A prototype multimodal tablet application for learning the physics of motion has been developed tested and evaluated. By moving their finger across the screen the application enables the user to map its position and velocity in real-time in terms of graphs. The learning outcome of those test subjects using the application was compared to a group that had the same procedure shown to them, as well as getting an explanation of all the physics involved. There was a small but not significant difference in performance between these groups on a post-test. However, a larger (arguably significant) difference was seen between the male and female test subjects for the sub-set of questions of a more analytical nature.

This qualitative study explores six English teachers’ perceptions regarding teaching collaboration. In open-ended interviews, the teachers responded to questions regarding the extent to which they were able to engage in meaningful collaboration. The study’s focus was to gain insight on the most valuable dimensions of informal and formal collaborative activities. The outcome of the study indicated that although many teachers engage in self-motivated collaborative activities, they wished to build on their experiences in different ways, incorporating more formal activities and professional development opportunities. Peer observations, feedback and discussions were found to be effective means of increasing teachers’ repertoire of teaching skills. The teachers in this study perceived collaboration as a positive and productive dimension of both teaching and learning. A broader implication of the study’s results is that these teachers’ perceptions reflected a bottom-up approach to school development addressing teachers’ actual concerns, rather than a top-down approach as imposed by the school administration.

The intent of this research is to create a qualitative framework to guide perceptions and observations about informal self-directed learning in the arena of contemporary Web 2.0 e-learning. Drawing influence from the studies on self-directed learning conducted by Allen Tough and his associates, the writings on educational connoisseurship and criticism by Elliot Eisner, as well as research and literature about contemporary e-learning contexts, this exploratory study is comprised of a hermeneutic analysis that seeks to discover themes, patterns and points of intersection in these three areas. The analysis presents the application of the resulting framework to three illustrative scenarios, constructed from ideas and themes drawn from the major elements of the study, and discusses the findings revealed by the investigation. The study concludes with reflection and recommendations for application and further research.

Abstract The thesis mainly deals with the analysis of the structure and organization of the informal plastic andmetal recovery system in Accra. To give a clear picture of the context within which the informal wasterecovery system exists, the study has examined the existing formal solid waste management system inAccra. To this end, the study employed a case study method using both qualitative and quantitativeapproaches to solicit the necessary data during the two months of field work in Accra. Furthermore, thethesis employs concepts and theories such as network theory, actors-oriented approach and wastemanagement theories to look in to the structure and organization of the informal plastic and metalrecovery system from a new perspective.As a result, this thesis has revealed that the informal recovery system is built out of social ties and a widerange of reciprocity networks. These networks are of small in size with small number of membership;however, interconnected to one another. In most cases, the network members have common features suchas gender, religious affiliation, place of origin and reasons to join the informal plastic and metal recoverysystem. These networks also have an organizational structure that shows the institutionalization of rolesand responsibilities. This has further provided the structure and condition for the development andstrengthening of common values and norms. These norms and values are more or less providing a senseof control and governance for the networks and their activities. In addition, these networks also provide asocial security system for its members in case of emergencies.The study has also revealed that the identified actors within the recovery system are organized in the formof trade hierarchy where the income and profit of the actors depends on their position within the tradehierarchy. In addition, the ability to add value and also being at the end of the trade chain has a positiveimpact on the amount of income or the profit margins of the actors. In addition, actors placed at theupper- most end are sources capital and finance to the recovery system.Despite the fact that the informal plastic and metal recovery system functions in parallel and interactswith members of the formal waste management sector, the system is ignored by the government. Theinformal recovery system is not considered as a major stakeholder for solid waste management sector.Moreover, the formal sector is also creating a challenge for the existence of the informal sector. There is aneed to integrate the informal recovery system in to the formal system as the activities of recoveringplastics and metals are significant for the environment in particular and for sustainable development ingeneral. / IWWA - Integrated Waste Management in West Africa

