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This study aims to examine the impact of an online language immersion program on the participants’ self-efficacy for culturally responsive teaching.

The Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (Siwatu, 2007), the Culturally Responsive Teaching Outcome Expectations Scale (Siwatu, 2007) and the Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Self-Efficacy Scale (Siwatu, et al., 2015) were used to examine the impact of the intervention using a pretest/posttest analysis. Participant reflections were also qualitatively coded to provide further insight into the program.

The intervention showed a statistically significant and positive change to participant’s self-efficacy in the areas of culturally responsive teaching and culturally responsive classroom management. Participants showed growth in outcome expectancy, but this change was not statistically significant.

Educators working with a high number of English learners (EL) can benefit from the intervention, which allows the educator to share in the language learning experience and gain a deeper understanding of the day-to-day challenges faced by their students.

This study represents the second attempt to document the impact of the BaseLang Grammarless program as a professional learning intervention for K-12 educators working in schools with a high rate of EL.

This study aims to document the impact of an 80-h virtual Spanish language immersion program on four elementary school leaders in Kentucky.

This study used a mixed methods approach. Each subject participated in three semi-structured interviews with the researcher and a standardized oral language assessment.

Participants expressed greater confidence when interacting with students and families who do not speak English, greater empathy for students learning English, new cross-cultural understandings and deeper knowledge about the language acquisition process and language instruction.

Training in a foreign language may prove to be a valuable professional learning activity for leaders seeking to develop a stronger skillset and mindset for multicultural education.

This paper contributes to the literature by documenting a previously un-researched virtual language immersion program.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to consider the use of the Internet as a potential facilitator of positive health-related perceptions. Specifically, we propose that online health information seeking fosters positive perceptions of health. Using path modeling, we theorized several mechanisms through which information seeking could be conducive to positive health perceptions, which we conceptualized into the following four dimensions: (1) sense of empowerment in managing health, (2) self-reported ability to take better care of health, (3) sense of improved health-related quality of life, and (4) self-reported improvement of health.

Methodology: Our sample consisted of respondents who have used the Internet as a resource for health information (n = 710), drawn from the largest national probability-based online research panel. Our comparison subsample consisted of older respondents (age ≥ 60; n = 194). We used Internet-specific measures and employed structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects of health-related use of the Internet on subjective health perceptions. Based on our review of the literature, competent health communication with healthcare providers and sense of empowerment in managing personal health were modeled as mediator variables. We assessed whether the proposed mediational relationships, if significant, differed across our indicators of positive health perceptions and whether any differential associations were observed among older adults. We run parallel models for each indicator of positive health perception.

Findings: Provider-patient communication informed by the Internet resources were perceived to impart a greater sense of empowerment to manage health among our respondents, which in turn, was associated with perceived contributions to better self-reported ability to provide self-care, increased health-related quality of life, and improvement in self-reported health. The SEM results revealed a good fit with our full sample and subsample.

Research Implications: Conceptualization of the multidimensional aspects of online health information seeking with separate multi-indicator analyses of the outcome variable is important to further our understanding of how technology may impact the pathways involved in influencing health perceptions and as a result health outcomes.

Libraries can be seen as the collective identity of its employees engaged in providing a myriad of services to a community of patrons. Libraries can also exist in virtual settings, defined with descriptive parameters, described by a wider user group external to the library environment. The diverse nature of what constitutes libraries is illustrated by researchers, such as Marino and Lapintie (2015), who use the term “meta-meeting place” when describing its environs. Whatever model is used to describe contemporary libraries, the library environment usually has numerous needs and demands coming from a variety of stakeholders, from administrators to patrons. This chapter examines how we, as librarians, with users, co-construct library as both space and place.

We used a theoretical framework (social constructionism) to show how library identity is established by its users in the space planning process to address their needs and expectations and provided a case study of the main library at the University of South Florida.

