BYOD Increase Motivation and Learning Coursework

BYOD Increase Motivation and Learning - Coursework Example The case studies were selected on the basis of geographical proximity to each other to maintain the consistency in external forces such as educational policies. In this study, the researcher sought to find out if mobile learning technologies motivate students to learn, and whether they enhance the learning experience. From the research, it was evident that none of the students struggled with operating technological devices hence funds on training and orientation were minimal. It was also discovered that the use of mobile devices significantly improved student engagement thus improving student motivation and culminating into better academic performance. The most critical finding of the study was that it was not students but teachers and educators who lack enthusiasm when tailoring technology-oriented programs. This finding will play a significant role in the proposed social change study as it indicates that most research studies in this line focus on students and their performance, an d not on teachers and their enthusiasm.   This is a mixed approach research study that deploys the use of an online survey and an interview for quantitative and qualitative data collection respectively. The online survey was conducted by sixty-nine certified K-12 school teachers, twenty administrating principals and assistant principals, and four technology directors. The study was conducted in the state of Missouri.  Ã‚  The main shortcoming of the study is that the researcher did not give the demographic information of the participants hence it is challenging to establish whether a variable such as their educational level affects the outcomes of the study. Additionally, it was also challenging to understand how well the participants acted as a representative sample.  

Carbon footprint estimate Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Carbon footprint estimate - Research Paper Example All these average to 8kwh per day in reference to the monthly bill of 240kwh. This translates to 2,880kwh per year, which is generated from coal. According to the Wright, Kemp and Williams (2011), coal, which is the source of electricity in this case, produces about 0.91 Kg of Carbon Dioxide per kWh. Home electricity use therefore contributes 2.62 tons of Carbon per year. Travelling is also a critical contributor to carbon emissions. I commute to and fro a total of 10 Km per day with a public bus that according to Reggiani and Schintler (2005) generates 60g of CO2 for one passenger per Kilometre. From this, perspective, I contribute 0.219tons of CO2 per year through daily commuting. Daily beef consumption is also an important indirect contributor of CO2 among other greenhouse gases emitted by the animals in to the atmosphere. The CO2 is mainly as a result of cultivation, processing and transportation of animal feeds. For example, Rohrer (2007) estimates the CO2 generated to produce 1kg of beef to be 13.3 kg and 0.95 kg for 1 litre of milk. Fruits and vegetables are estimated to contribute 0.7kg of CO2 per kg of food. The daily consumption of 0.5 kg of meat therefore adds up to 2.43 tons of CO2 per year while 0.5 litres per day will contribute 0.173tons of CO2 per year while consumption of 0.5 kg fruits and vegetables per day contributes 0.13 tons of CO2 annually. According to Goodall (2007), natural gas such as methane has been found to contribute 0.23 kg of CO2 per kWh of gas used. Gas has to be used daily for cooking and warming food and I use approximately 8 kWh per day. This translates to 2,928 kWh per year, meaning that 0.67 tons of CO2 are generated through culinary activities in my house, yet some foods such as bread are ready for consumption. Water usage in the house could have been a major contributor to CO2 if measures were not put in place to minimize the number of units used per day.