Though women have been involved in adult education throughout Canada’s history, their contributions have gone unrecorded and lie hidden “beneath the snow”. This study used a qualitative historical research design to metaphorically “melt the snow”, to reveal both the women and their educational activities in five Icelandic pioneer settlements in Manitoba 1875-1914. Guided by an adaptation of the Kidd (1979) conceptual framework, data from primary and secondary sources was categorized onto a matrix for coding and analysis according to type of learning (formal, nonformal and informal) as well as seven areas of influence (people, events, ideas, outside Canada, communications, geography & climate and immigrant peoples). This process resulted in findings that foregrounded five Icelandic adult educators and revealed six themes of involvement by Icelandic pioneer women. The findings demonstrate the need to reexamine the adult education definitions and frameworks so that the contributions of women may be documented and valued. / February 2008

Striving for subsistence, the growing population of Caracas has radically transformed the city in the course of the past fifty years. The inability of the city to respond to the accelerated growth that resulted from mass rural migrations left millions to provide land, shelter and basic services for themselves. The barrios, once thought to be a provisional solution to the housing shortage, are now home to more than half the population of the city. The urban poor now live—out of necessity and through improvisation—on steep slopes, unstable soil and in flood plains. Overcrowded and remote, this very dense urban fabric receives sporadic or no basic services. Without land titles or addresses, and until recently omitted from most census data and official maps, the barrio’s population is excluded from the civic life of Caracas. Sitting between remediation and anticipation, three asynchronous projects elaborate pragmatic responses to the prevailing scarcity of resources while concurrently attempting to reduce the current cycle of poverty, violence and exclusion. In their ability to be informally adapted, the schemes test the capacity of popular manifestations of civic life to transform basic infrastructure into collective space. To overcome the precariousness that characterizes the barrios and incorporate them into the existing political mechanisms of the city, the projects are conceived as incremental frameworks that contribute to the physical integration of the ‘informal’ barrios to the ‘formal’ city. Working with water and waste infrastructure, I argue through these projects that architecture can build on the universal nature of necessity to frame a model of civic space­ generated out of the complexity of the barrios and on the auspice of promises.

La investigación muestra evidencia empírica de los determinantes de las remuneraciones en el mercado de trabajo de México por sector formal-informal para el período 1990-2002. Los resultados de la tesis se sustentan en el marco teórico del trabajo seminal de Heckman y Sedlacek (1985) y definen pautas que rompen con paradigmas en materia laboral. El trabajo aplica por vez primera al caso mexicano, la técnica de corrección polinomial multivariada de la selectividad de Bourguignon, et al. (2001), y bajo el esquema de la teoría del capital humano, se prueba que las alternativas ocupacionales son no aleatorias. A través de ecuaciones salariales se determina que el trabajo autónomo informal es mejor remunerado que el resto de ocupaciones formales y que su diferencial, en el espíritu de la técnica de Oaxaca (1973), es explicado en mayor proporción por discriminación que por productividad. En términos distributivos, bajo técnicas no paramétricas y paramétricas de orden cuantílico, el evento se acentúa a medida que se condiciona hacia los cuantiles más altos y en los años recientes. Se prueba que la visión dual del mercado de trabajo ha cambiado de matiz y que nuevas formas de empleo consolidan un espacio para que los colectivos calificados accedan con mayor facilidad a los procesos productivos a expensas de estabilidad del trabajo y de los beneficios que otorga la precaria seguridad social del país. / This research presents empirical evidence on the determinants of the Mexican labor market earnings splitted by formal-informal sectors during the period 1990-2002. Results of the thesis are supported under the seminal framework of Heckman and Sedlacek (1985), which define ways that break up traditional market labor paradigms. The work apply for the first time to the Mexican case, the Bourguignon, et al. (2001) technique for multivariate-polynomial selectivity bias correction, therewith as regards of the human capital theory is proved that occupational choices are non-random. It is determined through earnings equations that informal self-employed is better paid than the rest of formal occupations, and its differential in the essence of Oaxaca (1973) technique, explains a higher part of the gap due to discrimination instead of productivity. In distributional terms, using non-parametric and parametric quintile techniques, the event deepens as long as higher conditional quintiles are considered for recent years. It is proved that the dualistic vision of labor market has changed its traditional place and new types of employment scopes for the qualified workers in order to easily enter to the productive processes wounding stability in both the job and the benefits that brings out the precarious social security of the country.

