Digital competence for emergency remote teaching in higher education: understanding the present and anticipating the future.

Higher education has increasingly adopted online and blended models of teaching. Guided by institutional policy and digital competence frameworks, the integration of digital tools and competences is perceived as essential. The pivot to emergency remote teaching (ERT) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic increased the use of digital technologies and the need to deploy and support digital competences. Researchers captured a range of remote teaching practices in higher education across this period that highlight the adaptability of teachers despite a lack of preparation for such an event. This study reviewed empirical studies of ERT from the past 2 years to derive a conceptual frame for ERT digital competence, which was then applied as a lens to analyse teaching or digital competency frameworks from Australian universities. The findings of this paper demonstrate the pre-pandemic teaching and digital competency frameworks captured digital competencies relevant to ERT in varied ways. Practically, the findings provide a starting point for understanding digital competences needed for ERT to ensure future preparedness in responding to a crisis that disrupts educational provision. We also suggest universities can better support the development of teachers' digital competence through practical operationalisations that connect technical and pedagogical knowledge, make digital possibilities across modes of delivery explicit, and acknowledge the need to protect wellbeing of educators.

Perceptual Validation of Nonlinear Postural Predictors of Visually Induced Motion Sickness.

Virtual reality (VR) technology has become increasingly prevalent in our society and has been used for a myriad of applications ranging from psychotherapy to training members of the military. However, one issue that arises from the use of VR is motion sickness, thus making predictors and indicators of motion sickness desirable. To date, a number of indicators of motion sickness have been derived based on nonlinear characteristics of human motion recorded using motion capture systems. While it is known that nonlinear measures can be used to predict motion sickness, it is not known whether people are perceptually sensitive to these particular nonlinear parameters. The aims of this study included establishing whether individuals consistently sort phase plots of sick and well individuals' postural motion without being explicitly told to do so; determining what nonlinear movement parameters could be used to represent these judgments; and assessing the stability of nonlinear measures found to be successful at predicting motion sickness by Smart et al. (2014). Through two methods of analysis (perceptual and quantitative), this research demonstrated that participants can indeed sort the graphic depictions of sick and well participants' postural motion and seem to be perceptually sensitive to nonlinear parameters (normalized path length, path length, elliptical area) that are known to be predictive of motion sickness.

Responding to Other People's Posture: Visually Induced Motion Sickness From Naturally Generated Optic Flow.

Understanding the relationship between our actions and the perceptual information that is used to support them is becoming increasingly necessary as we utilize more digital and virtual technologies in our lives. Smart et al. (2014) found that altering the relationship between perception and action can have adverse effects, particularly if the perceptual information cannot be used to guide behavior. They also found that motion characteristics varied between people who remained well and those that became motion sick. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of naturally produced virtual motion on postural regulation and examine how people respond to different types of optical flow (produced by other people). Participants were either exposed to optic flow produced by the postural motion of a person who did not become motion sick, or a person who did exhibit motion sickness from Smart et al. (2014). It was discovered that participants exhibited both stronger coupling and more incidents of motion sickness in response to optic flow generated by a non-sick participant. This suggests that participants recognized the potentially usable nature of the well-produced optic flow- but the open loop nature of the stimuli made this perception disruptive rather than facilitative.

Effect of the Alexander Technique on Muscle Activation, Movement Kinematics, and Performance Quality in Collegiate Violinists and Violists: A Pilot Feasibility Study.

Musicians are trained to attend to aural and visual senses, to the detriment of kinesthetic awareness, which often results in unnecessary muscle tension and narrowed attentional focus. The Alexander technique (AT) addresses these concerns by approaching action using a process of whole-body consciousness. Incorporation of AT concepts into skill practice may reduce static tension in playing and result in both prevention of injury and improved quality of performance, but objective evidence of these effects is lacking. This pilot feasibility study was designed to determine if muscle activation, movement kinematics, musical performance, and qualitative self-assessment over the course of a 10- week AT intervention are viable means to assess the efficacy of AT in violinists/ violists. Two groups of collegiate violinists and violists participated: Group A (n=4) participated in weekly 1-hour group AT lessons and kept a personal journal of their progress. Group B (n=3) received no AT lessons. Pre- and post tests included muscle activation recorded using electromyography (EMG) and movement kinematics recorded via motion tracking as musicians played a scale and a Kreutzer étude. Performance was also video-recorded and evaluated by an expert for quality and kinesthetic awareness. The results suggest that the measures and intervention employed could, with some adaptation, be a viable means of determining the potential benefits of AT training.

Single-chip microprocessor that communicates directly using light.

Data transport across short electrical wires is limited by both bandwidth and power density, which creates a performance bottleneck for semiconductor microchips in modern computer systems--from mobile phones to large-scale data centres. These limitations can be overcome by using optical communications based on chip-scale electronic-photonic systems enabled by silicon-based nanophotonic devices. However, combining electronics and photonics on the same chip has proved challenging, owing to microchip manufacturing conflicts between electronics and photonics. Consequently, current electronic-photonic chips are limited to niche manufacturing processes and include only a few optical devices alongside simple circuits. Here we report an electronic-photonic system on a single chip integrating over 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components that work together to provide logic, memory, and interconnect functions. This system is a realization of a microprocessor that uses on-chip photonic devices to directly communicate with other chips using light. To integrate electronics and photonics at the scale of a microprocessor chip, we adopt a 'zero-change' approach to the integration of photonics. Instead of developing a custom process to enable the fabrication of photonics, which would complicate or eliminate the possibility of integration with state-of-the-art transistors at large scale and at high yield, we design optical devices using a standard microelectronics foundry process that is used for modern microprocessors. This demonstration could represent the beginning of an era of chip-scale electronic-photonic systems with the potential to transform computing system architectures, enabling more powerful computers, from network infrastructure to data centres and supercomputers.