primary school and eliminating subsequent school failures. The findings offered a look at the differing views on compulsory kindergarten school influenced by the different socio-economic status of parents. Parents with a higher socio-economic status attached greater importance to the educational component of compulsory preschool attendance as a preparation for primary school, while parents with a lower socio-economic status emphasized the educational component. An interesting finding is also a statement from interviews of a parent who does not find benefits in compulsory preschool attendance.

This paper explored the solution in game design to help game designers in the educational game designing using digital educational game model canvas (DEGMC) and digital educational game form (DEGF) based on Outcome-based Education program. DEGMC and DEGF can help designers develop an overview of the game while designing and planning their own game. The way to clearly assess players’ ability from learning outcomes and support their game learning design is by using the tools. Designers can balance educational content and entertainment in designing a game by using the strategies of the Business Model Canvas and design the gameplay and players’ ability assessment from learning outcomes they need by referring to the Constructive Alignment. Furthermore, they can use their design plan in this research to write their Game Design Document (GDD). The success of the research was evaluated by four experts’ perspectives in the education and computer field. From the experiments, the canvas and form helped the game designers model their game according to the learning outcomes and analysis of their own game elements. This method can be a path to research an educational game design in the future.

Information seekers get “lost in hyperspace” due to the voluminous documents updated daily on the internet. Adaptive Hypermedia Systems (AHS) are used to direct learners to their target goals. One of the most common AHS designed to help information seekers to overcome the problem of information overload is the Adaptive Education Hypermedia System (AEHS). However, this paper focuses on AEHS that adopts the learning preference of high school students and deliver learning content according to this preference throughout their learning experience. The research developed a prototype system for predicting students’ learning preference from the Visual, Aural, Read-Write and Kinesthetic (VARK) learning style model and adopting the learning content suitable to their preference. The predicting strength of several classifiers was compared and we found Support Vector Machine (SVM) to be more accurate in predicting learning style based on users’ preferences.

This paper presents the SolarSPELL case study that aims to generate information on the use of indicators that help evaluate the pedagogical quality of a digital library resources. SolarSPELL is a solar-powered digital library with WiFi connectivity. It offers a variety of open educational resources selected for their potential for the digital transformation of educational practices and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States. The case study employed a quantitative methodology and the research instrument was applied to 55 teachers, directors and librarians. The results indicate that it is possible to strengthen the pedagogical quality of open educational resources, through actions focused on improving temporal and technological parameters. They also reveal that users believe that SolarSPELL improves the teaching-learning processes and motivates the teacher to improve his or her development. This study provides valuable information on a tool that supports teaching-learning processes and facilitates connectivity with renewable energies that improves the teacher training in active methodologies for ecosystem learning.

Designing a gender responsive Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) mobile game based learning solution (mGBL) is a challenge in terms of content, gamification level and equal engagement of girls and boys. The goal of this case study was to research and create a high-fidelity prototype design of a mobile game that contains role-models as avatars that guide and expose girls and boys to STEM learning content. For this research purpose it was applied the methodology of design sprint with five-phase process that combines design thinking principles. The technique of this methodology comprises smart interviews with STEM experts, mind-map creation, sketching, prototyping and usability testing of the interactive prototype of the gender responsive STEM mGBL. The results have shown that the effect of the avatar/role model had a positive impact. Therefore, by exposing students (boys and girls) to STEM role models in an mGBL tool is helpful for the decreasing of the gender inequalities in STEM fields.

There has been a recent rise in ‘audience-centric’ and immersive storytelling. This indicates audiences are gaining interest in experiencing real adventure with everything that encompasses the struggle, the new friendships, skill development, and growth. This paper examines two themed alternate reality games created by a group of students at the University of Southern California as an experiment in how to design an adventure and to evaluate its impact on participants. The experiences combined immersive improvisational theatre and live-action roleplaying to create socially aware experiences within the timespan of four hours, using Harry Potter and mythology as themes. In each experiment, over 500 players simultaneously embarked on quests -a series of challenges including puzzle-solving, scavenger-hunting, and character interactions- to join a narrative faction. While playing, the participants were asked to choose faction alignments based on the characters they interacted with, as well as their own backgrounds and moral values. During the narrative finale, the impact of their individual choices on the larger story and game were revealed. After the conclusion of each experience, participants filled out questionnaires and were interviewed. Through this, it was discovered that participants developed transferable problem-solving, team-work, and persuasion skills. They also learned about the theme of the experience and reflected on their own moral values and judgment-making abilities after they realized the consequences of their actions in the game-world, inspiring some participants to make changes outside of it. This reveals that alternative reality games can lead to socialization, educational development, and real-world change in a variety of contexts when implemented correctly. This experiment has begun to discover the value of alternate reality games in a real-world context and to develop a reproducible format to continue to create such an impact.

