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- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2015
- Description
- Videogames are interactive by nature - people proceed in games by doing things, and this experiential quality lies at the very core of game design. Without interaction, it isn’t a game. Videogames are popular precisely because of the experience - games designed for learning can do no less. However, to be feasible for use in formal educational settings, they must do more, and while we are making progress studying games in classrooms, there remain few structured approaches to analysing games that do not include classroom testing. This paper outlines the author’s Four Pillars of Game-Based Learning (4PEG) which can be used to perform a structured analysis of both COTS and serious games to...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2007
- Description
- Not sure if games are good or bad for us? Not sure how much of what you hear is hype and how much is real? Want to know what it is that has your students so pre-occupied? For many of today’s generation, digital games are replacing television as leisure activity and hype about games for learning in school settings is once again increasing. Digital games have become at least as much a part of our culture as television was to previous generations and so, it behoves us to become familiar with the medium, but where can a novice go to get some experience? Games are no longer trivial so how are we to know where to start?
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker; J. R. Parker
- Date issued
- 2005
- Description
- The quest for interesting, engaging, yet doable programming assignments is an ongoing one. Authentic, realistic examples have often been drawn from business, and games have often been overlooked as being too narrow in scope. This paper explains why computer games, especially classic arcade games are ideal vehicles for learning to program.
- Type
- conference publication
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Dorothy P. Hill
- Date issued
- 1998
- Description
- I report observations consistent with the interpretation that a Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus) fledgling from a first brood begged for and received food from its parents at a their second brood nest. All five nestlings in the second brood subsequently died and starvation appeared to be the major factor contributing to their deaths. This is the first reported case of apparent between-brood sibling competition in a passerine species and it fits the criteria of a parent-offspring conflict.
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2005
- Description
- Have you ever watched a child or teenager playing a videogame they really liked? Do you wonder what it is about this game that has them so completely engrossed? Part of the answer is that games are motivating, rewarding, engaging, and challenging, all at the same time. The kids will probably just tell you they’re fun. But when you think about it, fun and engagement are synonymous, and engagement is something we all want for our learners. Games also show us that challenge sells – when was the last time you heard that a game was popular because it was easy? Does a game loose its appeal once it has been won? Rarely. The game looses its appeal when players have learned all they can from it....
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2003
- Description
- Students in first year often begin with dramatically different backgrounds and abilities. In an effort to address the needs of all, varying levels of completion (stages) can be described in the assignment specifications.
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Michael S. Quinn; Geoffrey L. Holroyd
- Date issued
- 1992
- Description
- The mating status of house wrens was defined by social behavior and not strictly sexual relations. The incidence of polygyny was estimated by comparing the number of polygynous matings to the total number of nest attempts.
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2007
- Description
- One way to understand how a particular medium can be used effectively in education is to study its outstanding examples, regardless of their original purpose. The argument can be made that many of the most successful commercial games already embody sound pedagogy in their designs even if that incorporation was not deliberate. The following paper will examine two games: one a commercial and critical success and the other designed deliberately as an educational game. The analysis seeks to answer the two questions: What do players need to learn in order to win the game?, and How does the game support that learning? A comparative analysis of both games reveals that although they are very...
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Nicholas Strzalkowski; Aaron D. Chau; Liu Shi Gan; Zelma H. T. Kiss
- Date issued
- 2018
- Description
- The cerebellum is implicated in the pathophysiology of numerous movement disorders, which makes it an attractive target for noninvasive neurostimulation. Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) can induce long lasting plastic changes in human brain; however, the efficacy of different simulation protocols has not been investigated at the cerebellum. Here, we compare a traditional 50-Hz and a modified 30-Hz cTBS protocols at modulating cerebellar activity in healthy subjects. Seventeen healthy adults participated in two testing sessions where they received either 50-Hz (cTBS50) or 30-Hz (cTBS30) cerebellar cTBS. Cerebellar brain inhibition (CBI), a measure of cerebello-thalamocortical...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Shawn X. Liu
- Date issued
- 2020; 2020
- Description
- In 1992, Doulas Wiens suggested a problem that considers the optimal design minimizing the variance of the estimator of the parameters of regression function when the fitted model is correct, subject to a bound on the bias term which occurs when the true model is different from the assumed one. The corresponding optimal designs can be called bounded bias optimal designs. Some general results for D-optimality was obtained and published (see Liu and Wiens, 1997). In this paper, we study mainly A-optimal designs. For some special cases of bounded functions, explicitly design measures are given.
