Lecture recording has become an essential tool for educational institutions to enhance the student learning experience and offer online courses for remote learning programs. Highresolution 4K cameras have gained popularity in these systems due to their affordability and clarity of written content on boards/screens. Unfortunately, at 4K resolution, a typical 45- minute lecture video easily exceeds 2GB. Many video files of this size place a financial burden on institutions and students, especially in developing countries where financial resources are limited. Institutions require costly high-end equipment to capture, store and distribute this ever-increasing collection of videos. Students require a fast internet connection with a large data quota for off-campus viewing, which can be too expensive for many, especially if they use mobile data. This project designs and implements a low-cost presenter and writing detection front-end that can integrate with an external Virtual Cinematographer (VC). Gesture detection was also explored; however, the frame differencing approach used for presenter detection was not sufficiently robust for gesture detection. Our front-end is carefully designed to run on commodity computers without requiring expensive Graphics Processing Units (GPU) or servers. An external VC can use our contextual information to segment a smaller cropping window from the 4K frame, only containing the presenter and relevant boards, drastically reducing the file size of the resultant videos while preserving writing clarity. The software developed as part of this project will be available as open source. Our results show that the front-end module is fit for purpose and sufficiently robust across several challenging lecture venue types. On average, a 2-minute video clip is processed by the front-end in under 60 seconds (or approximately half of the input video duration). The majority (89%) of this time is used for reading and decoding frames from storage. Additionally, our low-cost presenter detection achieves an overall F1-Score of 0.76, while our writing detection achieves an overall F1-Score of 0.55. We also demonstrate a mean reduction of 81.3% in file size from the original 4K video to a cropped 720p video when using our front-end in a full pipeline with an external VC.

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The purpose of this study was to identify relationships between selected academic variables and student achievement and time of matriculation for students enrolled full-time at two Virginia community colleges; and to ascertain from those relationships the potential for predicting community college achievement. Data were collected, with permission from the VCCS Office of Research and Planning, on students (N = 287) enrolled at either Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, Virginia, or Southside Virginia Community College in Alberta and Keysville, Virginia, from the fall semester of 1988 through the summer semester of 1995. Persons were enrolled in either drafting and design technology, electronics technology, or engineering technology. The dependent variables used in this study were: (a) achievement in college level mathematics courses, (b) overall occupational/technical program achievement, and (c) time required to finish an occupational/technical AAS degree. Independent variables were: (a) high school curriculum (i.e., general or academic), and = (b) high school program participation (i.e., traditional articulation, dual enrollment, or no participation in either). The covariates were: (a) high school GPA, (b) scores on math portion of entrance placement test, (c) algebra I GPA, (d) geometry GPA, and (e) algebra II/trigonometry GPA. The analysis used in this study was developed in several stages. Tests of assumptions were conducted to assure normality and homogeneity of data as well as the elimination of any possibility of multicollinearity between math achievement and overall program achievement. All tests were satisfied and no significance was found at the p < .05 alpha level between math and program achievement. A 2X3 MANCOVA was conducted to ascertain any statistical relationship between the dependent variables and the independent variables. Because only persons participating in an academic high school curriculum (n = 88) had all three math prerequisites, a one way MANCOVA was then conducted to determine statistical significance, regression models were developed for the purpose of predicting community college math achievement, overall program achievement, and time required to finish an AAS degree. The study concluded that the significant predictor of time was high school GPA. The significant predictors of college math achievement were high school GPA, placement test scores, and algebra I. Significant predictors of college program achievement were high school GPA, algebra I, participation in traditional articulation and dual enrollment. / Ed. D.

The purpose of this study was to determine attitude and attitude change toward,student teaching as expressed by students who were pursuing certification to teach speech and/or drama courses in the public school at the secondary level.