With the advent of the Internet era in recent years, social music education has gradually shifted from the original entity education mode to the mode of entity plus network teaching. No matter for school music education, professional music education or social music education, the teaching quality is the most important evaluation index. Regarding the research on teaching quality evaluation, scholars at home and abroad have contributed a lot of research results on the basis of multiple methods and evaluation subjects. However, to our best knowledge the complete evaluation model for the virtual teaching interaction mode of the emerging network music education Application (APP) has not been established. This research firstly found out the basic dimensions that accord with the teaching quality required by the three parties, constructing the quality evaluation index system; and then, on the basis of expounding the connotation of each index, it determined the weight of each index by using method of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, providing ideas and methods for scientific, objective and comprehensive evaluation of the teaching quality of network education APP.

Inclusion of any design project in an undergraduate electrical and electronic engineering curriculum and producing creative ideas in the final year capstone design projects have received numerous comments at the Board of Accreditation for Engineering and Technical Education (BAETE) several times by the mentors and visiting program evaluator team members at different public and private universities in Bangladesh. To eradicate this deficiency which is needed for getting the program accreditation, a thorough change was required in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) for its BSc in EEE program at Southeast University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. We suggested making changes in the course curriculum titles and contents, emphasizing to include capstone design projects, question setting, examining students through other standard methods, selecting and retaining Outcome-Based Education (OBE)-oriented engineering faculty members, improving laboratories through purchasing new equipment and software as well as developing new experiments for each laboratory courses, and engaging the students to practical designs in various courses and final year projects. This paper reports on capstone design project course objectives, course outcomes, mapping with the program outcomes, cognitive domain of learning, assessment schemes, guidelines, suggestions and recommendations for supervision processes, assessment strategy, and rubric setting, etc. It is expected that this will substantially improve the capstone design projects offering, supervision, and assessment in the undergraduate EEE program to fulfill the arduous requirements of BAETE accreditation based on OBE.

The success of education is dependent on evolution and adaptation, while the traditional system has worked before, one type of education evolved with the digital age is virtual education that has influenced efficiency in today’s learning environments. Virtual learning has indeed proved its efficiency to overcome the drawbacks of the physical environment such as time, facilities, location, etc., but despite what it had accomplished, the educational system over all is not adequate for being a productive system yet. Earning a degree is not anymore enough to obtain a career job; it is simply missing the skills and creativity. There are always two sides of a coin; a college degree or a specialized certificate, each has its own merits, but having both can put you on a successful IT career path. For many of job-seeking individuals across world to have a clear meaningful goal for work and education and positively contribute the community, a productive correlation and cooperation among employers, universities alongside with the individual technical skills is a must for generations to come. Fortunately, the proposed research “Entrepreneur Universal Education System” is an evolution to meet the needs of both employers and students, in addition to gaining vital and real-world experience in the chosen fields is easier than ever. The new vision is to empower the education to improve organizations’ needs which means improving the world as its primary goal, adopting universal skills of effective thinking, effective action, effective relationships, preparing the students through real-world accomplishment and encouraging them to better serve their organization and their communities faster and more efficiently.

