ABSTRACT
Despite the extensive coverage in the literature, limited attention has been paid to the investigation of technostress among academicians who work under special circumstances, such as occupation, and might have different psychological states due to those conditions. To fill this gap, this study examined the level and factorial structure of technostress among 573 Palestinian academicians who worked in a more-than-seventy-years occupied country, and with the addition of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sequential mixed method approach with confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis was used to explore the technostress factors and to measure their level among the academicians. The obtained findings indicated that the four factors of (1) schedule overload, (2) complexity, (3) uncertainty and uselessness, and (4) invasion and compulsion formed the model of techno-stressors among Palestinian academicians. This can help various stakeholders (researchers, policy makers, practitioners, etc.) to design the needed interventions accordingly and reduce the technostress among academicians; hence, enhancing the latter's teaching practices and experiences.
ABSTRACT
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS COV2) had rapidly spread and caused a global pandemic worldwide. The most common symptoms in adults are respiratory with dry cough, dyspnea, and fever. Occasionally, extra-respiratory presentations may be seen such as gastrointestinal involvement with diarrhea, vomiting or abdominal pain. Acute intestinal intussusception is the most common cause of bowel obstruction in infants (2-4 months of age) but rarely could it be encountered in adult. It is a very rare gastro-intestinal manifestation of COVID-19 with an invagination of a segment of the bowel within a more distal one. The part that prolapses into the other is called the intussusceptum, and the part that receives it is called the intussuscipiens. Most of COVID-19 cases of AII are reported in the pediatric population between 4 and 10 months. Only a single case of small bowel obstruction secondary to ileo-colic intussusception in a COVID-19 infection adult was published on April 2021. We present here a challenging case of intussusception secondary to COVID-19 infection in an adult in the absence of respiratory symptoms. Our study presents the first case in Africa of AII in adult patients due to COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been around for some time, but several studies highlighted different issues associated with them, including quality. The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed their second blooming, where MOOCs have seen a surge in enrollments since March 2020. This study intended to explore how this enrollment reflected on the research studies included in scientific publications, indexed by Web of Science. Specifically, the bibliometric mapping analyses of 108 studies have revealed an ongoing trend in the countries contributing to the MOOCs research, namely USA, China, UK and Spain. Additionally, MOOCs research coming from US, UK and other western countries was decreasing before the pandemic and showed a continuous dramatic reduction also during the COVID-19 pandemic. Growing attention in MOOCs research among less represented countries was also observed. Besides, most of the topics focused on by MOOCs research during the pandemic were mainly related to education and engineering.
ABSTRACT
Due to the new health restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, The Online merge Offline (OMO) Learning wave has emerged, providing more open and immersive learning experiences. OMO learning relies on hybrid infrastructure and open educational practices to merge online and offline (i.e., physical classrooms) learning spaces together in real-time while simultaneously seamlessly teaching students in both the physical classroom and online. A systematic design of the learning environment is therefore needed by identifying relevant areas and success factors that support the design process of the OMO Learning environment, based on conceptual, human-centered, and didactic principles. This research used a collective case study analysis technique. Specifically, four international OMO learning case studies were collected and analyzed. The findings demonstrated the significance of designing an active learning environment, selecting technology-based on representational and communication needs, and preparing spaces and teachers for OMO learning. Additionally, it is found that technology limitations are persistent in the OMO learning contexts, requiring teachers to carefully reflect on their course designs and to apply instructional strategies and workarounds to maximize learning, community building, and the student experience.
ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching and learning activities had to be conducted fully online. To sustain quality education, teachers could use open educational resources (OERs) available in the public domain to make online mathematics teaching more effective and interactive. However, we currently know little about the use of OERs in primary school settings. Therefore, this study seeks to understand their school policies and guidelines on and teachers' experience of using OERs during the pandemic. Our overarching goal is to provide recommendations on the future development and use of OERs in the context of primary school mathematics education. We employed a qualitative approach and interviewed 13 mathematics teachers from different primary schools. Our findings suggest that teachers tended to rely on OERs more during the pandemic than before. They used OERs to introduce mathematics and to facilitate class interactions in online lessons. However, not all schools had policies and guidelines on the use of OERs in place. Some teachers also encountered challenges when using OERs, such as finding that the resources were unsuitable for school contexts and lower primary school students. Based on the findings, we discuss some possible strategies for the improvement, such as ensuring the suitability of OERs, through developer–teacher collaborations.
