ABSTRACT
The global spread of corona virus has had a significant impact on the basic education systems across the world. Nation states and various government departments had to invent means for remote schooling particularly to ensure continuation of learning amidst the pandemic. One of the widely used means of teaching and learning adopted across the world was the use of mobile technologies for remote learning and content sharing. This directly tested the teachers and learners' resilience in using mobile technologies for teaching and learning. A scoping literature review was conducted to identify technology and pedagogical factors which affected the use of technology for teaching and learning during 2020 school closure. The findings of the literature review identify access to mobile technologies, pedagogical factors like effective usage of technology for teaching and learning, and connectivity as the main barriers for schools in rural areas. Findings from this exercise are used as factors to be considered when building a resilience framework for introducing and using mobile technologies in South African rural schools. The purpose of undertaking such a task is to complete a continuous evaluation of the need to develop a resilience framework and guidelines for the introduction and use of mobile technologies in South African rural schools.
ABSTRACT
Rapid development and adoption of mobile technologies including mobile instant messaging (MIM) platforms have transformed teaching and learning practices over the past decade. This paper presents an analysis of how students used WhatsApp as an example of a MIM platform to organise their learning activities. Drawing on rhizomatic learning theory (RLT), the study showed that WhatsApp supported students to navigate through a complex network of learning where knowledge was generated beyond the confines of the formal learning context. WhatsApp supported learners during the transition to remote learning that was introduced during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, WhatsApp use supported learners to cope well with new learning experiences and practices. The study offers insights into the perspective of learners on the use of technology during challenging and uncertain times. The insights can be useful for lecturers when developing technology strategies and teaching best practices during uncertain times. © 2022 IGI Global. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic a public health disaster of global concern on the 30th January 2020. With the highly infectious COVID-19 virus inevitably spreading across nations and causing significant health and economic impacts, leveraging Digital Mobile Technologies (DMTs) by frontline healthcare practitioners has been touted as a lifeline. Since January 2020, various frontline health workers, health experts, and health institutions across the globe have progressively embraced the use of numerous DMTs as an essential means of restraining the highly infectious disease spread. DMTs such as smart mobile phones and other digital mobile technologies are the reliable means of sharing pertinent health information, awareness, and surveillance as well as facilitating access to crucial healthcare services, especially in designated COVID-19 health facilities. Therefore, this study employed, an online survey using an exploratory-based research design to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionized the usage of DMTs among (n=1,126) frontline healthcare practitioners in three leading tertiary hospitals in Ghana. We adopted technology acceptance model (TAM) to study the adoption and utilization of DMTs and their limitations by frontline healthcare workers in COVID-19 management. We found that 75.1% (n=846 out of 1,126) of frontline healthcare workers, comprising nurses, medical doctors, physician assistants, and COVID-19 contact tracers were aware of DMTs, adopted and used DMTs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its management. However, 93.0% (n=784 out of 846) of those who were aware of the DMTs employed them in their daily operations beyond the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analyses also indicate that increased usage of these DMTs has significantly enhanced public healthcare campaigns and education on the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana. These mobile applications have also improved and boosted healthcare communications among practitioners on measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. In terms of originality, this study expands our understanding of digital technology in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in less studied regions such as Africa, West Africa, and Ghana to be specific. Secondly, the study contributes to filling a gap in our understanding of how theories such as TAM function in crisis communication management. Finally, the study recommends health authorities and governments in developing countries incorporate DMTs in their current health care systems, especially in public health emergencies like COVID-19 preparedness. © 2022 by authors.
ABSTRACT
The global spread of corona virus has had a significant impact on the basic education systems across the world. Nation states and various government departments had to invent means for remote schooling particularly to ensure continuation of learning amidst the pandemic. One of the widely used means of teaching and learning adopted across the world was the use of mobile technologies for remote learning and content sharing. This directly tested the teachers and learners' resilience in using mobile technologies for teaching and learning. A scoping literature review was conducted to identify technology and pedagogical factors which affected the use of technology for teaching and learning during 2020 school closure. The findings of the literature review identify access to mobile technologies, pedagogical factors like effective usage of technology for teaching and learning, and connectivity as the main barriers for schools in rural areas. Findings from this exercise are used as factors to be considered when building a resilience framework for introducing and using mobile technologies in South African rural schools. The purpose of undertaking such a task is to complete a continuous evaluation of the need to develop a resilience framework and guidelines for the introduction and use of mobile technologies in South African rural schools. © 2022 IST-Africa Institute and Authors.
ABSTRACT
Worldwide, non-adherence to tuberculosis (TB) treatment is problematic. Digital adherence technologies (DATs) offer a person-centered approach to support and monitor treatment. We explored adherence over time while using DATs. We conducted a meta-analysis on anonymized longitudinal adherence data for drug-susceptible (DS) TB (n = 4515) and drug-resistant (DR) TB (n = 473) populations from 11 DAT projects. Using Tobit regression, we assessed adherence for six months of treatment across sex, age, project enrolment phase, DAT-type, health care facility (HCF), and project. We found that DATs recorded high levels of adherence throughout treatment: 80% to 71% of DS-TB patients had ≥90% adherence in month 1 and 6, respectively, and 73% to 75% for DR-TB patients. Adherence increased between month 1 and 2 (DS-TB and DR-TB populations), then decreased (DS-TB). Males displayed lower adherence and steeper decreases than females (DS-TB). DS-TB patients aged 15–34 years compared to those >50 years displayed steeper decreases. Adherence was correlated within HCFs and differed between projects. TB treatment adherence decreased over time and differed between subgroups, suggesting that over time, some patients are at risk for non-adherence. The real-time monitoring of medication adherence using DATs provides opportunities for health care workers to identify patients who need greater levels of adherence support.
