Returning after a long absence from the podcast, Fr. John in this episode introduces a new reflection on the crisis of western Christendom prior to the Reformation by discussing the penitential context of Martin Luther's famous Ninety-Five Theses.

Fr. Ted leads a Lenten Retreat at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Ocean, NJ. In this first session Fr. Ted delivers a talk on how Orthodox Christians are called to use the contemplation of their own death, using the Lenten season, to prepare for their birth into eternity.

In this second session Fr. Ted discusses how the Holy Sacraments of the Church prepare us for our own deaths and allow us to truly see life through the passion.

Listen to excerpts from this past Sunday's bulletin at St. John the Compassionate Mission, still open and serving the most vulnerable in Toronto. "The light is breaking through any human heart. Wherever the heart might be. It finds any crack to break through. There is so much light at the mission because the people who come here are so broken. So the light is visible in abundance. So is our dear community. Broken, so that the light of Pascha can be received through the cracks. Even if you want to hide it and contain it you cannot help but share it. So broken and imperfect we are."

Fr. Apostolos shares about real strength from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians.

Fr. Apostolos helps to prepare us for Great Lent with reflections on the humility of the Publican.

Christmas is indeed a time to enjoy the delight of children during the feast. Fr Thomas teaches us to also remember yet another great gift of Christmas: we become children of God.

Fr Thomas reminds us of the value of learning to deepen our faith.

Fr Thomas reminds us that the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan Woman was not about her condemnation, but her salvation. We can also embrace a change of life through encountering Christ. (John 4:5-42) Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, May 14, 2023

Christianity is really quite simple. There is a gift, Jesus Christ and we are called to receive Him.

Dr. Rossi explores how the fire of God's healing presence can flow right through us to others.

Dr. Albert Rossi interviews Fr. Alexis Trader, author of Ancient Christian Wisdom, on the topic of overcoming impulsivity and the desire to control the world around us.

Dr. Albert Rossi reflects on the dynamic union of Christ in us, working through us.

Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas discusses church life in the first century, the celebration of the Lord’s Day, the development of the parish, and church history through the lens of martyrdom and architectural setting.

Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas discusses preparation for Baptism and its theology. He finishes with an exploration of the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil.

Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas explores the Icon as a visual, graphic Gospel and teacher of the Faith.

A conversation with Kenneth Kidd from the Orthodox Christian Mission Center about the training OCMC provides on the mission field. You can support this work by going to the OCMC web site.

By giving Paul so dominant a place in the sacred Canon, the Fathers surely intended us to learn from his example how to examine the circumstances of our lives in order to attain wisdom in Christ.

Fr. Pat explains why the Church emphasizes Christ's multiplication of the loaves and fish.

In this two-part interview Kevin's guest is "George," who became a Sunni Muslim at age 14 and studied to become an Imam at a madrasa, studying Quran, Arabic language, Islamic theology, hadith, and jurisprudence. He left Islam and became an Orthodox Christian 20 years later. Among other things, Kevin and his guest discuss Islamic theology, common misunderstandings of Christianity by Muslims, differences between "orthodox" Islam and the Nation of Islam, the true understanding and practice in Islam of slavery and jihad, and the extraordinary journey that led "George" to Orthodox Christianity.

In this two-part interview Kevin's guest is "George," who became a Sunni Muslim at age 14 and studied to become an Imam at a madrasa, studying Quran, Arabic language, Islamic theology, hadith, and jurisprudence. He left Islam and became an Orthodox Christian 20 years later. Among other things, Kevin and his guest discuss Islamic theology, common misunderstandings of Christianity by Muslims, differences between "orthodox" Islam and the Nation of Islam, the true understanding and practice in Islam of slavery and jihad, and the extraordinary journey that led "George" to Orthodox Christianity.

Zaccheus does something unexpected.

Herbie Farnworth scores a "brilliant" try to extend England's lead to 26-12 in the second Test against Samoa at Headingley Stadium.

Lloyd Martin could not be torn away from music he passed on the route, says his mum Ceri.

St Pauls residents say the garden helps them to "slow down" during the pandemic.