- Type
- offprint
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Tracy Lee; Kim Good; Winston Jamieson; Michael S. Quinn; Ashok Krishnamurthy
- Date issued
- 2017
- Description
- In Alberta, Canada beef producers share the landscape with large carnivores where interactions can lead to negative outcomes. We had 672 Alberta beef producers complete an online survey in spring 2014 to access the occurrence and outcomes of cattle-carnivore interactions.•We found that a majority (64%) reported losses from carnivore depredation. The average rate of calf depredation was reported at 2%, but the rate was highly variable between producers (ranging from 0 to 25% calf loss annually). The direct annual economic loss to depredation for survey respondents was $2 million. This can be extrapolated with a number of assumptions provincially to $22 million.• Alberta's Wildlife Predator...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Shawn X. Liu
- Date issued
- 2019
- Description
- In 2008 Alberta Education proposed a change of high school mathematics curriculum from the previous Pure Math-10, 20, 30 and Applied Math-10, 20, 30 to Math 10-C, Math 20-1, Math 30-1, Math 20-2, Math 30-2, Math 10-3 Math 20-3 and Math 30-3. The new high school mathematics curriculum was implemented in 2010 and the first group of high school graduates with this new mathematics curriculum got into the post-secondary institutions in 2013. With the old mathematics curriculum, the prerequisite was Pure Math 30 for the students taking mathematics or statistics courses in science and engineering (including nursing) in any post-secondary institutions in Alberta. With the new mathematics...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Tracy Lee; Michael S. Quinn; Danah Duke
- Date issued
- 2006
- Description
- Road Watch in the Pass is a citizen-science project that engages local citizens in reporting wildlife observations along a 44-km stretch of Highway 3 through Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta, Canada. The numbers of wildlife vehicle collisions and a recent proposal to expand the highway have raised concerns from both human safety and wildlife conservation perspectives. Through the use of a web-based GIS, interested citizens can contribute information that will be instrumental in making final decisions concerning measures to mitigate the effects of highway expansion. Currently, 58 people have contributed over 713 observations to Road Watch. We performed a preliminary comparison of 11...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2006
- Description
- An important step towards gaining an understanding of how a particular medium can be used most effectively in education is to study its outstanding examples, regardless of their original purpose. It is assumed that “good” games already embody sound pedagogy in their designs even if that incorporation was not deliberate (Becker, 2006). The work described here will examine commercially and critically successful video games as though they had been designed as learning objects. Through this perspective, it is possible to identify and classify built-in learning objectives and from there to associate the mechanisms and strategies employed to teach them. A significant outcome of this work will...
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2006
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- V. J. Cox; G. R. Fox; A. B. Jacobsen; R. J. Kelly; Alice Liboiron; J. R. Henderson; Dorothy P. Hill
- Date issued
- 2016
- Description
- The Crown of the Continent Ecosystem (CCE) encompasses a 72,000 sq. km area of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta, southeastern British Columbia, and northwestern Montana. Known for its biodiversity, including a full compliment of mammalian carnivores, managing this ecosystem across many jurisdictional boundaries is challenging. With many stakeholders involved in the Crown of Continent Ecosystem, tracking the research being conducted in this area is essential. This publication includes an annotated bibliography of more than 250 research documents published between between 2000-2015 and makes recommendations as to which areas and topics require further study within the Crown of...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Nicholas Strzalkowski; Ryan M. Peters; J. Timothy Inglis; Leah R. Bent
- Date issued
- 2018
- Description
- Cutaneous afferents convey exteroceptive information about the interaction of the body with the environment and proprioceptive information about body position and orientation. Four classes of low-threshold mechanoreceptor afferents innervate the foot sole and transmit feedback that facilitates the conscious and reflexive control of standing balance. Experimental manipulation of cutaneous feedback has been shown to alter the control of gait and standing balance. This has led to a growing interest in the design of intervention strategies that enhance cutaneous feedback and improve postural control. The advent of single-unit microneurography has allowed the firing and receptive field...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Nicholas Strzalkowski; Anthony V. Incognito; Leah R. Bent; Philip J. Millar
- Date issued
- 2016
- Description
- Stimulation of high threshold mechanical nociceptors on the skin can modulate efferent sympathetic outflow. Whether low threshold mechanoreceptors from glabrous skin are similarly capable of modulating autonomic outflow is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cutaneous afferent feedback from the hand palm and foot sole on efferent muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA). Fifteen healthy young participants (9 male; 25 ± 3 years [range: 22-29]) underwent microneurographic recording of multi-unit MSNA from the right fibular nerve during 2 minutes of baseline and 2 minutes of mechanical vibration (150Hz, 220μm peak-to-peak) applied to the left hand or...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Cale A. Templeton; Nicholas Strzalkowski; Patti Galvin; Leah R. Bent
- Date issued
- 2018
- Description
- Aim: To examine tactile sensitivity in the leg and foot sole of below-knee amputees (diabetic n = 3, traumatic n = 1), and healthy control subjects (n = 4), and examine the association between sensation and balance. Method: Vibration perception threshold (VPT; 3, 40, 250Hz) and monofilaments (MF) were used to examine vibration and light touch sensitivity on the intact limb, residual limb, and homologous locations on controls. A functional reach test was performed to assess functional balance. Results: Tactile sensitivity was lower for diabetic amputee subjects compared to age matched controls for both VPT and MF; which was expected due to presence of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. In...
- Type
- article
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology
- Contributor(s)
- Katrin Becker
- Date issued
- 2005
- Description
- This paper outlines an approach to helping mid-program undergraduates conduct cutting-edge research that can be incorporated into almost any program with
- Type
- presentations (communicative events)
- Appears in collection(s)
- Science and Technology