Today many children have limited experiences with the outdoors or nature. In most suburbs where people originate from many countries and have various ways of understanding nature is it perhaps in preschool that several children for the first time experience nature.This survey is qualitative and the main research methods are participant observations and interviews. The theories used in this study are mainly based on the thoughts of Dewey and Vygotskij as well as on ideas from outdoor education and different ways or ideas of understanding nature.The purpose with this study is to make clear in what ways nature is used by the teachers in preschool activities and how this work is done in preschools in multicultural suburbs. Questions at issue are: What way of understanding nature are the teachers trying to convey to the children? How is nature used in the ordinary outdoor activities by the preschool teachers? What are the teachers experiences of success and problems in this work?The conclusion is that nature is used in preschool activities in many ways.

This thesis explores the possibilities of avoiding the issues generally associated with compression of noisy imagery, through the usage of vector quantization. By utilizing the learning aspects of vector quantization, image processing operations such as noise reduction could be implemented in a straightforward way. Several techniques are presented and evaluated. A direct comparison shows that for noisy imagery, vector quantization, in spite of it's simplicity, has clear advantages over MPEG-4 encoding..

The purpose of this essay is to develop knowledge about how learning among employees is perceived to occur practically in a pre-school unit seen as a learning organization. From an employee perspective the intention was to gain an understanding of how they perceive the organization regarding employee learning in the workplace when it comes to in which contexts and what conditions that enable collaborative learning. Because learning organization is mostly a vision from a management perspective thereby it should in this case mostly be viewed as the context in which the employees work in.The essay is based on a qualitative research approach with eight semi-structured interviews. It was based on hermeneutics as method of analysis with the intention to gain an understanding of the employees' subjective perception. It is a case study on a selected pre-school unit in Stockholm.

People in Sweden have more and more dogs in their care, and several of these dogs are kept in kennels in back yards for various reasons. According to Swedish animal welfare legislations the need for social contact for dogs has to be met. However, there are few details presented on how to meet the need and when it can be considered satisfied. Does the dog need human contact to fulfill the need, or is the company of other dogs enough? This study aims to specify what can be acceptable when it comes to fulfilling dogs? social needs in accordance with the Swedish animal welfare legislation.

My purpose with this essay is to examine the relationship between esthetic learning processes and language development to find good practices in my work with multilingual children. In my report, I describe a few activities from my work as a preschool pedagogue in a multicultural area, with a large group of children where age and knowledge of Swedish varies. The background to this essay is the problems I experienced in my work with children´s language development in an organization that, in my opinion, is limited by economic factors. The questions I poses are about the way esthetic learning processes can help children develop their language skills as well as their participation in preschool activities. I also pose the question whether there is a connection between the musical ear and children´s development of language.

The study aims to contribute knowledge about children's perceptions of the leisure-time as a learning environment. The study can be seen as an attempt to highlight the possible learning in the leisure-time, formally or informally.The study is based on two group interviews with a total of 11 children and was conducted by an interview guide with question areas to be discussed freely so that the children could give as full an answer as possible.Main results of the study show that children feel that they are staying at the leisure-time to get care when their parents are working and that they primarily associate the leisure-time with playing. The results show however that children feel that they learn things when participating in the leisure-time teaches controlled activities.It is possible to draw conclusions about the child actually experienced the leisure-time as a learning environment, but it can be difficult to identify when and how learning actually occurs. However, children do not perceive that there is learning while they play..

The topic of this paper is puppets as an educational tool in preschool. The purpose of this paper is to examine the puppets potential as a tool for creating pleasurable learning in preschool. The method of collecting material for the essay has been qualitative research interviews with four informants. The prerequties for writing this essay has been good. There has been some literature on puppets and basis for my investigation, there have been informants with experience of puppets.

Sex equality law within the European Union is well developed and has since the Rome Treaty, given rise to several directives and other judicial acts on this matter of community law. The concepts of direct and indirect discrimination emerge from the general principles of Equal pay and Equal treatment and have been codified and amended several times until present.The lasts years, authors within the field of Equality Law has been pointing out that there is a common desire for simplification of discrimination law in Europe. The question has arisen whether this simplification could be implemented trough the introduction of a general justification defence for direct sex discrimination.The concept of direct sex discrimination - when a person of one gender is treated less favourably, on the grounds of gender, than a person of the other gender would be treated in similar circumstances - leaves no possibilities for such justification today. Indirect sex discrimination ? which arises from the equal application of neutral rules that shows an adverse impact on one group ? can be justified if the rule answers to true requirements of the job.Does the proposition that direct discrimination should be justified find support in the inconsistency of the present legislation? This paper will examine this and other questions concerning the wish for a general justification defence through studies of case law from the European Court of Justice as well as differing opinions from authors within the field of equality law..

Elevperspektiv på lärstilsmetodiken. Upplever eleverna att det är lättare att lära i de ämnen som tillämpar lärstilsmetodiken..

Syftet med min studie var att undersöka om elevernas matematiska förståelse i taluppfattning inom bråktal kunde förbättras med hjälp av Learning Study metoden.Learning Study är en metod som fokuserar på elevernas missförstånd (kritiska aspekter) i lektionens mål (Lärandeobjekt) samt lärarens professionella utveckling och lärarsamverkan i skolan.För att utföra studien behöver man minst två klasser med olika lärare. I metoden fokuserar man på två aspekter, lärarens undervisning och elevresultaten efter två planerade tester.De kortsiktiga studieresultaten ökade för de deltagande klasserna men i olika hög grad vilket talar för att metoden inte är ett sätt att nå alla elever. Metoden kräver mycket tid och ett långsiktigt arbete.Nyckelord: Learning Study, matematisk förståelse och bråktal..

The aim of this essay is to study the importance of team organisation of teachers? learning of teaching and learning and to find out different obstacles and possibilities.I carried out the study at a schooldistrict in a community in the south of Sweden. Data was collected by group interviews and document studies. To get all kinds of teachers, from pre-school to year six, in the groups the sample was made by the headmaster of the schooldistrict. Since it is a case study the findings can not be considered as general, but they can hopefully contribute the pedagogical discussion and future research.The findings show that there exists a difference between the expectations on policy level on the one hand and on the team level on the other hand.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine how students in school year nine in the Swedish school come in contact with history outside of the school context. The paper also focuses on, if and how the students consider the contact with history as something different than, or similar to the history education that takes place during school hours, the student´s interest in history will also be examined. To gather the student?s opinions on these subjects, I have done interviews with eight students divided into two groups, with one group consisting of four girls and one group with two boys and two girls. The interviews took place at the students school located in a smaller city in Värmlands län, Sweden.

Education in Swedish sport is mainly based on traditional learning that requires a lot of time and effort, which could be a barrier for trainers since they report a lack of time as a consequence of their commitment as a leader. The Swedish sports movement has noticed some trends that could be seen as influential on the future directions of sport. One of these trends is a changing way of communication where people today communicate to a greater extent with the use of digital technology. The Swedish sports movement has to relate to this and follow the evolution. The use of e-learning has increased in higher education and organizations over the past decades.

This scientific essay is based on four self-perceived situations that all takes place in an outdoor environment. The children are aged seven to nine years. At least one of the children in the groups has some type of concentration difficulties. I have combined my practical experience with literature and previous research regarding outdoor education and children with concentration difficulties. Based on this I have tried to interpret and reflect on the opportunities and problems with outdoor education for children with concentration difficulties, especially so called situational concentration difficulties.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.