Olivia, 4, and her family are helped by a support worker provided by St Andrew's Hospice in Grimsby.

Buildings that are normally inaccessible can now be explored virtually using smartphones.

Katie Cross says she is paying £9,000 more per tonne of chocolate than she did a year ago.

Iris has played in boys teams since she was four, and has now broken into Aston Villa’s girls team.

A swan ends up trapped in netting before falling to the floor after smashing through a skylight.

Witnesses report overhearing the driver say: "I'm more concerned about the living than the dead."

The way smart energy meters work in northern England and Scotland is causing issues for customers, BBC Panorama has been told. The body that represents energy companies, Energy UK, has […]

The post Smart meters in north/south divide, Bitcoin breaks through $82,000 barrier appeared first on Tech Digest.

Currently, the World Wide Web is mostly composed of isolated and loosely connected "data islands". Connecting them together and retrieving only the information that is of interest to the user is the common Web usage process. Creating infrastructure that would support automation of that process by aggregating and integrating Web data in accordance to user's personal preferences would greatly improve today's Web usage. A significant part of Web data is available only through the login and password protected applications. As that data is very important for the usefulness of described process, proposed infrastructure needs to support authorized access to user's personal data. In this paper we propose a semantically enhanced Web portal that presents unique personalized user's entry to the domain-specific Web information. We also propose an identity management system that supports authorized access to the protected Web data. To verify the proposed solution, we have built Sweb - a semantically enhanced Web portal that uses proposed identity management system.

File transfer is always handled by a separate service, sometimes it is a third-party service in videoconferencing. When sending files during a video session, file data flow and video stream are independent of each other. Encryption is a mature method to ensure file security. However, it still has the chance to leave footprints on the intermediate forwarding machines. These footprints can indicate that a file once passed through, some protocol-related logs give clues to the hackers' later investigation. This work proposes a file-sending scheme through the video stream using blockchain and steganography. Blockchain is used as a file slicing and linkage mechanism. Steganography is applied to embed file pieces into video frames that are continuously generated during the session. The scheme merges files into the video stream with no file transfer protocol use and no extra bandwidth consumed by the file to provide trackless file transmission during the video communication.

Aim/Purpose: Bioengineering is a burgeoning interdisciplinary learning domain that could inspire the imaginations of elementary aged children but is not traditionally taught to this age group for reasons unrelated to student ability. This pilot study presents the BacToMars videogame and accompanying curricular intervention, designed to introduce children (aged 7-11) to foundational concepts of bioengineering and to the interdisciplinary nature of scientific endeavors. Background: This pilot study explores the bioengineering-related learning outcomes and attitudes of children after engaging with the BacToMars game and curriculum intervention. Methodology: This study drew on prior findings in game-based learning and applied them to a videogame designed to connect microbiology with Constructionist microworlds. An experimental comparison showed the learning and engagement affordances of integrating this videogame into a mixed-media bioengineering curriculum. Elementary-aged children (N = 17) participated in a 9-hour learning intervention, with one group of n = 8 children receiving the BacToMars videogame and the other group (n = 9) receiving traditional learning activities on the same content. Pre- and post-surveys and interview data were collected from both groups. Contribution: This paper contributes to education research on children’s ability to meaningfully engage with abstract concepts at the intersection of science and engineering through bioengineering education, and to design research on developing educational technology for introducing bioengineering content to elementary school children. Findings: Children in both groups showed improved knowledge and attitudes related to bioengineering. Children who used BacToMars showed slightly stronger performance on game-specific concepts, while children in the control condition showed slightly higher generalized knowledge of bioengineering concepts. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners should consider bioengineering as a domain for meaningful, interdisciplinary learning in elementary education.. Recommendation for Researchers: Design researchers should develop playful ways to introduce bioengineering concepts accurately and to engage children’s imaginations and problem-solving skills. Education researchers should further investigate developmentally appropriate ways to introduce bioengineering in elementary education. Impact on Society: BacToMars introduces a meaningful scenario to contextualize complex con-cepts at the intersection of science and engineering, and to engage children in real-world, interdisciplinary problem solving. Future Research: Future research should explore BacToMars and bioengineering curricula for elementary-aged children in larger samples, with longer intervention times.