Australia's Economy Over The Last Two Years Essay

Australia's Economy Over The Last Two Years - Essay Example In Australia, the Australian government and the Reserve Bank of Australia play a major role in the country’s economics, as these determine the macroeconomic policies in the country. According to the International Labour Organization (2013), a microeconomic policy that is aimed at achieving economic stability in a country, is a paramount condition for the achievement and sustenance of high levels of development tin a country. Nonetheless, this part of the essay explores the main macroeconomic policies used by the Australian Government and the Reserve Bank of Australia over the last two years. There are two core macroeconomic policies, which a country can use, and these include the monetary and the fiscal policy. Nonetheless, the Australian government and the Reserve Bank of Australia have in the past two years, used these to control the economy. Fiscal policy in Australia includes the level and composition of government revenues and outlays, methods of financing a budget defici t or using a budget surplus, the operation of automatic and discretionary stabilizers, and the provision of incentives to increase aggregate supply. According to Parkinson (2012), a major function of Australia’s fiscal policy is to ensure the maintenance of fiscal sustainability from a medium-term perspective. Parkinson (2012) also notes that monetary policy in Australia has the main purpose of maintaining inflation between 2 and 3 percent. The monetary policy in Australia has to do with the Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate, as well as the exchange rate policies, and transmission mechanisms. This serves to anchor inflation expectations, and has the responsibility of managing demand. This is with the aim of ensuring that the country’s economy remains on a stable path of growth, and maintains a low rate of inflation. Therefore, monetary policy and fiscal policy, as well as exchange rate, are three core aspects of Australia’s macroeconomic framework, which h ave been extremely important for the past two years, as these have provided a great level of flexibility for the country to deal with economic shocks that it experiences from time to time. Parkinson (2012) notes that the Australian macroeconomic policy framework is an asset and an endowment to the country, as it forms a core part of the country’s productive base. Nonetheless, for the past two years, these have been effective in ensuring that Australia addresses its economic problems, and the Australian government achieves its economic objectives. The Reserve Bank of Australia deals with all the issues pertaining the monetary policy. Nonetheless, a major aspect of the monetary policy, which the Reserve Bank of Australia utilizes is the interest rate. This interest rate influences differently other interest rates in the economy, so that the borrowers and lenders in the money markets come under the influence of the monetary policy. The Reserve Bank of Australia controls the inte rest rates in a manner that will ensure that the objectives of the Reserve Bank Act 1959 are attained. These include, and are not limited to ensuring a stable currency of the country, preventing unemployment, boosting living standards of citizens, and ensuring economic empowerment of the people (Reserve Bank of Australia 2013). In order to ease or loosen bonds, the Reserve Bank of Australia would buy bonds in order to create excess liquidity, putting downward pressure on interest rates, allowing increased consumer and investment spending, and finally lower the rate of unemployment. Similarly, when there is a possibility of the rate of inflation to increase, the Reserve Bank

Literature Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

Literature Review - Essay Example No time lag will be there in between the data transfer. PDM tools collaborate with other parts of the system to increase the efficiency and speed of the system. Improved productivity of the engineers is the second advantage of PDM system. It is widely accepted that engineers are wasting a substantial period of time for searching , retrieving, filing, handling and storing of document and information. PDM system can help the engineers in avoiding all the above time wasting areas of their profession. The third advantage is the improved control. PDM system ensures the availability of up to date data to all to ensure better control (Crow, n. d). Grundey (2009) has mentioned that Product Data Management (PDM) software helps to provide revision control and file access permission capability for CAD data. Moreover, PDM system improves housekeeping. At the same time PDM system has the disadvantages of more browsing needed to locate files and lot of searching to be done for related draft files (Grundey 2009). Product life management, sometimes "product life cycle management", represents management of all data relating to the design, production, support and ultimate disposal of manufactured goods. Every product has a life period like the living things. It starts from the design stage and ends at the disposal stage. Even though PLM is widely used in the engineering CAD field, it is used in other areas like word processors; spreadsheet and graphics programs; requirements analysis and market assessment tools; field trouble reports; and even emails or other correspondence (Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), 2009). PLM provides the users a vision; a blue print; a road map; a backbone,( a platform where other components could be based on), a bird-eye view,( an overall picture on what you are doing or going to do with your products) (The Secret of Lean PLM implementation, n. d, p. 3). PLM help engineers or others to