Engineering science and technology progress and innovation have become an important engine to promote social development. The reform exploration of "new engineering" in China has drawn extensive attention around the world, with its connotation as "to cultivate future diversified, innovative and outstanding engineering talents by taking ‘fostering character and civic virtue’ as the guide, responding to changes and shaping the future as the construction concept, and inheritance and innovation, crossover and fusion, coordination and sharing as the principal approach". In this context, Tianjin University, as a traditional Chinese university with advantages in engineering, further launched the CCII (Coherent-Collaborative-Interdisciplinary-Innovation) program, raising the cultivation idea of integrating new liberal arts education, multidisciplinary engineering education and personalized professional education. As urban planning practice in China has undergone the evolution of "physical planning -- comprehensive strategic planning -- resource management-oriented planning", planning education has also experienced the transmutation process of "building foundation -- urban scientific foundation -- multi-disciplinary integration". As a characteristic and advantageous discipline of Tianjin University, the major of Urban and Rural Planning, in accordance with the "CCII Program of Tianjin University", aims to build China's top and world-class major, and implements the following educational reform measures: 1. Adding corresponding English courses, such as advanced course on GIS Analysis, courses on comparative studies in international planning involving ecological resources and the sociology of the humanities, etc. 2. Holding "Academician Forum", inviting international academicians to give lectures or seminars to track international frontier scientific research issues. 3. Organizing "International Joint Workshop" to provide students with international exchange and design practice platform. 4. Setting up a business practice base, so that students can find problems from practice and solve them in an innovative way. Through these measures, the Urban and Rural Planning major of Tianjin University has formed a talent training system with multi-disciplinary cross integration and orienting to the future science and technology.

Distance learning provides a flexible approach to education, enabling busy learners to complete their coursework at their own pace, on their own schedule, and from a convenient location. This flexibility combined with a series of other issues; make the benefits of lifelong distance learning numerous. The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether distance education can contribute to the improvement of adult skills in Greece, highlighting in this way the necessity of the lifelong distance learning. To investigate this goal, a questionnaire is constructed and analyzed based on responses from 3,016 attendees of lifelong distance learning programs in the e-learning of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. In order to do so, a series of relationships is examined including the effects of a) the gender, b) the previous educational level, c) the current employment status, and d) the method used in the distance learning program, on the development of new general, technical, administrative, social, cultural, entrepreneurial and green skills. The basic conclusions that emerge after using a binary logistic framework are that the following factors are critical in order to develop new skills: the gender, the education level and the educational method used in the lifelong distance learning program. The skills more significantly affected by those factors are the acquiring new skills in general, as well as acquiring general, language and cultural, entrepreneurial and green skills, while for technical and social skills only gender and educational method play a crucial role. Moreover, routine skills and social skills are not affected by the four factors included in the analysis.

Interest in (STEM) Science Technology Engineering Mathematics education especially Computer Science education has seen a drastic increase across the country. This fuels effort towards recruiting and admitting a diverse population of students. Thus the changing conditions in terms of the student population, diversity and the expected teaching and learning outcomes give the platform for use of Innovative Teaching models and technologies. It is necessary that these methods adapted should also concentrate on raising quality of such innovations and have positive impact on student learning. Light-Weight Team is an Active Learning Pedagogy, which is considered to be low-stake activity and has very little or no direct impact on student grades. Emotion plays a major role in student’s motivation to learning. In this work we use the student feedback data with emotion classification using surveys at a public research institution in the United States. We use Actionable Pattern Discovery method for this purpose. Actionable patterns are patterns that provide suggestions in the form of rules to help the user achieve better outcomes. The proposed method provides meaningful insight in terms of changes that can be incorporated in the Light-Weight team activities, resources utilized in the course. The results suggest how to enhance student emotions to a more positive state, in particular focuses on the emotions ‘Trust’ and ‘Joy’.

Thanks to the development of online technology and social networks, people are able to communicate as well as learn. WhatsApp is a popular social network which is growingly gaining popularity. This app can be used for communication as well as education. It can be used for instructor-learner, learner-learner, and learner-content interactions; however, very little knowledge is available on these potentials of WhatsApp. The current study was undertaken to investigate university students’ perceptions of WhatsApp used as a tool for instructor-learner dialogue, learner-content dialogue, and learner-learner dialogue. The study adopted a survey approach and distributed the questionnaire developed by Google Forms to 54 (11 males and 43 females) university students. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. The result of data analysis indicates that students have positive attitudes towards WhatsApp as a tool for Instructor-Learner Dialogue: it easy to reach the lecturer (4.07), the instructor gives me valuable feedback on my assignment (4.02), the instructor is supportive during course discussion and offers continuous support with the class (4.00). Learner-Content Dialogue: WhatsApp allows me to academically engage with lecturers anytime, anywhere (4.00), it helps to send graphics such as pictures or charts directly to the students (3.98), it also provides out of class, extra learning materials and homework (3.96), and Learner-Learner Dialogue: WhatsApp is a good tool for sharing knowledge with others (4.09), WhatsApp allows me to academically engage with peers anytime, anywhere (4.07), and we can interact with others through the use of group discussion (4.02). It was also found that there are significant positive correlations between students’ perceptions of Instructor-Learner Dialogue (ILD), Learner-Content Dialogue (LCD), Learner-Learner Dialogue (LLD) and WhatsApp Application in classroom. The findings of the study have implications for lectures, policy makers and curriculum developers.

