Colorado Literacy Tutor as a support in learning and improving reading in L2 (English) for Polish children

The article below is a short presentation of Colorado Literacy Tutor (CLT ) to Polish readers. CLT is a computer program built to help children in developing literacy skills in English. The main advantage of CLT is the deployment of animated highly interactive interface that enhances both human-computer interaction and the student’s learning performance. Designed to help American children, CLT is capable to serve as a learning tool for all children who need to practice reading in English. Since teaching English to Polish children is common in almost all elementary schools and some kindergartens, CLT provides an ideal test bed for research on how Polish children acquire reading abilities in English. The main components of CLT are presented and their impact on reading acquisition is explained. A short preliminary report on author’s pilot study is also given.The article below is a short presentation of Colorado Literacy Tutor (CLT) to Polish readers. CLT is a computer program built to help children in developing literacy skills in English. The main advantage of CLT is the deployment of animated highly interactive interface that enhances both human-computer interaction and the student’s learning performance. Designed to help American children, CLT is capable to serve as a learning tool for all children who need to practice reading in English. Since teaching English to Polish children is common in almost all elementary schools and some kindergartens, CLT provides an ideal test bed for research on how Polish children acquire reading abilities in English. The main components of CLT are presented and their impact on reading acquisition is explained. A short preliminary report on author’s pilot study is also given

Computer assisted reading tutoring in L2 using Colorado Literacy Tutor

Successful tutorship of reading depends on several conditions. Teaching to read require well prepared method with scientific foundations. Children expect entertaining exercises supported with motivational system and a patient tutor who helps in perfecting the skills related to reading. At last, the whole tutorship should be scalable, so large groups of children and whole schools can learn to read step by step. Their progress should be observable for teachers, parents and researchers. Computer assisted reading tutoring may fulfill all these conditions. Colorado Literacy Tutor is a program especially designed to meet these expectations and this article is to explore its possibilities. Short report on pioneer testing of CLT on Polish children is also given.Successful tutorship of reading depends on several conditions. Teaching to read require well prepared method with scientific foundations. Children expect entertaining exercises supported with motivational system and a patient tutor who helps in perfecting the skills related to reading. At last, the whole tutorship should be scalable, so large groups of children and whole schools can learn to read step by step. Their progress should be observable for teachers, parents and researchers. Computer assisted reading tutoring may fulfill all these conditions. Colorado Literacy Tutor is a program especially designed to meet these expectations and this article is to explore its possibilities. Short report on pioneer testing of CLT on Polish children is also given.

Joint attentional frames in computer assisted teaching of reading

This article is to explain how computer programs can teach children to read. The children-computer interaction is analyzed as a joint attentional frame. It is argued that children interact with computer and avatars (life-like characters) in educational programs because they treat them like other people (media equation) and act like in a joint attentional frame. The article consists of four parts. The first part is an introduction showing a broad background of this research. The second part presents current views on language acquisition in cognitive linguistics framework which is a Tomasello?s socio-pragmatic theory. The third part is an analysis of some educational programs in terms of joint attentional frame with emphasis on Colorado Literacy Tutor. The last part suggests that children do treat avatars as people because they perceive them like the self, which is a consequence of being brought up in a series of joint attentional frames.This article is to explain how computer programs can teach children to read. The children-computer interaction is analyzed as a joint attentional frame. It is argued that children interact with computer and avatars (life-like characters) in educational programs because they treat them like other people (media equation) and act like in a joint attentional frame. The article consists of four parts. The first part is an introduction showing a broad background of this research. The second part presents current views on language acquisition in cognitive linguistics framework which is a Tomasello?s socio-pragmatic theory. The third part is an analysis of some educational programs in terms of joint attentional frame with emphasis on Colorado Literacy Tutor. The last part suggests that children do treat avatars as people because they perceive them like the self, which is a consequence of being brought up in a series of joint attentional frames.

Current trends in removable partial denture teaching in British dental schools

Aim To investigate current teaching of removable partial denture construction in British dental schools. Materials and method A questionnaire was sent by email to each of the 15 UK dental schools. Results Replies were received from the 12 long established schools, although one declined to participate. The more recently established schools did not respond. All schools have a pre-clinical/technical course, which either precedes or runs in parallel with the early part of the students' partial denture experience, but students complete very little, if any technical work for their clinical cases. The majority of teaching takes place in multidisciplinary teaching clinics in years 2-5 although the majority of schools concentrate teaching of the basics early in the programme. Fewer cases appear to be treated than previously reported, especially cases requiring removable partial dentures with cobalt chromium frameworks. Students may only treat one such case, the remainder of dentures being constructed of acrylic resin. Lack of experience treating cases requiring a combination of complete and removable partial dentures was a concern. Conclusion Participating schools appear to meet the General Dental Council's requirements. The amount of clinical work undertaken by students may have decreased slightly. There has been a greater decrease in the technical component

ПЛАНУВАННЯ ЗМІН В УПРАВЛІННІ ПОЛЬСЬКИМИ МОЛОЧНИМИ КООПЕРАТИВАМИ ПІСЛЯ ВІДМІНИ СИСТЕМИ КВОТ НА МОЛОКОПРОДУКТИ У ЄВРОСОЮЗІ. (PROJECTED CHANGES IN POLISH DAIRY COOPERATIVES MANAGEMENT AFTER THE REMOVAL OF THE MILK QUOTA SYSTEM IN THE EUROPEAN UNION).