In what ways are new technologies opening up new spaces of identity Essay - 1

In what ways are new technologies opening up new spaces of identity for young people - Essay Example For example people can play games online and have fun. Its easy now to make a website that belongs to a certain university and has all the students as members in it. Or a website that offers the user to increase its social circle by interacting with different type of people across the globe. I was going through a local magazine today and found a section in it that had real stories about people’s experience on the Internet. I was not amazed at all to find out the story about a happily married couple that first met on the Internet in a local chat room. Events like this are becoming common in the world. This story only tells about people living in the same region but in fact there are stories about people living in different parts of the world that met on the Internet and went on to get married. In the same way people have started making friends around the globe that share common interests. Now I will discuss about some websites that are extremely popular and have millions of peo ple as their members. The recent trend in Internet entertainment is towards websites that allow people to interact with different people across the globe. As we all know Internet removes the barrier of time synchronization hence it enables the people around the world to mingle with each other. Websites like Orkut, Facebook, Netlog, Hi5, and My Space have been the major target of users looking to make new friends and have fun on the Internet. I will only discuss Orkut and Facebook that are the leaders. The strategy of the owners of these website is quite simple, that is enable interaction between people in the circle of law and order and provide entertainment. While this is going on the owners of these websites are not dumb enough to do this without earning money. Every organization that wants to promote their firm through the Internet finds it easy to market themselves through websites that are most frequently visited. These websites that claim to increase a person’s social circle

SSK 12 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

SSK 12 - Essay Example Speaking specifically of education and learning, I can once again safely say that I have a very diverse understanding and this is simply because, although the most significant years of my life were spent in Lebanon, I am Australian born and I did choose to continue my education here once I came back. So, even when it comes to education and learning, I have two very varied perspectives. My world view has touched every part of my life, especially my perspective on education and learning. In order to understand how the world view affects us we must first understand what the term signifies; Hobson puts it best when she says, â€Å"†¦ a set of beliefs that we hold and through which we organise our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of others.† (Hobson, p. 2). Try thinking of it this way: throughout our lives we collect values and experiences and place them in a box. At a later point when we come across an obstacle, event or any situation as such, we open that box and relate our past perceptions to the new situation. How we deal with the situation is directly related to how our world view has been previously shaped. It can be further described as a kind of â€Å"overreaching philosophy† that is used to construct social worlds. There is no deliberate attempt on anyone’s part to create a world view of their own liking. This is something they unconsciously learn throughout their lives (Samovar & Porter, p.103). Education and learning is thus no different; our view of this is also intertwined with world view. A person’s emotions, cultural affinity, beliefs, locality etcetera, all affect learning in some way or the other. A guide to learning independently further addresses this aspect when it talks about the concept of the self and in particular the physical and emotional self, the cultural and social self, and one’s surroundings and