We found that libraries are reflective of the vision and values of a diverse community and the social-political milieu in which they are housed. Librarians used a number of innovative methods and frames to create best/evidence-based practice approaches in space planning, re-envisioning library functions, and conducting outcomes/programmatic assessment. For librarians to create that sense of place and space for our users requires effective and open conversations and examination of our own inherent (and often unacknowledged) contradictions as to what libraries are or should be as enduring structures with evolving uses and changing users. For example, only a few of the studies focused on the spatial use and feel of libraries using new technologies or methodologies, such as social network analysis, discourse analysis, or GPS, to map the use of physical and virtual space.

First, new ways of working and engaging require reexamination of assessment and evaluation procedures and processes. To accomplish this, we must develop a more effective culture of assessment and to use innovative evaluation measures to determine use, user paths, and formal and informal groupings. Changes that affect patron and staff perceptions of library as place/third space may be difficult to assess using quantitative surveys, such as LibQual, that may not provide an opportunity for respondents to provide specifics of what “place” means to them. Second, it is important to have effective communication among all members of the library (patrons, library staff, and university administration) so that we design spaces/places that enhance the relationships among users, technology, pedagogy, and learning spaces, not just the latest “thing” in the literature.

This value of this review is to provide a social constructionist perspective (frame) on how we plan library space. This approach provides opportunities to truly engage our patrons and administration in the co-construction of what “our library” should be since it provides insight to group, place, and social dynamics.

The authors believe that people with cognitive and motor impairments may benefit from using of telepresence robots to engage in social activities. To date, these systems have not been designed for use by people with disabilities as the robot operators. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors conducted two formative evaluations using a participatory action design process. First, the authors conducted a focus group (n=5) to investigate how members of the target audience would want to direct a telepresence robot in a remote environment using speech. The authors then conducted a follow-on experiment in which participants (n=12) used a telepresence robot or directed a human in a scavenger hunt task.

The authors collected a corpus of 312 utterances (first hand as opposed to speculative) relating to spatial navigation. Overall, the analysis of the corpus supported several speculations put forth during the focus group. Further, it showed few statistically significant differences between speech used in the human and robot agent conditions; thus, the authors believe that, for the task of directing a telepresence robot's movements in a remote environment, people will speak to the robot in a manner similar to speaking to another person.

Based upon the two formative evaluations, the authors present four guidelines for designing speech-based interfaces for telepresence robots.

Robot systems designed for general use do not typically consider people with disabilities. The work is a first step towards having our target population take the active role of the telepresence robot operator.

The purpose of this study is to review scholarly research on elderly consumers’ information processing and suggest implications for services marketing.

The review encompasses a five-decade period (1970–2018) of academic research and presents relevant literature in four main areas related to information processing: sensation, attention, interpretation and memory.

The study illustrates how each of the aforementioned phases of the information processing activity may affect how elderly individuals buy and consume products and services, emphasizing the need for a better comprehension of the elderly to develop effectual marketing strategies.

The study provides readers with detailed state-of-the-art knowledge about older consumers’ information processing, offering a comprehensive review of academic research that companies can use to improve the effectiveness of their marketing efforts that target the elderly market.

The purpose of this paper is to review marketing materials of surveillance products for people with dementia and their carers in three ageing countries, as part of a dementia-technology media analysis.

An online environmental scan was conducted using search terms for surveillance technologies (STs) and dementia through a Google search focussed on the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands. Data were extracted on the products’ and websites’ marketing messages from consumer and marketer perspectives.

Information was gathered for 382 product websites, of which 242 met eligibility criteria. The majority of products come from the UK. In the UK and Sweden, the companies behind the websites appeared to be mainly “cottage industries” which focus on selling ST. In contrast, sellers in the Netherlands included a more balanced mixture of small, medium and large companies. In all three countries, the website messaging focussed on the need to manage safety concerns, without considering privacy or consent.

Contrary to the perception of future dependence on technology, the ST sector seems to be a niche market. The media messages, equating people with dementia with animals and children, are at odds with initiatives that strive for dignity and dementia friendliness.

No previous study is known to have explored media messages from websites that market ST for people with dementia.