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Book part
Publication date: 3 August 2017

Matt Bower

The ability for learners to interact online via their avatars in a 3-D simulation space means that virtual worlds afford a host of educational opportunities not offered by other…

Abstract

The ability for learners to interact online via their avatars in a 3-D simulation space means that virtual worlds afford a host of educational opportunities not offered by other learning technology platforms, but their use also raises several pertinent issues that warrant consideration. This chapter reviews the educational use of virtual worlds from a design perspective. Virtual-world definitions are explored, along with their key educational characteristics. Different virtual-world environments are briefly contrasted, including Second Life, Active Worlds, Open Sim, and Minecraft. A wide variety of virtual-world uses in schools and universities are examined so as to understand their versatility. Key educational benefits of virtual worlds are distilled from the literature, such as the ability to facilitate 3-D simulations, role-plays, construction tasks, and immersive learning. Emergent issues surrounding the use of virtual worlds are also analyzed, including cognitive load, safety, and representational fidelity. One higher education and one school level vignette are provided in order to offer more detailed insight into the use of virtual worlds in practice. Recommendations for learning design and implementation are presented, based on the thematic analysis of contemporary virtual-worlds research.

Details

Design of Technology-Enhanced Learning
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-183-4

Book part
Publication date: 21 March 2023

Ferial Pearson, Sandra Rodríguez-Arroyo and Gabriel Gutiérrez

Public schools should be educational havens free of religious affiliation. Students and educators are encouraged to think critically, racial injustices and institutional bigotry

Abstract

Public schools should be educational havens free of religious affiliation. Students and educators are encouraged to think critically, racial injustices and institutional bigotry promote civic understanding and participation, and value diversity of thought and experience. Unfortunately, and especially in the past three years, Nebraska public schools have endured a spate of racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic incidents. Some districts have banned children’s books about racial injustice. Others have failed to diversify their curriculum to include LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) representation or have asked their teachers not to mention “controversial” topics such as immigration. These responses have exacerbated the problem rather than mitigating it, which has harmed marginalized students, families, educators, teacher educators, and librarians in the area. Teacher educators work hard to train teacher candidates and future librarians to advocate for their students and their communities. However, when they become teachers and librarians in our local schools, this work is blocked, and they face traumatic consequences that cause them to burn out and leave the profession early. This is especially true of our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) teacher candidates, librarians, and teachers. This chapter will describe how educational leaders have failed in their leadership and how some BIPOC teacher educators advocated publicly and got into “good trouble” for themselves and their students who teach in their communities. Teacher educators should not stay in the ivory tower; they have a responsibility to be public intellectuals who have an active role in the community where students teach to model what they teach students to do.

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Antiracist Library and Information Science: Racial Justice and Community
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-099-3

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 13 November 2023

Jelena Balabanić Mavrović

Abstract

Details

Eating Disorders in a Capitalist World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-787-7

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 8 October 2018

Abstract

Details

Challenging the “Jacks of All Trades but Masters of None” Librarian Syndrome
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-903-4

Book part
Publication date: 23 January 2023

Caitlin McArthur, Reem T. Mulla, Luke A. Turcotte, Jessica Chi-Yen Chu, Micaela Jantzi and John P. Hirdes

Long-term care (LTC) homes are highly regulated settings that provide care to people living with complex health conditions who are often at the end of their lives. Mental health

Abstract

Long-term care (LTC) homes are highly regulated settings that provide care to people living with complex health conditions who are often at the end of their lives. Mental health and quality of life are important concepts in LTC given the inherent poor health and diminished autonomy of residents living in this setting. The COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to further compound these issues through lockdowns limiting movement within and outside of LTC homes, increased fear of severe COVID-19 infections, staff shortages, and impaired communication through personal protective equipment. However, the evidence describing the effect of the pandemic on mental health and quality of life is mixed, with some studies describing increased rates of mental health concerns and others presenting modest increases or decreases. Creative strategies to mitigate negative mental health consequences of lockdown included technology supported and window or outdoor visits, increased access to volunteers, and supports for families. However, the evidence in this area continues to evolve as subsequent waves of the pandemic progress. Future research may present new evidence about other strategies that became important in different stages of the pandemic.

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COVID-19, Frontline Responders and Mental Health: A Playbook for Delivering Resilient Public Health Systems Post-Pandemic
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-115-0

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Book part
Publication date: 18 October 2014

Alex Murdock

The paper examines aspects of not-for-profit leadership and in particular the importance of values in such leadership.

Abstract

Purpose

The paper examines aspects of not-for-profit leadership and in particular the importance of values in such leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the literature for leadership in charities, not-for-profits and social enterprise, the paper also uses two detailed case studies to illustrate dilemmas and challenges specific to the not-for-profit sector. These examples are the Salvation Army and Emmaus, both of which are found across many countries.

Findings

The paper identifies the importance of value sets in not-for-profits – in particular the voluntarist element that especially distinguishes these organisations from those in the private and public sectors. However, it also identifies common ground between some aspects of not-for-profit leadership and those other sectors.

Originality/value

The paper furnishes a composite of literature on leadership reinforced by detailed case studies as well as observations on characteristics that both link and separate leadership in the different sectors.