Human Resource Outsourcing in India Essay Example for Free

Human Resource Outsourcing in India Essay This article attempts to discuss HRO in Indian context and the possible future of HRO in the Indian business scenario. Certain preparatory actions are also prescribed to effectively used HRO as a strategic business tool. HRO – HRM Architecture: Today, as we have moved into service – economy, dealing with knowledge and knowledge workers is very important as human capital has become a critical success factor for organizations. HRM is seen as a distinct identity, separate from Administration and Facilities section of the establishment. This can be clearly seen from the importance being given to HRM Architecture. In addition to the traditional roles for HR, over the years, in the IT and ITes sectors, distinct roles have emerged such as corporate HR, business HR, generalist HR, techno – functional HR, etc. The job holders in these roles are expected to give different â€Å"deliverables† as related to their functional aspects. It is pertinent to note that a 1998 survey by center for effective organization at university of southern California’s Marshal School of business shown that 79% of HRM managers describe themselves as â€Å"business partners† and 53% of line managers agreed that HR managers are now performing the roles of business partners. Thus, today HRM is getting well embodied into business functions such as marketing, finance or operations. This can be, in a way, considered as a starting point of HRO, because, from this, emerges the need for HR function to work smart for business results – whether by doing functions and activities all on their own, or by getting some of them done through outsourcing. Additionally, it also puts pressure on HR function to find â€Å"partners† who can â€Å"take over† specific transactions and processes at a lower cost. In this way, HR will get focused on â€Å"tangible† results (which was one of the complains against HR in the past). Thus, to some extent, it will help free up time for core-HR activities that result in improvements which positively influence the bottom line. A word of caution though that it may not â€Å"free up† time, and should not free up too much time. After all, HR is essentially a personal touch button of the organization and too much outsourcing might result in lack of personal touch and decreased human interaction which may frustrate the employees. HRO Evolution: HRO is always an evolutionary exercise for the organization. Initially, companies are reluctant to outsource, they prefer to do every act in the own backyard. As the organization grows in terms of its life cycle, slowly, â€Å"experimentation† phase will begin when they start outsourcing certain simple transactions or processes. Sometimes, they may even take a parallel run with the vendor. When the experience is positive and as they make progress, companies may make decisions to penetrate further into the HRO space. According to Everest Research institute’s annual HRO study, the most commonly outsourced HR functions include: †¢Pay roll †¢Benefits †¢Employee data management †¢Info systems †¢Contact centers. As the companies find that there are substantial benefits from outsourcing, they feel attracted to go in for deeper penetration. Thus, it is possible to categorize companies adopting different levels of HRO in their organization. (See Table 1) Table 1 LevelActivities OutsourcedType of HROBenefits 1Admin services, pay – roll, pension, PF mgt. , etc, temporary staffingTransactionCost efficiency 2L1 + training, new employee induction and executive searchProcess†¢Standardization †¢Cost †¢Replication of good practices 3L1 + L2 + campus hiring, online assessments, HR audits, employee surveys etc. Function†¢Quality †¢Cost, benchmarking etc. HRO in Indian Business The debate on HRO in India still hovers around the following questions: ‘Has HRO really arrived in India? ’ ‘Are we missing the HR outsourcing bus? ’ ‘Should companies outsource their HR functions? ’ We also seem to be aware that â€Å"The New Mantra is HR Outsourcing† In this maze of debates and arguments, some facts need to be cleared. â€Å"HR outsourcing in India has not seen the required momentum and is limited to trickle effect, with companies outsourcing a few selected, low end HR processes† – Says Anil Mahajan in an interview for an article on HRM. In India, most common outsource processes are related to training, pay – roll processing, benchmarks studies and legal compliance. Some HR consultants feel that in Indian HRO scene, quality is an issue. It is reported that some MNC’s wanted to outsource end to end HR solutions, but could find a suitable vendor and hence decided to set up its own outsourcing centre. While many experts in the field believe that there is a good scope for HRO in India, it is a fact that our present share in the global market of US $ 80 bn. is only a minuscule. Estimates show that size of HR outsourcing in India is about US $ 2. 5 – 3. 