Submitted by Angela Maria de Oliveira (amolivei@uepg.br) on 2018-11-08T10:27:50Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Paulo Reginaldo.pdf: 1707029 bytes, checksum: 08cca19276b5072b16ae927f5e6ff86d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-08T10:27:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Paulo Reginaldo.pdf: 1707029 bytes, checksum: 08cca19276b5072b16ae927f5e6ff86d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-03 / O presente trabalho analisará a prática dos professores de História da Rede Municipal de Ensino de Curitiba que participaram dos cursos de formação continuada com foco no desenvolvimento dos pressupostos da Educação Histórica (RÜSEN, 2010; LEE, 2001; BARCA, 2003, SCHMIDT, 2009) e a influência que estes cursos exerceram sobre a prática dos mesmos. Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa, seguimos a perspectiva da investigação qualitativa (BOUTIN; GOYETTE; LESSARD-HÉRBERT, 2012), baseada no desenvolvimento dos quatro polos de investigação, quais sejam: o polo epistemológico, o polo teórico, o polo morfológico e o polo teórico. Para tanto, reunimos os projetos dos cursos de formação continuada ministrados pela Secretaria Municipal de Educação (SME) em parceria com o Laboratório de Pesquisa em Educação Histórica (LAPEDUH) da Universidade Federal do Paraná entre os anos de 2010 a 2016, mapeando os professores que tem participado destes cursos e agrupá-los para que fossem entrevistados, com o objetivo de apresentar as suas considerações sobre a prática da Educação Histórica dentro do ambiente escolar a partir dos aprendizados reunidos nos cursos. Justificase o projeto pela trajetória já percorrida com os cursos ministrados e pela aproximação dos pressupostos teóricos da Educação Histórica contidos no próprio currículo básico (CURITIBA, 2016). A pesquisa demonstrou que o curso oferece um espaço de diálogo e aprendizagem docente que agrega à prática e a pesquisa dos professores. Também apontou diferenças substanciais na concepção de ensino em sala de aula no que concerne ao uso das fontes e das produções de narrativas pelos alunos, tomando a História como a ciência de referência que encaminha o processo de aprendizado. Também foram apontadas dificuldades como as dificuldades na comunicação por parte dos alunos, bem como a não compreensão da comunidade escolar em vários momentos. / This present work aims to analyze the practice of the History Teachers of the Municipal Teaching System of Curitiba who were part of the continuing education courses focusing on the development of the Historical Education assumptions (RÜSEN, 2010; LEE, 2001; BARCA, 2003, SCHMIDT, 2009) and the influence that these courses have on the teachers' practices. For the development of the research, a qualitative research perspective was followed (BOUTIN; GOYETTE; LESSARDHÉRBERT, 2012), based on the development of the four research poles, which are: the epistemological pole, the theoretical pole, the morphological pole, and the technical pole. For this purpose, we have gathered the projects of continuing education provided by the Municipal Department of Education (SME) in partnership with the Laboratory of Research in Education (LAPEDUH) of the Federal University of Paraná between 2010 and 2016, mapping the teachers that have been part of these courses in order to group them so they could be interviewed with the objective of presenting their considerations about the Historical Education practice in the school environment from the learning gathered in the courses. The project is justified by the trajectory already covered by the courses taught and also by the approximation of the theoretical assumptions of Historical Education based on the basic curriculum (CURITIBA, 2016). The research has shown that the course offers a space for dialogue and teacher learning that aggregates the practice and research of teachers. It also pointed out the substantial differences in the conception of classroom teaching regarding the use of sources and narrative productions by students, taking History as the reference science that guides the learning process. Difficulties were also identified, such as difficulties in communication by the students, as well as the lack of understanding of the school community at many times.

This study has presented a thorough investigation of the integrity and the significance of the Augusta National Golf Club Course from 1934 to the present. The golf course still reflects the design philosophy of Alistair Mackenzie. Design features that have been retained provide this evidence. The hillocks and hollows in the golf course were identified to show Mackenzie's influence in the golf course of today. Changes have been made to Mackenzie's original design. Some changes caused great strategic and aesthetic differences in the golf course. Other changes were necessary due to the spectator and the demands of providing optimum on-site viewing of the Masters Tournament held anually at the Augusta National Golf Club Course. The modifications to the course were responses to the evolving game of golf as played in 1934 as compared to 1996. The significance of the golf course with respect to its Master Designer, Alistair Mackenzie, was shown to be sufficient to warrant the augmentation of its National Register status. Treatment of the landscape is suggested based on the criteria set forth in the study. / Department of Landscape Architecture