John O'Donoghue – författare

‘When my father died, I stayed off school to look after my mother. I was fourteen and was as incapable of looking after her as she was at looking after me. She took to wandering the roads and was soon taken into hospital. The social worker asked me if I wanted to be fostered and I said yes. Two years later, in 1975, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. That was the beginning of it all: medication, ECT, the locked ward. I’ve been sectioned five times, in and out of asylums, homeless hostels, squats and on the streets. I nearly hit the end of the road. But then, almost overnight, my life turned round. Sectioned is my story.’ John O’Donoghue

While there are many areas of focus in mathematics education, there are many good reasons for offering applicable mathematics education in schools. Let us just mention two of the most important reasons. On the one hand, a focus on the practical side of mathematics presents a convincing and motivating answer to the typical student question: ‘Why study mathematics?’ On the other hand, education policy seems inclined to move in this direction by implementing international testing, curricula and catalogues of skills.

The most important feature of this book is that the authors speak directly to you, the mathematics teachers. The authors attempt to draw you into a continuous dialogue about activities you are asked to engage in as learners. You are asked to do something, and through doing and reflecting you will gain first-hand experience of new approaches and materials. In this way, you can learn to teach applicable mathematics to your students using your own experience as learners of applicable mathematics, motivated and supported by the book.

Here applicable mathematics education is the phrase we use to describe reality-based mathematics education. Reality-based mathematics relies heavily on problem solving and a positive disposition to engage with mathematics. Modelling reality and simulating selected aspects of reality are other pillars of reality-based mathematics education.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereedproceedings of the International Conference on Communication Technologies forAgeing Well and e-Health, ICT4AgeingWell 2015, held in Lisbon, Portugal, in May2015.The 11 full papers and two invited papers presented were carefully reviewed andselected from 45 submissions. The papers cover five main topic areas, covering different aspects, including Ambient AssistedLiving, Telemedicine and E-Health, Monitoring, Accessibility and UserInterfaces, Robotics and Devices for Independent Living and HCI for Ageing Populations.

The 8 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 39 submissions. The papers present relevant trends of current research on ageing well and e-health, including: ambient assisted living, mobile assistive technology, lifestyle engineering and life quality, electronic health records, security and privacy in e-Health, smart environments, home care and remote monitoring.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the third International Conference on Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health, ICT4AWE 2017, held in Porto, Portugal in April 2017.

The 10 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 32 submissions. The papers aim at contributing to the understanding of relevant trends of current research on ICT for Ageing Well and eHealth including the collection and evaluation of day/night end user behavior patterns through the adoption of wearable technologies.