It is well known that cross-country diferences in income per worker are very large. For example, the average per-capita income of the richest ten percent of countries of the Penn World Tables in 1996 is about thirty times that of the poorest ten percent. Development accounting uses cross-country data on output and inputs to measure the relative contribution of diferences in factor quantities, and di?erences in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) or the efciency with which those factors are used, in explaining these vast diferences in income per worker. The consensus view in development accounting is that TFP is the most important factor in accounting for diferences in income per worker across countries (See, for example, Klenow and Rodriguez-Clare (1997), Prescott (1998), Hall and Jones (1999), Ferreira, Issler and de Abreu Pessa (2000), and Caselli (2004).) This suggests that in order to explain cross-country diferences in income per worker we need to understand why TFP difers across countries. An emergent literature addresses this issue and shows that cross-country di?erences in the institutional environment, in policies, or in human capital can cause large diferences in TFP. In particular, Acemoglu and Zilibotti (2001) emphasize the role of skill-mismatch. They argue that even if all countries have equal access to new technologies, the existence of technology-skill mismatch can lead to sizeable diferences in TFP and output per worker; Parente and Prescott (2000) and Herrendorf and Teixeira (2004) build the ories in which the protection of monopoly rights impedes the adoption of superior technologies; Rogerson and Restuccia (2004) argue that diferences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants may be a signi?cant factor in accounting for cross-country di?erences in output per capita; Erosa and Hidalgo (2005) propose a theory in which capital market imperfections are at the origin of cross-country TFP differences; and Kocherlakota (2001) shows that limited enforcement and high inequality are crucial to understand the existence of institutions leading to the ine?cient use of technologies.

This study identified factors and variables of informal leadership in small groups with different gender composition (Men, women and mixed groups) and goal orientation (competition and cooperation). Behavioral dominance patterns (Information Sheet, pencil, decision sheet) and number of verbal interventions were compared to the main informal leadership factors identified in the groups. There were 24 participants (12 men and 12 women). Among the main variables and factors identified, there were some that had a higher possibility to appear than other. There was no significant difference of the factors and variables between women and men. Communication variables were more likely to be present in groups with the goal of cooperation as for the goal of competition. Guidance variables were more likely to be present in women groups than in men groups and mixed groups. There was a significant correlation between the factor’s Communication, Character and Guidance with the number of interventions and behavioral dominance patterns.

Within Buenos Aires there exists a boundary between the formal, planned developments of the middle class and the informal, organically-developed self-built housing of the poor. Villa 31, an informal settlement located near the heart of the city, contrasts directly with the skyscrapers of the Argentinean capital’s financial and political centre. The tension between the formal and informal cities creates a stigmatization of the residents of Villa 31, essentially barring the possibility of its integration into the city. The boundary between Villa 31 and Buenos Aires exists not only in the physical space between the two, but more importantly in the collective imagination of the city’s inhabitants. This is a story of the space between Villa 31 and Buenos Aires. It chronicles the attempts at crossing that boundary and the obstacles encountered. As a means of presenting the work to a broad audience, the story was written as a comic book. The first-person narrative helps to immerse the reader in the story while presenting the full complexity of the problem through a personal account. The story reveals the complex relationship between Villa 31 and Buenos Aires as a means of understanding the invisible boundary between the two. The core of the research consists of two months of field work in Buenos Aires conducted through October and November of 2009. Journal entries, photographs, conversations and first-hand experiences were transformed into a comic book that tells a story of the invisible boundary between Villa 31 and Buenos Aires.