ABSTRACT
Laboratory courses were forced to switch to online format during the COVID-19 pandemic, with students losing access to laboratory equipment in on-campus facilities. This paper reports on adapting a senior-level Control and Vibration Laboratory curriculum to enable students to complete exercises remotely, using the Arduino platform and its accessories. The results show that the remote-learning format is a viable and sometimes preferable learning solution based on students' positive feedback. The paper also identified several other online tools and platforms, including Discord and Tinkercad, that contributed to the overall learning experience. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on people's lives worldwide. Research has shown that these impacts are distinct for different populations and often exasperate existing inequities and challenges. Within this landscape, the experiences of refugees with disabilities and mental health challenges are understudied. There is a need to better understand the challenges that refugees with disabilities and their families face in host countries during the pandemic and investigate strategies used to overcome them to inform future inclusive pandemic preparedness efforts. In this paper, we report findings from interviews conducted during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic with four experts who serve refugees in the US. Participants described the impact of the pandemic on refugees, explained challenges that the prevailing political conditions of the time added to refugees' experiences, and identified several strategies for resilience they experienced in the communities they serve. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND Patients with a type D personality have worse social functioning and mental health and more affective constraints than non-type D personalities. They have a negative outlook on life and health-related issues. The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of stress and anxiety in the relationship between type D personality and COVID-19 by adjustment of the effect of demographic characteristics and perceived symptoms as confounder variables. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE A total of 196 patients out of those suspected of having COVID-19 and visiting the reference hospitals were selected. They had completed the type D personality and the anxiety and stress scales along with their hospital admission form before undergoing COVID-19 testing. After their COVID-19 test, the participants were divided into two groups based on their disease, an infected group (n = 90) and a non-infected group (n = 106). RESULTS Type D personality has no significant direct effect on infection with the disease, but taking into account the mediating variable of stress, the odds of an event in those with type D personality is 2.21 times higher than those without this personality (p = .027) and, taking into account the mediating variable of anxiety, having a type D personality increases the odds of an event by 2.62 times (p = .011), holding demographic characteristics and perceived symptoms constant. CONCLUSIONS Given the indirect relationship between COVID-19 and type D personality, the mediating variables of stress and anxiety can be considered full mediating variables.
ABSTRACT
The ongoing outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the ensuing preventative lock-down and shelter-in-place policies enacted around the world have caused unanticipated disruptions in the delivery of educational content and accessibility services to children, youth and adults with disabilities. The rapid move to online and remote learning, socialization, and therapeutic activities have surfaced some of the inadequacies of existing systems and infrastructures as well as opportunities for creating novel and accessible solutions. We conducted semi-structured remote interviews with nine special education teachers, therapists, community advocates, and individuals with disabilities to capture their perspectives on delivering services and supporting children and adults with disabilities and their families during the pandemic. Participants shared reflections on their experience and those who they serve during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis and the challenges and insights that this experience surfaced. Findings include a need to better support families in facilitating remote learning experiences for their children, developing tactile modes of engagement to complement online interactions, and the impact of a lack of contingency plans specifically to support people with disabilities and their families during crizes. The participants also described the lack of clarity about the future as one of the most difficult aspects of the pandemic. We conclude with a discussion of these findings and directions for future research.</p>
ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many elementary, middle, and high schools made an emergency transition to online learning. Students have faced numerous access issues during this time, but little is known about how well students with disabilities can access online course content. Many teachers are unfamiliar with adapting, developing, and creating accessible online course content and there is scant research on younger students' experiences with accessible online course content and platforms. Previous research, however, provides insights on how to identify and address challenges that students with disabilities face when accessing online learning in institutions of higher education. In this paper, we review and analyze 14 papers published in the past 11 years on e-learning accessibility to translate insights into actionable recommendations to improve the accessibility of platforms at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as future pandemics. Based on the reviewed research, we present several recommendations including building organizational cultures of accessibility with support for educators as accessible content creators and increased awareness of the many types of disabilities that may affect students and how accessible content can prevent increasing opportunity gaps. Although emergency online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic will likely and hopefully end in the near future, the lessons learned should continue to inform future improvements in accessible education for all learners. © 2021 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Our workshop will concentrate on vulnerability of specific social groups due to various reasons, including COVID-19, and the potential for technology design to result in empowerment. We want to address issues of what new forms of vulnerabilities emerge and how we can design digital environments in a way that acknowledges vulnerability but also has the potential to empower people in ways that are meaningful for them. When planning the workshop, we will also reflect on social situations that can result in vulnerabilities for participants. Therefore, we will ensure that interested participants will experience low barriers to participation include a variety of people with different backgrounds and ensure that interaction happens based on equality principles and in an atmosphere of solidarity. Participants can exchange ideas and thoughts without worrying about being exposed to biased assumptions. The workshop will allow for non-hierarchical and cooperative discussion and collaboration through interactive online exercises, resulting in a collaboratively developed zine. Finally, the social sustainability of the workshop will be ensured through a website, mailing lists, joint publications and continuous contact. © 2021 Owner/Author.