Aim/Purpose: This research aims to describe and demonstrate the results of an intervention through educational robotics to improve the computational thinking of student teachers. Background: Educational robotics has been increasing in school classrooms for the development of computational thinking and digital competence. However, there is a lack of research on how to prepare future teachers of Kindergarten and Elementary School in the didactic use of computational thinking, as part of their necessary digital teaching competence. Methodology: Following the Design-Based Research methodology, we designed an intervention with educational robots that includes unplugged, playing, making and remixing activities. Participating in this study were 114 Spanish university students of education. Contribution: This research helps to improve the initial training of student teachers, especially in the field of educational robotics. Findings: The student teachers consider themselves digital competent, especially in the dimensions related to social and multimedia aspects, and to a lesser extent in the technological dimension. The results obtained also confirm the effectiveness of the intervention through educational robotics in the development of computational thinking of these students, especially among male students. Recommendations for Practitioners: Teacher trainers could introduce robotics following these steps: (1) initiation and unplugged activities, (2) gamified activities of initiation to the programming and test of the robots, (3) initiation activities to Scratch, and (4) design and resolution of a challenge. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers could examine how interventions with educational robots helps to improve the computational thinking of student teachers, and thoroughly analyze gender-differences. Impact on Society: Computational thinking and robotics are one of the emerging educational trends. Despite the rise of this issue, there are still few investigations that systematize and collect evidence in this regard. This study allows to visualize an educational intervention that favors the development of the computational thinking of student teachers. Future Research: Researchers could evaluate not only the computational thinking of student teachers, but also their didactics, their ability to teach or create didactic activities to develop computational thinking in their future students.

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this research is to determine whether ESL teaching videos as a form of asynchronous online knowledge sharing can act as an aid to ESL learners internalizing knowledge in language acquisition. In this context, internalizing knowledge carries the meaning of being able to remember language, and purposefully and accurately use it context, including appropriacy of language, and aspects of correct pronunciation, intonation, stress patterns and connected speech, these being the elements of teaching and practice that are very often lacking in asynchronous, online, instructional video. Background: Knowledge Management is the field of study, and the practice, of discovering, capturing, sharing, and applying knowledge, typically with a view to translating individuals’ knowledge into organizational knowledge. In the field of education, it is the sharing of instructors’ knowledge for students to be able to learn and usefully apply that knowledge. In recent pandemic times, however, the mode of instruction has, of necessity, transitioned from face-to-face learning to an online environment, transforming the face of education as we know it. While this mode of instruction and knowledge sharing has many advantages for the online learner, in both synchronous and asynchronous learning environments, it presents certain challenges for language learners due to the absence of interaction and corrective feedback that needs to take place for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) to master language acquisition. Unlike other subjects where the learner has recourse to online resources to reinforce learning through referencing external information, such as facts, figures, or theories, to be successful in learning a second language, the ESL learner needs to be able to learn to process thought and speech in that language; essentially, they need to learn to think in another language, which takes time and practice. Methodology: The research employs a systematic literature review (SLR) to determine the scope and extent to which the subject is covered by existing research in this field, and the findings thereof. Contribution: Whilst inconclusive in relation to internalizing language through online, asynchronous instructional video, through its exploratory nature, the research contributes towards the body of knowledge in online learning through the drawing together of various studies in the field of learning through asynchronous video through improving video and instructional quality. Findings: The findings of the systematic literature review revealed that there is negligible research in this area, and while information exists on blended and flipped modes of online learning, and ways to improve the quality and delivery of instructional video generally, no prior research on the exclusive use of asynchronous videos as an aid to internalizing English as a second language were found. Recommendations for Practitioners: From this research, it is apparent that there is considerably more that practitioners can do to improve the quality of instructional videos that can help students engage with the learning, from which students stand a much better chance of internalizing the learning. Recommendation for Researchers: For researchers, the absence of existing research is an exciting opportunity to further explore this field. Impact on Society: Online learning is now globally endemic, but it poses specific challenges in the field of second language learning, so the development of instructional videos that can facilitate this represents a clear benefit to all ESL learners in society as a whole. Future Research: Clearly the absence of existing research into whether online asynchronous instructional videos can act as an aid to internalizing the acquisition of English as a second language would indicate that this very specific field is one that merits future research. Indeed, it is one that the author intends to exploit through primary data collection from the production of a series of asynchronous, online, instructional videos.