Details

European Public Leadership in Crisis?
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-901-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 May 2017

Judith Kennedy and Michael Kennedy

The hospital practice of placing male and female patients in the same room in general wards, and sometimes in adjoining beds, is an index of the extent to which lack of respect…

Abstract

The hospital practice of placing male and female patients in the same room in general wards, and sometimes in adjoining beds, is an index of the extent to which lack of respect for patient dignity remains a key issue within our hospitals notwithstanding the popularity of ethics as a formal subject and topic of discussion, and the rise of ethics as a career subspecialty in our healthcare system. In this study, we examine responses from those who consider the practice acceptable notwithstanding patients’ objections. These can be classified into the following groups: (1) a necessary trade-off in the interests of economic or efficiency factors such as staff shortages or bed shortages or bed-block, (2) failure to see what is wrong with the practice such as “wonderful free health system,” “patients should be grateful for what they get,” and “the insured can go elsewhere,” and (3) it is the patient’s fault for not objecting. The fact that the practice has continued for 15 years, means there is now an entire generation of hospital staff who accept it as normal and participate in it, to the detriment of patients. Accordingly, this paper is a cautionary tale with regard to allowing what is generally regarded as “off-limits” to occur and relying on protocols to contain the activities they unleash.

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Responsible Leadership and Ethical Decision-Making
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-416-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 November 2008

Amanda Dykema-Engblade and Sarah Stawiski

People with developmental disabilities have persistent levels of low employment and employment rates among the working-aged disabled are declining (see Bound & Waidmann, 2002)…

Abstract

People with developmental disabilities have persistent levels of low employment and employment rates among the working-aged disabled are declining (see Bound & Waidmann, 2002). For example, the average employment rate of those graduating with a four-year degree is just under 90% while employment rates for those graduates with a disability hover around 50% (The Center for an Accessible Society, n.d.). Subsequently, people with disabilities often have a difficult time becoming economically self-sufficient (see National Council on Disability, 2000; Sowers, McLean, & Owens, 2002). The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) is one notable attempt to help provide those with a disability to employment access. While the ADA has been a champion of the cause, people with developmental disabilities still face a host of employment-related barriers (e.g., biases associated with the disability) (see DiLeo, 2007; Luecking & Mooney, 2002). Furthermore, while most people have concerns over retirement (e.g., social isolation) those concerns are exacerbated for people with developmental disabilities (see Hodges & Luken, 2006).

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Autism and Developmental Disabilities: Current Practices and Issues
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-357-6

Book part
Publication date: 18 January 2013

Suchit Arora

The Epidemiologic Transition can help us understand a fundamental puzzle about aging. The puzzle stems from two seemingly contradictory facts. The first fact is that death rates…

Abstract

The Epidemiologic Transition can help us understand a fundamental puzzle about aging. The puzzle stems from two seemingly contradictory facts. The first fact is that death rates from noninfectious degenerative maladies – the so-called diseases of aging – increase as people age. It seems to be at odds with the historical fact that for nearly a century in which people were aging more than ever before, the aggregate rates of such diseases have been decreasing. In what sense can both be true? Crucial to resolving the puzzle are the age-profiles of such diseases in cohorts that grew up in the different regimes of the Transition. For each cohort, noninfectious diseases had increased with age, resulting in an upward-sloping age profile, which affirms the first fact. As the regimes were transitioning from the Malthusian to the modern one, however, the profiles of successive cohorts had been shifting downward: death rates from noninfectious diseases were shrinking at each age, signifying the newer cohorts’ greater aging potentials. The shifting profiles had been renewing the cohort mix of the population, shaping the century-long descent of such diseases in aggregate, giving rise to the historical fact. The profiles had shifted early in the cohorts’ adult years, associating closely with the newer epidemiologic conditions in childhood. Those conditions appear to be a circumstance under which aging potentials of cohorts could be misgauged, including in one troubling episode in the first half of the nineteenth century when the potentials had reversed.

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Research in Economic History
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-557-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 May 2011

Janell L. Blazovich and L. Murphy Smith

Ethical corporate citizenship and good corporate governance have received increased attention since the financial scandals prevalent at the beginning of the new millennium. This…

Abstract

Ethical corporate citizenship and good corporate governance have received increased attention since the financial scandals prevalent at the beginning of the new millennium. This study first explores the relationship of ethical corporate citizenship to financial performance (i.e., greater profitability and efficiency, and lower cost of capital). Second, the study examines whether ethical corporate behavior is associated with a market-value premium. Results of prior studies are mixed. The results of our study contribute directly to the recent accounting literature in which specific aspects of ethical corporate behavior have been explored (Fukami et al. 1997; Ittner and Larker, 1998; Ballou et al., 2003; Clarkson et al., 2004). We use firms listed by Business Ethics as “The 100 Best Corporate Citizens” as our sample of ethical firms. The univariate results of our study indicate a significant relationship between ethical corporate behavior and financial performance (i.e., greater profitability and efficiency, and lower cost of capital). The results of multivariate tests, controlling for prior year market value of equity, yield results that indicate a marginally significant association between being recognized as ethical in that year and market value of equity, but no association between being recognized as ethical at least one time and market value of equity. Nevertheless, given our study's findings of better financial performance and lower risk, we conclude that ethical corporate citizenship does indeed benefit a firm.

Details

Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-005-6

Keywords

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