Over the past 20 years, internet has seen continual advancement and with the advent of online technology, various types of web-based games have been developed. Games are frequently being used among different age groups from baby boomers to generation Z. Games are not only used for entertainment but also utilized as a learning approach transmitting education to a level that is more interesting and effective for students. One of the popular web-based education games is Kahoot with growing popularity and usage, which is being used in different fields of studies. However, little knowledge is available on university students’ perception of Kahoot environment and application for learning subjects. Hence, the objective of the current study is to investigate students’ perceptions of Kahoot application and environment as a learning tool. The study employed a survey approach by distributing Google Forms –created questionnaire, with high level of reliability index, to 62 students (11 males and 51 females). The findings show that students have positive attitudes towards Kahoot application and its environment for learning. Regarding Kahoot application, it was indicated that activities created using Kahoot are more interesting for students, Kahoot is useful for collaborative learning, and Kahoot enhances interest in learning lesson. In terms of Kahoot environment, it was found that using this application through mobile is easy for students, its design is simple and useful, Kahoot-created activities can easily be shared, and the application can easily be used on any platform. The findings of the study have implications for instructors, policymakers and curriculum developers.

At present, it is an imperative and stimulating task to grow the concepts and skills of undergraduate students in any course. Educators must build up students' higher-order complex and critical thinking abilities. But many of them find it difficult to assess and evaluate these abilities of students who undertake their courses during undergraduate studies. In this research work, a simple assessment and evaluation process for the electrical circuit course of the undergraduate Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) program is reported using the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) approach. The methodology of the work, course contents design, course outcomes (COs) preparation and mapping it with program outcomes (POs), question setting following Bloom's taxonomy, assessment strategy of the students, CO and PO evaluation records, statistics, and charts have been reported for a student-cohort of electrical circuit course taken in Spring 2019 Semester at EEE Department of Southeast University (SEU). It is found that the benchmark fixed by the course instructor has been achieved by the students of that course through CO assessment and evaluation. Recommendations of the course teacher for further quality enhancement based on CO achievement are also presented.

Class attendance is key at all levels of education. At tertiary level many students develop a tendency of not attending all classes without being aware of the repercussions of not attending all classes. It is important for all students to attend all classes as they can receive first-hand information and they can benefit more. The student who attends classes is likely to perform better academically than the student who does not. The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between class attendance and academic performance of industrial engineering students. The data for this study were collected through the attendance register of students and the other data were accessed from the Integrated Tertiary Software and the Higher Education Data Analyzer Portal. Data analysis was conducted on a sample of 93 students. The results revealed that students with medium predicate scores (OR = 3.8; p = 0.027) and students with low predicate scores (OR = 21.4, p < 0.001) were significantly likely to attend less than 80% of the classes as compared to students with high predicate scores. Students with examination performance of less than 50% were likely to attend less than 80% of classes than students with examination performance of 50% and above, but the differences were not statistically significant (OR = 1.3; p = 0.750).