Aim/Purpose: This study seeks to present a learning model of discrete mathematics elements, elucidate the content of teaching, and validate the effectiveness of this learning in a digital education context. Background: Teaching discrete mathematics in the realm of digital education poses challenges, particularly in crafting the optimal model, content, tools, and methods tailored for aspiring computer science teachers. The study draws from both a comprehensive review of relevant literature and the synthesis of the authors’ pedagogical experiences. Methodology: The research utilized a system-activity approach and aligned with the State Educational Standard. It further integrated the theory of continuous education as its psychological and pedagogical foundation. Contribution: A unique model for instructing discrete mathematics elements to future computer science educators has been proposed. This model is underpinned by informative, technological, and personal competencies, intertwined with the mathematical bedrock of computer science. Findings: The study revealed the importance of holistic teaching of discrete mathematics elements for computer science teacher aspirants in line with the Informatics educational programs. An elective course, “Elements of Discrete Mathematics in Computer Science”, comprising three modules, was outlined. Practical examples spotlighting elements of mathematical logic and graph theory of discrete mathematics in programming and computer science were showcased. Recommendations for Practitioners: Future computer science educators should deeply integrate discrete mathematics elements in their teaching methodologies, especially when aligning with professional disciplines of the Informatics educational program. Recommendation for Researchers: Further exploration is recommended on the seamless integration of discrete mathematics elements in diverse computer science curricula, optimizing for varied learning outcomes and student profiles. Impact on Society: Enhancing the quality of teaching discrete mathematics to future computer science teachers can lead to better-educated professionals, driving advancements in the tech industry and contributing to societal progress. Future Research: There is scope to explore the wider applications of the discrete mathematics elements model in varied computer science sub-disciplines, and its adaptability across different educational frameworks.

Aim/Purpose: This paper describes a technologies education model for introducing Simulation Learning and Extended Reality (XR) solution creation skills and knowledge to students at the tertiary education level, which is broadly applicable to higher education-based contexts of teaching and learning. Background: This work is made possible via the model’s focus on advancing knowledge and understanding of a range of digital resources, and the processes and production skills to teach and produce playable educational digital content, including classroom practice and applications. Methodology: Through practice-based learning and technology as an enabler, to inform the development of this model, we proposed a mixed-mode project-based approach of study within a transdisciplinary course for Higher Education students from the first year through to the post-graduate level. Contribution: An argument is also presented for the utility of this model for upskilling Pre-service Teachers’ (PSTs) pedagogical content knowledge in Technologies, which is especially relevant to the Australian curriculum context and will be broadly applicable to various educative and non-Australian settings. Findings: Supported by practice-based research, work samples and digital projects of Simulation Learning and XR developed by the authors are demonstrated to ground the discussion in examples; the discussion that is based around some of the challenges and the technical considerations, and the scope of teaching digital solutions creation is provided. Recommendations for Practitioners: We provide a flexible technologies teaching and learning model for determining content for inclusion in a course designed to provide introductory Simulation Learning and XR solution creation skills and knowledge. Recommendation for Researchers: The goal was to provide key criteria and an outline that can be adapted by academic researchers and learning designers in various higher education-based contexts of teaching and inclusive learning design focused on XR. Impact on Society: We explore how educators work with entities in various settings and contexts with different priorities, and how we recognise expertise beyond the institutional interests, beyond discipline, and explore ‘what is possible’ through digital technologies for social good and inclusivity. Future Research: The next step for this research is to investigate and explore how XR and Simulation Learning could be utilised to accelerate student learning in STEM and HASS disciplines, to promote knowledge retention and a higher level of technology-enhanced learning engagement.