ABSTRACT
Open Education (OE) opens up learning opportunities to, potentially, every person in the world. Additionally, it allows teachers, researchers, and practitioners to find, share, reuse, and improve existing resources under a dependable legal framework. Aiming to spread and foster the introduction of open policies in Higher Education (HE) institutions, the gamified interactive learning experience Catch the Open! was developed. Catch the Open! targets HE educators who wish to learn, or who wish to deepen their existing knowledge, about OE and Open Educational Practices (OEP). Within the gamified learning experience, the user becomes an educator, Alex, the game character, who receives a task from the Rector: to investigate how to best include OE and OEP in teaching and learning practice within the institution. Alex proceeds to explore and gather information in a web-based 2D virtual HE institution where students, colleagues, and guest researchers will help her to develop a comprehensive understanding of OE and the practical application of OEP. The educational content within Catch the Open! is underpinned by an OE competences framework for HE educators, developed in a previous phase of the Erasmus+ OpenGame project. In this paper, the design process to link pedagogical and technological approaches, which results in the Catch the Open! gamified web-based interactive application, is presented as well as the application itself. Moreover, two phases of piloting with 153 HE educators from six different HE institutions are presented. The obtained findings showed that the gamified environment helped in learning about OE. On the other hand, learners also suggested several improvement aspects of the gamified environment, such as the length of finishing a learning mission while playing.
ABSTRACT
With the rapid integration of technology into educational environments during the pandemic period, the teaching processes in classrooms and private education institutions began to be carried out with technology support. Game-based animation learning designs in technology-supported educational environments provide an interesting and motivation-enhancing learning experience in developing students' education skills. In today's educational environments, 2D and 3D animation game designs are the unique technology-supported learning environments in teaching many different skills, behaviors, and concepts to individuals with special needs. Visual designs and animations are one of the technologies necessary to prepare individuals with special needs for an independent life. The accessibility of animation designs for teachers and families has gained significant importance during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Technology education supports the visual, listening, reading, writing, social, and communication skills of individuals with special needs, facilitates their independent life skills, and contributes to their development as a guide. This allows individuals to learn the targeted information more easily, permanently, and quickly. In this context, this study provides information on the use and accessibility of animation technology in special education, offers suggestions for the benefit of visual design and animation, which are among the assistive technologies, and gives insights into how school management is ready for digital education.
ABSTRACT
The provision of online learning experiences has been implemented by many universities worldwide to overcome several challenges, including inequality in education. However, this experience is still not a common approach in public universities in the Arab region. Furthermore, several research studies have pointed out that a country’s culture should be considered in order to enhance online learning, as students may behave differently based on their cultural backgrounds. Nevertheless, little is known about how a given culture may affect the learning behavioral patterns of students. Therefore, to better understand the cultural phenomenon and to enhance the adoption of online learning in the Arab region, this study aims to understand how an Arab culture may affect the online learning behaviors of students. Specifically, this study applies a lag sequential analysis (LSA) approach to understand the behavioral patterns of 116 students from Tunisia in a six-week online course. The study then further discusses the different learning behavior patterns based on the theoretical framework of Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions. The findings highlight that culture can affect how students engage in online learning discussions and how they maintain their learning performance online. The findings further indicate that online learning experiences may be beneficial for female students who experience social pressures in Arab cultures.
ABSTRACT
This study undertook a bibliometric mapping analysis of research papers on Open Educational Practices (OEP) in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. This study functions as a guide for new research, serving to identify trends in the OEP field and compare the existing research so as to identify gaps and promising future paths. A total of 635 studies were obtained;however, only 156 were finally selected for the analysis. VOSviewer software was used to identify the most frequently used keywords and terms in the abstracts and titles. This software was also used to analyse the studies for co-authorship and citations. The findings showed that research on OEP started in 2007 and focused on higher education, including open and distance higher education. Most of the OEP studies were published in English as journal articles, in particular, many were published in Distance Education, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, and Open Praxis. The United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia were the top contributors to the OEP literature. The analysis of keywords and terms in the titles and abstracts revealed that current OEP trends covered only open pedagogy and open collaboration, suggesting a need for more research on other trends, such as open assessment, open data, and open science. The results also suggested that future research needs to focus more on inclusive open educational practices that accommodate students with disabilities.
ABSTRACT
Blended Learning (BL) is one of the most used methods in education to promote active learning and enhance students' learning outcomes. Although BL has existed for over a decade, there are still several challenges associated with it. For instance, the teachers' and students' individual differences, such as their behaviors and attitudes, might impact their adoption of BL. These challenges are further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as schools and universities had to combine both online and offline courses to keep up with health regulations. This study conducts a systematic review of systematic reviews on BL, based on PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, to identify BL trends, gaps and future directions. The obtained findings highlight that BL was mostly investigated in higher education and targeted students in the first place. Additionally, most of the BL research is coming from developed countries, calling for cross-collaborations to facilitate BL adoption in developing countries in particular. Furthermore, a lack of ICT skills and infrastructure are the most encountered challenges by teachers, students and institutions. The findings of this study can create a roadmap to facilitate the adoption of BL. The findings of this study could facilitate the design and adoption of BL which is one of the possible solutions to face major health challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
A large number of universities worldwide are paying more and more attention to the application and exploration of online education. As the group with the most significant number of online education users, their participation attitude and participation intention directly determine the teaching performance of online education. This research will incorporate playfulness teaching and scenario variables that reflect the universities’ ability to respond to emergencies. Based on the technology acceptance model, this research proposes an integrated research model of online education participation intention to investigate university students’ online education participation intention to reveal the key factors and mechanisms that affect online education participation intention. A structural equation model of participation intention is constructed, and 342 valid samples are obtained by questionnaire survey. The empirical results of PLS-SEM show that: (1) students’ participation attitude positively affects their participation intention;(2) the perceived ease of use and usefulness positively affect their participation attitude, and the perceived usefulness and ease of use affect their participation intention through the complete mediation of participation attitude;(3) the perceived playfulness does not have a significant impact on participation attitude but has a positive impact on participation intention;(4) the innovative discovery university support positively moderates the relationship between participation attitude and intention during such emergencies. The research found that improving students’ attitudes toward participation, perceived ease of use, usefulness, playfulness, and strengthening university support are all helpful to optimize students’ participation intention in online education. At the same time, it also explored operability suggestions for improving the quality of online education and optimizing future education.