Обговорюється стабільність на молочному ринку ЄС після усунення молочних квот та виробничого регулювання. Анулювання молочних квот без запровадження ефективних механізмів стабілізації молочного ринку ЄС буде несприятливим для європейських виробників молока. Ймовірно, що молочним кооперативам у Польщі та інших країнах Європейського Союзу буде необхідно покращити управління у такий спосіб, що підвищити конкурентоспроможність продукції для внутрішнього і зовнішнього ринку, у тому числі і поза межами Європейського Союзу. Конкуренція вимагає виробництва молокопродуктів з вищою доданою вартістю, покращенням управління якістю та виробничим процесом. Як результат, молочні кооперативи матимуть можливість покращити економічну ефективність, підвищуючи чистий прибуток кооперативів, тобто фермери-виробники молока в партнерстві з кооперативами матимуть змогу брати участь у розподілі дивідендів, таких як компенсація збитків, спричинених нижчими оптовими цінами на молоко. На рівні країн-членів Європейського Союзу відміна системи квотування може бути частково компенсована шляхом субсидій для виробників молока, які випливають з інтенсифікації економічної політики у таких сферах, як охорона навколишнього середовища чи соціальна допомога, а також дослідження та інновації. (Stability of the EU milk market after elimination of milk quotas and production regulation is discussed. Repealing milk quotas without effective mechanisms for stabilizing the EU milk market will be unfavourable for European milk producers. It is likely that the dairy cooperatives in Poland, and other European Union countries, will need to improve management in such ways as to enrich competitive product range for domestic and foreign markets, outside the European Union as well. Competition necessitates production of dairy products with higher added value, better quality management and better processing. As a result, dairy co-operatives will be able to increase economic efficiency, therefore increasing net profits of the cooperatives i.e. milk producing farmers, in partnership with the cooperatives will be able to participate in the dividends as compensation for losses caused by lower raw milk wholesale prices. At the level of the European Union or Member States, the removal of the quota system may be partially offset by subsidies for milk producers arising from intensification of economic policies in areas such as environment or social assistance, as well as research and innovation.

On some families of arbitrarily vertex decomposable spiders

A graph $G$ of order $n$ is called arbitrarily vertex decomposable if for each sequence $(n_1, ..., n_k)$ of positive integers such that $\sum _{i=1}^{k} n_i = n$, there exists a partition $(V_1, ..., V_k)$ of the vertex set of $G$ such that for every $i \in \{1, ...., k\}$ the set $V_i$ induces a connected subgraph of $G$ on $n_i$ vertices. A spider is a tree with one vertex of degree at least $3$. We characterize two families of arbitrarily vertex decomposable spiders which are homeomorphic to stars with at most four hanging edges

mCommerce in der Tourismusindustrie : Potenziale, Risiken und rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen

Vor dem Hintergrund der sich dramatisch verschlechternden weltpolitischen Lage, ständiger Sicherheitsgefahr durch extremistische Kräfte und zunehmender Radikalisierung der Konfliktlösung in der Welt, verschlechtern sich seit dem 11. September 2001 kontinuierlich auch die Aussichten der Reisebranche. Wie kann aber Abhilfe aussehen? Es ist denkbar, dass neben der zunehmenden Vermarktung des Urlaubs in Deutschland zusätzliche Einnahmequellen erschlossen werden können. Eine solche Quelle ist in mCommerce verbunden mit dem rasant wachsenden Mobilfunkmarkt, der Einführung neuer Datenübertragungstechnologien und der Einbindung des Internets in die mobile Kommunikationswelt zu sehen. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden in der vorliegenden Studie die Potenziale von mCommerce für den Tourismus im deutschen Quellmarkt analysiert. Die Studie gliedert sich in drei Bereiche: Im Rahmen der Studie werden Erfolgsfaktoren und Hemmnisse des mCommerce in der Tourismusbranche ermittelt, sowie Perspektiven und Trends aufgezeigt. Eine weitere Zielsetzung der Studie ist die Darstellung rechtlicher Rahmenbedingungen für mCommerce. Schließlich wird anhand einer praktischen Fallstudie demonstriert, wohin sich Trends entwickeln und wo sie bereits präsent sind

Recording and transcription of speech and gesture in the narration of Polish adults and children

In the present paper, the experimental procedure, the details of sound and video recording set-up as well as the system for speech and gesture transciption and coding used in the Polish Cartoon Narration Corpus (PCNC) project are described. The audio-visual data come from a cartoon narration task performed by both children and adults. The recordings are transcribed orthographically and phonemically, and labelled for selected phenomena on a number of levels, including gesture, lexicon, prosody, and dialogue acts.In the present paper, the experimental procedure, the details of sound and video recording set-up as well as the system for speech and gesture transciption and coding used in the Polish Cartoon Narration Corpus (PCNC) project are described. The audio-visual data come from a cartoon narration task performed by both children and adults. The recordings are transcribed orthographically and phonemically, and labelled for selected phenomena on a number of levels, including gesture, lexicon, prosody, and dialogue acts