The prime idea of inclusive education is to mainstream every child in education. However, it will be challenging for implementation when there are policy and practice gaps. It will be even more challenging when children have disabilities. Generally, the focus will be on the policy gap, but the problem may not always be with policy. The proper practice could be a challenge in the countries like Nepal. In determining practice, the teachers’ perceptions toward inclusive will play a vital role. Nepal has categorized disability in 7 types (physical, visual, hearing, vision/hearing, speech, mental, and multiple). Out of these, hearing impairment is the study realm. In the context of a limited number of researches on children with disabilities and rare researches on CWHI and their education in Nepal, this study is a pioneering effort in knowing basically the problems and challenges of CWHI focused on inclusive education in the schools including gaps and barriers in its proper implementation. Philosophically, the paradigm of the study is post-positivism. In the post-positivist worldview, the quantitative approach with the description of the situation and inferential relationship are revealed out in the study. This is related to the natural model of objective reality. The data were collected from an individual survey with the teachers and head teachers of 35 schools in Nepal. The survey questionnaire was prepared and filled by the respondents from the schools where the CWHI study in 7 provincial 20 districts of Nepal. Through these considerations, the perceptions of CWHI focused inclusive education were explored in the study. The data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential tools on which the Likert scale-based analysis was done for descriptive analysis, and chi-square mathematical tool was used to know the significant relationship between dependent variables and independent variables. The descriptive analysis showed that the majority of teachers have positive perceptions toward implementing CWHI focused inclusive education, and the majority of them have positive perceptions toward CWHI focused inclusive education, though there are some problems and challenges. The study has found out the major challenges and problems categorically. Some of them are: a large number of students in a single class; availability of generic textbooks for CWHI and no availability of textbooks to all students; less opportunity for teachers to acquire knowledge on CWHI; not adequate teachers in the schools; no flexibility in the curriculum; less information system in schools; no availability of educational consular; disaster-prone students; no child abuse control strategy; no disabled-friendly schools; no free health check-up facility; no participation of the students in school activities and in child clubs and so on. By and large, it is found that teachers’ age, gender, years of experience, position, employment status, and disability with him or her show no statistically significant relation to successfully implement CWHI focused inclusive education and perceptions to CWHI focused inclusive education in schools. However, in some of the cases, the set null hypothesis was rejected, and some are completely retained. The study has suggested policy implications, implications for educational authority, and implications for teachers and parents categorically.

Today’s International Service Learning practices require an update: modern technologies, fresh educational frameworks, and a new operating system to accountably prosper. This paper describes a model of International Service Learning (ISL), which combines current technological hardware, electronic platforms, and asynchronous communications that are grounded in inclusive pedagogy. This model builds on the work around collaborative field trip learning, extending the reach to international partnerships across continents. Mobile technology, 21st century skills and summit-basecamp modeling intersect to support novel forms of learning that tread lightly on fragile natural ecosystems, affirm local reciprocal partnership in projects, and protect traveling participants from common yet avoidable cultural pitfalls.

Teaching French as a foreign language usually implies teaching French literature, especially in higher education. Training university students in literary reading in a foreign language requires addressing several aspects at the same time: the (foreign) language, the poetic language, the aesthetic aspects of the studied works, and various interpretations of them. A pilot study sought to test a teaching model that would support students in learning to perform competent readings and short analyses of French literary works, in a rather independent manner. This shared practice paper describes the use of a flipped classroom method in two French literature courses, a campus course and an online course, and suggests that the teaching model may provide efficient tools for teaching literary reading and analysis in a foreign language. The teaching model builds on a high level of student activity and focuses on attentive reading, meta-perspectives such as theoretical concepts, individual analyses by students where said concepts are applied, and group discussions of the studied texts and of possible interpretations.

This paper intends to study needs analysis of hearing-impaired students’ teachers in elementary schools all over Iran. The subjects of this study were 275 teachers who were teaching hearing-impaired students in elementary schools. The participants were selected by a quota sampling method. To collect the data, questionnaires of training needs consisting of 41 knowledge items and 31 performance items were used. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS software in the form of descriptive analyses (frequency and mean) and inferential analyses (one sample t-test, paired t-test, independent t-test, and Pearson correlation coefficient). The findings of the study indicated that teachers generally have considerable needs in knowledge and performance domains. In 32 items out of the total 41 knowledge domain items and in the 27 items out of the total 31 performance domain items, the teachers had considerable needs. From the quantitative point of view, the needs of the performance domain were more than those of the knowledge domain, so they have to be considered as the first priority in training these teachers. There was no difference between the level of the needs of male and female teachers. There was a significant difference between the knowledge and performance domain needs and the teachers’ teaching experience, 0.354 and 0.322 respectively. The teachers who had been trained in working with hearing-impaired students expressed more training needs (both knowledge and performance).

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of using motion graphics as a learning medium on training hearing aids maintenance skills to hearing-impaired children. The statistical population of this study consisted of all children with hearing loss in Ahvaz city, at age 4 to 7 years old. As the sample, 60, whom were selected by multistage random sampling, were randomly assigned to two groups; experimental (30 children) and control (30 children) groups. The research method was experimental and the design was pretest-posttest with the control group. The intervention consisted of a 2-minute motion graphics clip to train hearing aids maintenance skills. Data were collected using a 9-question researcher-made questionnaire. The data were analyzed by using one-way analysis of covariance. Results showed that the training of hearing aids maintenance skills with motion graphics was significantly effective for those children. The results of this study can be used by educators, teachers, professionals, and parents to train children with disabilities or normal students.

