The qualities and availability of different video formats offer many opportunities within the context of Higher Education (Hansch et al., 2015; Johnson et al., 2016; van Huystee, 2016). There is a shift within Higher Education to transition from the traditional face to face approach, to a more ‘blended’ approach in which face to face and online delivery of content are blended (Bates, 2015). More delivery of content is now provided online in video format, viewed before the class, as part of a flipped classroom (Bishop & Verleger, 2013; Yousef, Chatti, & Schroeder, 2014) and this is impacting the traditional role of the lecturer from ‘sage on the stage’, to ‘guide on the side’ (Tapscott, 2009). When creating video, a lecturer needs to have an understanding of the particular pedagogic affordances of the different types of video (Koumi, 2014; Thomson, Bridgstock, & Willems, 2014) and to know how to implement and embed these effectively into the teaching environment as part of a blended approach (Dankbaar, Haring, Moes, & van Hees, 2016; Fransen, 2006; Woolfitt, 2015). There needs to be awareness of how to embed the video from a didactic perspective to create meaningful learning (Karppinen, 2005) and an understanding of some of the financial and technical issues which include the relationship between cost of video production and the user experience (Hansch et al., 2015) and creating the correct combination of multimedia visual and audio elements (Colvin Clark & Mayer, 2011). As the role of the lecturer changes, there are a number of challenges when navigating through this changing educational environment. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide lots of data for analysis and research shows that students in this environment stop watching videos after about six minutes (Guo, Kim, & Rubin, 2014) and that the most common video style used in MOOCs was the talking head with Power Point (Reutemann, 2016). Further research needs to be conducted regarding student preferences of video styles and correlation between video styles and course drop-out rates. As part of its research, the Inholland research group ‘Teaching, Learning and Technology’ (TLT) examines the use of ICT and video to support teaching and learning within Inholland. In 2015-2016, several pioneers (Fransen, 2013) working at Inholland explored different approaches to using video to support the teaching and learning process within a number of educational environments. TLT supported the pioneers in establishing their role within their faculty, creating a framework within which the pioneer can design the video intervention, collecting data and reflecting on what was learned through this process. With some of the projects, a more formal research process was followed and a full research report could be compiled. In other cases, the pioneer took a more exploratory and experimental approach. In these cases, the pioneer may not have conducted the video intervention under a formal research framework. However, during this process the pioneer may have uncovered interesting and valuable practical examples that can inspire and be shared with other educators. This current report falls under the category Research Type 3 as defined by TLT. It describes and assesses an ICT application (in this case, video) in order to share the original approach that could have high potential to be implemented in a broader educational context.
Missiology has always been inspired by soteriology, that is, Christian views of salvation. However, little is known about the actual soteriological beliefs of missionary practitioners. This article is an explorative qualitative study of soteriological beliefs among Dutch Protestant ministers who work in pioneer settings (N=20) and established churches (N=40). Our research shows that, contrary to what might be expected, these two groups (termed ‘pioneers’ and ‘pastors’) are very much alike with regard to their soteriological beliefs. The majority are convinced of the uniqueness of Jesus, and the connection of salvation with God and/or Jesus – even if this salvation is often expressed in immanent terms. Only two differences have been found between pastors and pioneers. Pioneers experience more challenges in communicating the uniqueness of Christianity and they are more likely to have traditional views of ‘eternal lostness’.
Horticulture crops and plants use only a limited part of the solar spectrum for their growth, the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR); even within PAR, different spectral regions have different functionality for plant growth, and so different light spectra are used to influence different properties of the plant, such as leaves, fruiting, longer stems and other plant properties. Artificial lighting, typically with LEDs, has been used to provide these specified spectra per plant, defined by their light recipe. This light is called steering light. While the natural sunlight provides a much more sustainable and abundant form of energy, however, the solar spectrum is not tuned towards specific plant needs. In this project, we capitalize on recent breakthroughs in nanoscience to optimally shape the solar spectrum, and produce a spectrally selective steering light, i.e. convert the energy of the entire solar spectrum into a spectrum most useful for agriculture and plant growth to utilize the sustainable solar energy to its fullest, and save on artificial lighting and electricity. We will take advantage of the developed light recipes and create a sustainable alternative to LED steering light, using nanomaterials to optimally shape the natural sunlight spectrum, while maintaining the increased yields. As a proof of concept, we are targeting the compactness of ornamental plants and seek to steer the plants’ growth to reduce leaf extension and thus be more valuable. To realize this project the Peter Schall group at the UvA leads this effort together with the university spinout, SolarFoil, whose expertise lies in the development of spectral conversion layers for horticulture. Renolit - a plastic manufacturer and Chemtrix, expert in flow synthesis, provide expertise and technical support to scale the foil, while Ludvig-Svensson, a pioneer in greenhouse climate screens, provides the desired light specifications and tests the foil in a controlled setting.
A world where technology is ubiquitous and embedded in our daily lives is becoming increasingly likely. To prepare our students to live and work in such a future, we propose to turn Saxion’s Epy-Drost building into a living lab environment. This will entail setting up and drafting the proper infrastructure and agreements to collect people’s location and building data (e.g. temperature, humidity) in Epy-Drost, and making the data appropriately available to student and research projects within Saxion. With regards to this project’s effect on education, we envision the proposal of several derived student projects which will provide students the opportunity to work with huge amounts of data and state-of-the-art natural interaction interfaces. Through these projects, students will acquire skills and knowledge that are necessary in the current and future labor-market, as well as get experience in working with topics of great importance now and in the near future. This is not only aligned with the Creative Media and Game Technologies (CMGT) study program’s new vision and focus on interactive technology, but also with many other education programs within Saxion. In terms of research, the candidate Postdoc will study if and how the data, together with the building’s infrastructure, can be leveraged to promote healthy behavior through playful strategies. In other words, whether we can persuade people in the building to be more physically active and engage more in social interactions through data-based gamification and building actuation. This fits very well with the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) research group’s agenda in Augmented Interaction, and CMGT’s User Experience line. Overall, this project will help spark and solidify lasting collaboration links between AmI and CMGT, give body to AmI’s new Augmented Interaction line, and increase Saxion’s level of education through the dissemination of knowledge between researchers, teachers and students.
Every year, more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide. To overcome the problems for the environment development of degradable polymers and shift from fossil-based polymers to renewable plastics is needed. At the same time Europe wastes over five billion kilos of citrus peel every year. Most of this waste goes to incineration, where the valuable chemical components that the peel contains are lost forever. One of these components is limonene, a doubly unsaturated terpene which is the major component of orange oil (49%) and is therefore an abundantly available side product of the orange industry. PeelPioneers has developed a bio-refinery concept that turns citrus peel waste into valuable chemical compounds and products, one of these chemicals being limonene. PeelPioneers aims to use the extracted material as fully as possible to benefit circular economy and therefore wish to study the potential of limonene for developing a polymeric material, which can be used for packaging e.g. bottle or pack for freshly pressed orange juice. The Centre of Expertise of Biobased Economy of Avans University of Applied Sciences has carried out studies on polymerisation of limonene and limonene-like monomers. Therefore PeelPioneers and Avans Centre of Expertise of Biobased Economy decided to join their forces in this “From Peel To Bottle” project to study the potential and pathways to meet this goal.