5 bn. But another study shows flat markets in HRO world wide between 2005 – 2007 but 2008 promises to be different! In the flat world of today, as India becomes more and more global in business and economy it will be a compelling need for companies to resort to outsourcing in the interest of survival and growth. Thus, even though, as of now, HRO in India has not caught up sufficiently time is right for making rapid strides to catch up and make best use of the opportunities presented by the wave of HR outsourcing. HRO as Double – edged Weapon: In India, we are fortunate to have the double advantage of HRO as we all know, HRO operates in an environment where there are abundant takers and abundant givers. HRO activities have two edges one as the service provider and another as a client who is outsourcing the process / transaction. At present many Indian companies are acting as service providers as a natural step, India with its vast millions of English speaking, trainable youth who are willing to learn and serve clients as and idle platform to take on the HRO wave. Thus, India may finally become the outsourcing centre for HR services. The growth in the HRO itself may trigger further developments. Any HRO companies may, in turn, begin to outsource some of their process to another service provider. Thus, a virtuous HRO business cycle may get activated. After all, â€Å"We Are All in Services Now† (Prof. James Teboul). According to him, the process, people and credibility are 3 key elements in the making of value proposition. People interaction may place a sort of limitation on HRO spreading without a human face! The basic tenet of HR philosophy should be that HRO must be implemented with utmost regard to â€Å"Human face† of activities being outsourced. This is because of the uniqueness of the HR issues. There cannot be a straightjacket solution for all human issues hence human interaction element needs to be always kept in mind and given a priority. We need to get over certain drawbacks as a community of employers in order to benefit from the HRO wave. If we have to shape up, good future we need to know aht we should to and what we should not so that our progress is never stalled. Hence, it is necessary to appreciate the barriers identified for the spread of HRO in our country. The following are some of the barriers identified in literature on the subject: †¢Cultural shift and top management thinking †¢Confidentiality and cost factors †¢Lack of awareness on cost-to-benefit equation of HRO †¢Quality of end results. A word or two about each of these barriers will clear the aspect. Cultural shift requires us to trust and be trusted. The two parties’ involved, namely service provider and client, need to trust each other not only about confidentiality but also about the capability to delay it. Many employers and top management feel that it is better to have own HR persons dealing with all the issues instead of outsourcing. Reasons may be many for such outlook, but there is a need to change in order to think professionally and ethically. If we can trust an advocate or a doctor or the tax consultant, why not HR service provider? Confidentiality and cost factors relate to the ability of HR service provider to handle information professionally and confidentially. Ethics both personal and corporate – play a great role. If we think proper work ethics can be created through good leadership, we need to develop and nurture such leaders appropriately. Lack of awareness among persons about cost / benefit equation needs to be overcome by education right from the top level to look at HRO as a hard core business option and to quantify the benefits correctly. Lastly, quality issues need to be addressed again through building a quality culture by following the total quality management (TQM) practices. Internal and external customer orientation among all and education and training for all on TQ practices and bring about improvement in quality. The Indian experience of TQM is quite satisfactory in this regard and there is a bright chance of success for improving the quality aspects of HRO. Preparatory Activities: While is it necessary to be clear about changes that we need to make on an individual or a company basis, it is equally important to focus on the preparations needed by us a community of service economy. For any service economy to grow, especially in the network era of today, there is a need for adequate preparation so that ultimately, the environment of business responds favorably to the needs of the market. In this regard, certain preparatory activities have to be undertaken immediately. The various activities for this purpose can be broadly classified as: †¢Infrastructural †¢Educational †¢Business/ operational †¢Social Under each of these, there are various elements that have to be taken under consideration. The following matrix will show these points clearly. As most of these items are self explanatory in nature, a detailed description of individual items is not done in this article. However, it has to be emphasized that these sub elements are very important contributions to the climate of HRO in a microeconomic sense. The elements given in the matrix are only illustrative and are not exhaustive. Preparatory activities needed for HRO Infrastructural / Technical †¢Telecommunications and network accessibility †¢Roads †¢TransportEducational – Training Related †¢Curriculum in colleges †¢HRO training centers †¢E Learning transactions / process Counseling centers Business Related †¢Performance parameters †¢Quality measures †¢Feedback †¢Relationships / Cultural sensitivitySocial †¢Quality of the work – Life balance †¢Stress management †¢Time management †¢Security at workplace Conclusion: In conclusion, it may be said that HRO is going to slowly but steadily beco me a part of business strategy. HR professionals will drive the initiatives of HRO, of course with support from top management. The time is now ripe for HRO to succeed in view of HRM being seen and treated as an important element of business resources in the service economy of today. Certain new roles have emerged which confirm this position. Though the Indian share of the revenue pie today is very small, there is a very good possibility of our riding high on the HRO wave that is round the corner. As a community, it is necessary to identify barriers and identify the changes or adjustments we need to make as individuals and companies. As HRO operates as a subset of BPO and overall business environment, certain preparatory steps need to be taken as a community in general. With all this, it is possible to ride high on HRO wave in the next few years.