This work shows the methodology of application and the effectiveness of the Flipped Learning technique for Civil Engineering laboratory classes. It was experimented by some of the professors of the Department of Civil Engineering at Tecnológico de Monterrey while teaching their laboratory classes. A total of 28 videos were created. The videos primarily demonstrate instructions of the experimental practices other than the usage of tools and materials. The technique allowed the students to prepare for their classes in advance. A survey was conducted on the participating professors and students (semester of August-December 2019) to quantify the effectiveness of the Flipped Learning technique. The students reported it as an excellent way of improving their learning aptitude, including self-learning whereas, the professors felt it as an efficient technique for optimizing their class session, which also provided an extra slot for class-interaction. A comparison of grades was analyzed between the students of the traditional classes and with Flipped Learning. It did not distinguish the benefits of Flipped Learning. However, the positive responses from the students and the professors provide an impetus for continuing and promoting the Flipped Learning technique in future classes.

Understanding the concept of function has been important in mathematics education for many years. In this study, the models built by a group of five business administration and accounting undergraduate students when carrying out a population growth activity are analyzed. The theoretical framework is the Models and Modeling Perspective. The results show how the students included tables, graphics, and algebraic representations in their models. Using technology was useful to interpret, describe, and predict the situation. The first model, the students built to describe the situation, was linear. After that, they modified and refined their ways of thinking; finally, they created exponential growth. Modeling the activity was useful to deep on mathematical concepts such as covariation, rate of change, and exponential function also to differentiate between linear and exponential growth.

Automated object recognition and identification systems are widely used throughout the world, particularly in assembly lines, where they perform quality control and automatic part selection tasks. This article presents the design and implementation of an object recognition system in an assembly line. The proposed shapes-color recognition system is based on deep learning theory in a specially designed convolutional network architecture. The used methodology involve stages such as: image capturing, color filtering, location of object mass centers, horizontal and vertical object boundaries, and object clipping. Once the objects are cut out, they are sent to a convolutional neural network, which automatically identifies the type of figure. The identification system works in real-time. The implementation was done on a Raspberry Pi 3 system and on a Jetson-Nano device. The proposal is used in an assembly course of bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. The results presented include studying the efficiency of the recognition and processing time.

This study estimates the private cost of Humanities and Education programs in public universities in Osun state, Nigeria, as well as the private monetary returns to Humanities and Education programs in public universities in the state. It also estimates the private rates of return to Humanities and Education programmes in public universities in Osun state; with the view of providing information on the relative profitability of investments in Humanities and Education programs in public universities in Osun state. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population for the study consisted of all Humanities and Education students from public universities in Osun State and all Humanities and Education graduates who are workers in Osun state establishments. The sample was made up of 600 students and 120 workers. The students were selected through simple random sampling technique from the two public universities in the state while the workers were purposively selected from Osun state establishments. These workers were graduates of Humanities and Education programs. The selected programs included Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English, Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) in English, B.A. in Religious Studies, B.Ed. in Religious Studies, B.A. in Yoruba and B.Ed. in Yoruba. Two research instruments were used, namely: Private Costs of University Education Questionnaire (PCUEQ) and Age Education Earnings of Workers Questionnaire (AEEWQ). The data were analyzed using compounding and discount cash flow techniques. The results showed that the private costs of Humanities and Education programs in public universities in Osun state were N855,935.59 and N694,269.34 respectively. The private monetary returns to Humanities and Education programs in public universities in the State were N9,052,859.28 and N9,052,859.28, respectively. The private rates of return to Humanities and Education programmes in public universities in Osun state were 27.36% and 34.40% respectively. The study concluded that it was more profitable to invest in Education programs than in Humanities programs at public universities in Osun state, Nigeria.