ABSTRACT
Open Educational Resources (OER) have been researched for a long time in the open education field. Researchers are now shifting their focus from resources to practices for delivering open education, an area called Open Educational Practices (OEP). However, there is little information in the related literature regarding the design of an OEP-based course or the impact of these types of courses. Therefore, this study designs a new OEP-based course at a public university for teaching family education during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also investigates its impact on learning motivation and teachers’ perceptions. In this context, a practical pilot experiment using both qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted. Specifically, 36 learners participated in this experiment. The obtained findings highlight: (1) an innovative design framework for OEP-based courses that teachers can refer to in their contexts;(2) that learners had a high motivation level in terms of knowledge achievements, individual connection and engagement when taking the OEP-based course;and (3) several advantages and challenges of the OEP-based course from the teacher’s and learners’ perspectives. For instance, the teacher reported the fear of losing control over the learning process when applying OEP. The findings of this paper can help researchers and educators in adopting OEP in higher education especially in times of crises, as well as increase the sustainability of OEP, hence contributing to open education development.
ABSTRACT
Digital learning competence (DLC) can help students learn effectively in digital learning environments. However, most of the studies in the literature focused on digital competencies in general without paying specific attention to learning. Therefore, this paper developed a DLC framework based on a comprehensive literature review, which consists of six dimensions, namely technology use, cognitive processing, digital reading skill, time-management, peer management and will management. This study then developed a scale to assess these competencies where 3473 middle school students participated in the scale validation process. Specifically, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and item discrimination were used to validate this scale. The six dimensions accounted for 58.66% of the total variance of the scale. The overall internal consistency coefficient was 0.94 for the scale. The results showed that the developed DLC scale is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing middle school students’ digital learning competence. The findings of this study can help teachers and specialists to improve the competencies of their learners by providing a new validated scale that could be used to assess learners and identify their DLC weakness, hence provide the needed trainings accordingly.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the need for new innovative methods to effectively maintain education in times of crisis and uncertainty. This study first presents the Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) learning approach, a way of learning that caters to the new needs of students and teachers in the post-COVID-19 era. OMO learning utilizes a hybrid infrastructure that combines Open Educational Practices and real-time learning spaces, both online and offline. This study then discusses the early results of a pilot experiment investigating OMO learning in China for three months from three dimensions: space design requirements, technological considerations, and pedagogical considerations. A qualitative, two-stage study focused on content analysis and a multiple-case study were carried out in the context of courses about English language learning with 30 teachers and students. The obtained findings showed that, although both teachers and students had a positive attitude towards OMO learning, they mentioned that a comprehensive set of core and functional competencies are needed—including the use of online platforms, communication skills, class management, and the effective use of resources. Additionally, the findings showed that more effort should be paid to classroom design, such as infrastructure, to efficiently support OMO learning. This study exemplifies a new approach toward the future of education to ensure sustainable education in this complex and uncertain world.
ABSTRACT
With the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China, the Chinese government decided to ban any type of face-to-face teaching, disrupting classes and resulting in over 270 million students being unable to return to their universities/schools. Therefore, the Ministry of Education (MoE) launched an initiative titled ‘Ensuring learning undisrupted when classes are disrupted’ by reforming the entire educational system and including an online education component. However, this quick reform in this unexpected critical situation of widespread COVID-19 cases harbours several challenges, such as the lack of time and teacher/student isolation. This paper discusses the possibility of using open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) as an effective educational solution to overcome these challenges. Particularly, this study presents a generic OEP framework built on existing open-practice definitions. It then presents, based on this framework and based on the challenges reported by several Chinese education specialists during two national online seminars, a set of guidelines for the effective use of OER and OEP for both teaching and learning. Finally, this study presents some recommendations for the better adoption of OER and OEP in the future. The findings of this study can help researchers and educators apply OER and OEP for better learning experiences and outcomes during the COVID-19 outbreak.