BACKGROUND Oral language skills in the preschool and early school years are critical to educational success and provide the foundations for the later development of reading comprehension. METHODS In a randomized controlled trial, 180 children from 15 UK nursery schools (n = 12 from each setting; M(age) = 4;0) were randomly allocated to receive a 30-week oral language intervention or to a wait...

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is a very broad and increasingly mature research field. It encompasses a variety of research topics, ranging from the study of different pedagogical approaches, teaching techniques, and strategies for online learning to the application of advanced technologies in educational settings (e.g., different kinds of mobile devices, sensors, and sensor networks that p...

W business and management science students graduate and have a job, they give many managerial communications about analytical work, but typically they are not taught how to give presentations in their undergraduate courses. We describe the characteristics of the “managerial presentation” and contrast them with characteristics of the “narrative presentation” that is given to technical peers and ...

Nowadays, most nurses, pre- and post-qualification, will be required to undertake a literature review at some point, either as part of a course of study, as a key step in the research process, or as part of clinical practice development or policy. For student nurses and novice researchers it is often seen as a difficult undertaking. It demands a complex range of skills, such as learning how to ...

The authors review six virtual learning environments built to support the acquisition of cultural knowledge and communication skills: ATL, BiLAT, Croquelandia, Second China, TLCTS, and VECTOR. Each leverages modern 3D video game engine technology which allows high-fidelity simulation of new cultural settings, including representations of buildings, streets, art work, dress, voice, gestures, and...

In developing a test of pragmatic skills for children ages 4 to 9 years, we focused on a number of functional language skills that are important for children's success in early schooling and for the development of fluent reading and writing. They included (1) wh-question asking, (2) communicative role taking, (3) linking events in a cohesive narrative, and (4) articulating the mental states of ...

This paper reports on the introduction of a set of 'Augmented Reality' (AR) tasks, offering an innovative, real world and problem based set of activities for a group of first year University Gaming and Computer Science students. Our initial research identifies a gap in the perceptions of STEM students between the usefulness of discipline based modules and a compulsory 'Professional Development'...

Novice writers face significant challenges as they learn to master the broad range of skills that contribute to composition. Novice and expert writers differ considerably, and devising effective composition support tools for novice writers requires a clear understanding of the process and products of writing. This paper reports on a study conducted with more than one hundred middle grade studen...

In this paper, we discuss the development of young people’s interactive storytelling skills within a game creation environment. We describe the Gamemaker workshop series, in which young people learn to use a commercial game creation environment to develop interactive, branching stories within a 3D virtual reality role-playing environment. Given this new medium for story expression, we sought to...

Background An evidence-based trauma-informed resilience skills training program developed for deployed military personnel was adapted and pilot-tested with pediatric residents. We anticipated high satisfaction ratings and changes in knowledge, beliefs, and self-efficacy related to coping with stress and trauma. Methods The intervention included 6 skill-based modules covering emotion regulatio...