E-learning is becoming more and more common every day. For online, hybrid or traditional face-to-face programs, there are some e-teaching platforms like Google classroom, Blackboard, Moodle and Canvas, and there are platforms for full e-learning like Coursera, edX or Udemy. These tools are changing the way students acquire knowledge at schools; however, in today’s changing world that is not enough. As students’ needs and skills change and become more complex, new tools will need to be added to keep them engaged and potentialize their learning. This is especially important in the current global situation that is changing everything: the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to Covid-19, education had to make an unexpected switch from face-to-face courses to digital courses. In this study, the students’ learning experience is analyzed by applying different e-tools and following the Tec21 Model and a flexible and digital model, both developed by the Tecnologico de Monterrey University. The evaluation of the students’ learning experience has been made by the quantitative PrEmo method of emotions. Findings suggest that the quantity of e-tools used during a course does not affect the students’ learning experience as much as how a teacher links every available tool and makes them work as one in order to keep the student engaged and motivated.

In order to design a cooperative e-learning platform, we observed teams of Teacher [T], Computer Scientist [CS] and exerciser's programmer-designer [ED] cooperating for the conception of a self-correcting exercise, but without the use of such a device in order to catch the kind of interactions a useful platform might provide. To do so, we first run a task analysis on how T, CS and ED should be cooperating in order to achieve, at best, the task of creating and implementing self-directed, self-paced, repeatable self-correcting exercises (RSE) in the context of open educational resources. The formalization of the whole process was based on the “objectives, activities and evaluations” theory of educational task analysis. Second, using the resulting frame as a “how-to-do it” guide, we run a series of three contrasted Hackathon of RSE-production to collect data about the cooperative process that could be later used to design the collaborative e-learning platform. Third, we used two complementary methods to collect, to code and to analyze the adequate survey data: the directional flow of interaction among T-CS-ED experts holding a functional role, and the Means-End Problem Solving analysis. Fourth, we listed the set of derived recommendations useful for the design of the exerciser as a cooperative e-learning platform. Final recommendations underline the necessity of building (i) an ecosystem that allows to sustain teams of T-CS-ED experts, (ii) a data safety platform although offering accessibility and open discussion about the production of exercises with their resources and (iii) a good architecture allowing the inheritance of parts of the coding of any exercise already in the data base as well as fast implementation of new kinds of exercises along with their associated learning activities.

The importance of developing multi-language abilities in our global society is noteworthy. However, the necessity, interest, and consciousness of the significance that the development of another language represents, apart from the mother tongue, is not always the same in all contexts as it is in multicultural communities, especially in rural higher education institutions immersed in small communities. Leading opportunities for digital interaction among learners from Mexico and abroad partners represents scaffolding towards, not only language skills development but also intercultural communicative competences (ICC). This study leads us to consider what should be the best approach to work while applying a program of ICC integrated into the practice of EFL. While analyzing the roots of the language, it is possible to obtain the main objective of learning another language, to communicate with a functional purpose, as well as attaching social practices to the learning process, giving a result of functionality and significance to the target language. Hence, the collateral impact that collaborative learning leads to, aims to contribute to a better global understanding as well as a means of self and other cultural awareness through intercultural communication. While communicating through the target language by online collaboration among students in platforms of long-distance communication, language is used as a tool of interaction to broaden students’ perspectives reaching a substantial improvement with the help of their differences. This process should consider the application of the target language in the inquiry of sociocultural information, expecting the learners to integrate communicative skills to handle cultural differentiation at the same time they apply the knowledge of their target language in a real scenario of communication, despite being through virtual resources.

During the initial phase of cognitive development, infants exhibit amazing abilities to generate novel behaviors in unfamiliar situations, and explore actively to learn the best while lacking extrinsic rewards from the environment. These abilities set them apart from even the most advanced autonomous robots. This work seeks to contribute to understand and replicate some of these abilities. We propose the Bottom-up hiErarchical sequential Learning algorithm with Constructivist pAradigm (BEL-CA) to design agents capable of learning autonomously and continuously through interactions. The algorithm implements no assumption about the semantics of input and output data. It does not rely upon a model of the world given a priori in the form of a set of states and transitions as well. Besides, we propose a toolkit to analyze the learning process at run time called GAIT (Generating and Analyzing Interaction Traces). We use GAIT to report and explain the detailed learning process and the structured behaviors that the agent has learned on each decision making. We report an experiment in which the agent learned to successfully interact with its environment and to avoid unfavorable interactions using regularities discovered through interaction.