ABSTRACT
Like many other university teachers, we were faced with an unprecedented situation in spring 2020, when we had to cancel on-site teaching and excursions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we were in the fortunate position that we had already started to develop a smartphone-based self-guided excursion on the topic of "Water in the City". We accelerated this development and used it to replace the traditional group excursion in our Bachelor level introductory course in Hydrology and Climatology. The excursion of this course is visited by around 150 students each year. Because the student feedback was overall very positive, we used the self-guided excursion again in 2021 and plan to continue to use it in the coming years. In this paper, we describe the excursion, discuss the experiences of the students and ourselves, and present recommendations and ideas that could be useful for similar excursions at other universities.
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Within the span of the past two years, modern technologies have induced major changes in education. It is primarily the Covid-19 pandemic that has altered the way of foreign language instruction. Therefore, this paper attempts to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of Slovak university EFL learners towards online English language learning. Altogether 188 participants completed a survey, indicating their level of agreement on a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. The research results indicate that the students either agree or are neutral to the majority of statements involving their conditions for online learning and developing particular language skills and systems. However, it should be also emphasized that some challenges of online learning, such as visiting social networking sites or chatting with peers for non-academic purposes, were also detected to some degree. It is necessary to conduct further studies in this area so that the teaching and learning process is facilitated and ultimately becomes more effective © 2022. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning.All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
In recent years, the use of mobile learning (M-learning) has significantly increased in educational and academic settings with the growth of mobile technology (MT) and many studies have been realized in this field. But the literature reveals that most of the previous researches presented in the field of MT acceptance in high school and university. On the other hand, lack of sufficient research is clearly seen on the acceptance of MT and the use of the M-learning in primary school due to the corona pandemic and its negative effects e.g. the absence of learners in educational settings. Hence, this lack has motivated us to present an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) in the context of M-learning for primary school students. This quantitative non-experimental research has investigated the possibility of using TAM for identifying effective factors on M-learning acceptance by primary school students as a user acceptance model for academic intentions and determined these factors through testing TAM in the school setting. Experimental findings prove that perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived enjoyment (PE), perceived convenience (PC), and perceived usefulness (PU) had effect on attitude toward using MT by primary school students. Also, continuance intention to use (CI) was directly influenced by perceived usefulness and attitude toward using (AT) constructs. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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New technological developments made interaction possible with computer systems and applications anywhere and anytime. These applications must be capable to be adapted to the user as a person and his current situation. In 2021, following the pandemic COVID-19, learners across the country have had the opportunity to experience online modes of learning. Therefore, in the current study, an attempt has been carried out to develop a new paradigm of learning, known as ubiquitous learning or U-learning (UL), which is supported by ubiquitous computing technologies. Ubiquitous learning has become an economic and scientific issue, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the paper also aims to provide fundamental information related to U-learning as the definition and characteristics of U-learning and the areas of the most common applications in our daily lives. Finally, U-learning applications in the different domains are explained and compared to further improve the understanding of the concept of U-learning and the importance of using UL in our lives. © 2021 IEEE.
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Over the past few decades, the number of health and 'omics-related data' generated and stored has grown exponentially. Patient information can be collected in real time and explored using various artificial intelligence (AI) tools in clinical trials; mobile devices can also be used to improve aspects of both the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In addition, AI can be used in the development of new drugs or for drug repurposing, in faster diagnosis and more efficient treatment for various diseases, as well as to identify data-driven hypotheses for scientists. In this review, we discuss how AI is starting to revolutionize the life sciences sector.
Subject(s)
Artificial Intelligence , Biological Science Disciplines , Biotechnology , Clinical Trials as Topic , Data Science , Drug Design , Drug Development , Electronic Health Records , Humans , Mobile Applications , Natural Language Processing , Pharmacology , PublishingABSTRACT
Personalized recovery technologies may enable individuals with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) to monitor and manage acute craving and drug use urges in ways that improve drug-seeking decisions in real-time. Direct and indirect regulation of the autonomic nervous system through sensory input monitoring and modulation may enhance control over behavioral decisions and prevent relapse. A personalized sensory support system that monitors neurophysiological reactivity and offers non-pharmacological point-in-time personalized digital interventions may increase awareness of and control over craving reactivity. It is critical to be able to detect these warning signs and intervene early and effectively. The use of wearable technologies that assess point-in-time neurophysiological escalation and shape behavioral response through personalized interventions could be transformative in allowing individuals to better manage their recovery as they transition out of institutions and move back into community settings.
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China rapidly spread throughout the world, becoming a threatening pandemic with unprecedented consequences. Mobile technologies have led to a revolution in health and their applicability in the context of COVID-19 is promising. In this commentary, we provide an overview of the role that mobile technologies play in the COVID-19 pandemic context and discuss the main issues associated. Four main domains stood out: health communication, prevention, support and research. Strengthening local surveillance systems, geographic contact tracing, support for clinical practice and data collection of real-time longitudinal data at the population level are some of the main advantages of the applications reported so far. The potential conflict to data privacy urges for discussion on their use in a responsible manner. Along with fair regulation and close monitoring of data collection and process, data anonymisation must be a standard and personal data must be deleted after its usage. Preparation is key for effective containment of a public health crisis and learning lessons on the role of mobile technologies is useful for future challenges in global health. It is noteworthy that their use must be driven by an equitable and inclusive orientation, and mostly integrated into an articulated policy to respond to the crisis.