Touching Matters: Affective Entanglements in Coronatime.

This article troubles touch as requiring embodied proximity, through an affective account of virtual touch during coronatime. Interested in doing academia differently, we started an online Barad readingwriting group from different locations. The coronatime void was not a vacuum, but a plenitude of possibilities for intimacy, pedagogy, learning, creativity, and adventure. Although physically apart, we met daily through Zoom, and we touched and were touched by each other and the texts we read. A montage of writing fragments and a collective artwork, based on the Massive_Micro project, highlight virtual touching. Undone, redone, and reconfigured, we became a diffractive human/nonhuman multiplicity.

Experiences of undergraduate nursing students on an authentic mobile learning enactment at a higher education institution in South Africa.

BACKGROUND: Mobile technology has infiltrated our day to day existence through provision of inexhaustible access to communication and information. In education, mobile devices are not only used as tools to reinforce information, motivate and accentuate engagement, but it additionally enables the delivery of course content. The adoption of authentic technological innovations using the variety of distinguishing attributes available on mobile devices could potentially promote a mobile learning enactment. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to explore the experiences of undergraduate nursing students who participated in an authentic mobile learning enactment aimed at enhancing their learning experiences. DESIGN: This study used a qualitative contextual design. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Undergraduate nursing students, of a School of Nursing in a Faculty of Community and Health Sciences at a university in South Africa, were the study participants. All students (n = 101) registered for the primary care and clinical skills module were invited to submit reflections based on their experiences on an authentic mobile learning enactment using WhatsApp Messenger. METHOD: Students submitted electronic reflections after every two-week cycle of the enactment. The data collected was categorised into emerging themes as analysed by the researcher guided by Tesch's (1990) systematic process. An independent coder reviewed the data and, through consensus, themes identified were confirmed. RESULTS: One hundred and one participants (n = 101; 100%) submitted online reflections on their experiences during the authentic mobile learning enactment. Seven themes were identified which included: mobile devices afforded a learning platform; mobile learning enactment enhanced engagement; learning within a group made learning easier; flexibility in time allocated to complete tasks; challenges experienced with data/airtime/Wi-Fi; impaired communication due to poor network access and use of mobile devices in practice perceived as unprofessional. CONCLUSION: The study provided valuable insights into students' experiences of the authentic mobile learning enactment, as well as suggesting ways to enhance the effectiveness of such an enactment.

Exploration of the affordances of mobile devices in integrating theory and clinical practice in an undergraduate nursing programme.

BACKGROUND: Promoting the quality and effectiveness of nursing education is an important factor, given the increased demand for nursing professionals. It is important to establish learning environments that provide personalised guidance and feedback to students about their practical skills and application of their theoretical knowledge. OBJECTIVE: To explore and describe the knowledge and points of view of students and educators about introduction of new technologies into an undergraduate nursing programme. METHOD: The qualitative design used Tesch's (1990) steps of descriptive data analysis to complete thematic analysis of the data collected in focus group discussions (FGDs) and individual interviews to identify themes. RESULTS: Themes identified from the students' FGDs and individual interviews included: mobile devices as a communication tool; email, WhatsApp and Facebook as methods of communication; WhatsApp as a method of communication; nurses as role-models in the clinical setting; setting personal boundaries; and impact of mobile devices in clinical practice on professionalism. Themes identified from the FGD, individual interviews and a discussion session held with educators included: peer learning via mobile devices; email, WhatsApp and Facebook as methods of communication; the mobile device as a positive learning method; students need practical guidance; and ethical concerns in clinical facilities about Internet access and use of mobile devices. CONCLUSION: The research project established an understanding of the knowledge and points of view of students and educators regarding introduction of new technologies into an undergraduate nursing programme with the aim of enhancing integration of theory and clinical practice through use of mobile devices.

Exploration of the Affordances of Mobile Devices in Integrating Theory and Clinical Practice in an Undergraduate Nursing Programme

Background: Promoting the quality and effectiveness of nursing education is an important factor; given the increased demand for nursing professionals. It is important to establish learning environments that provide personalised guidance and feedback to students about their practical skills and application of their theoretical knowledge. Objective: To explore and describe the knowledge and points of view of students and educators about introduction of new technologies into an undergraduate nursing programme. Method: The qualitative design used Tesch's (1990) steps of descriptive data analysis to complete thematic analysis of the data collected in focus group discussions (FGDs) andindividual interviews to identify themes.Results: Themes identified from the students' FGDs and individual interviews included:mobile devices as a communication tool; email; WhatsApp and Facebook as methods of communication; WhatsApp as a method of communication; nurses as role-models in the clinical setting; setting personal boundaries; and impact of mobile devices in clinical practice on professionalism. Themes identified from the FGD; individual interviews and a discussion session held with educators included: peer learning via mobile devices; email; WhatsApp and Facebook as methods of communication; the mobile device as a positive learning method; students need practical guidance; and ethical concerns in clinical facilities about Internet access and use of mobile devices.Conclusion: The research project established an understanding of the knowledge and points of view of students and educators regarding introduction of new technologies into an undergraduate nursing programme with the aim of enhancing integration of theory and clinical practice through use of mobile devices

Beyond knowledge and skills: the use of a Delphi study to develop a technology-mediated teaching strategy.

BACKGROUND: While there is evidence to suggest that teaching practices in clinical education should include activities that more accurately reflect the real world, many educators base their teaching on transmission models that encourage the rote learning of knowledge and technical skills. Technology-mediated instruction may facilitate the development of professional attributes that go beyond "having" knowledge and skills, but there is limited evidence for how to integrate technology into these innovative teaching approaches. METHODS: This study used a modified Delphi method to help identify the professional attributes of capable practitioners, the approaches to teaching that may facilitate the development of these attributes, and finally, how technology could be integrated with those teaching strategies in order to develop capable practitioners. Open-ended questions were used to gather data from three different expert panels, and results were thematically analysed. RESULTS: Clinical educators should not view knowledge, skills and attitudes as a set of products of learning, but rather as a set of attributes that are developed during a learning process. Participants highlighted the importance of continuing personal and professional development that emphasised the role of values and emotional response to the clinical context. To develop these attributes, clinical educators should use teaching activities that are learner-centred, interactive, integrated, reflective and that promote engagement. When technology-mediated teaching activities are considered, they should promote the discussion of clinical encounters, facilitate the sharing of resources and experiences, encourage reflection on the learning process and be used to access content outside the classroom. In addition, educational outcomes must drive the integration of technology into teaching practice, rather than the features of the technology. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need for a cultural change in clinical education, in which those involved with the professional training of healthcare professionals perceive teaching as more than the transmission of knowledge and technical skills. Process-oriented teaching practices that integrate technology as part of a carefully designed curriculum may have the potential to facilitate the development of capable healthcare graduates who are able to navigate the complexity of health systems and patient management in ways that go beyond the application of knowledge and skills.

The role of blended learning in the clinical education of healthcare students: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Developing practice knowledge in healthcare is a complex process that is difficult to teach. Clinical education exposes students to authentic learning situations, but students also need epistemological access to tacit knowledge and clinical reasoning skills in order to interpret clinical problems. Blended learning offers opportunities for the complexity of learning by integrating face-to-face and online interaction. However, little is known about its use in clinical education. AIM: To determine the impact of blended learning in the clinical education of healthcare students. METHODS: Articles published between 2000 and 2010 were retrieved from online and print sources, and included multiple search methodologies. Search terms were derived following a preliminary review of relevant literature. RESULTS: A total of 71 articles were retrieved and 57 were removed after two rounds of analysis. Further methodological appraisals excluded another seven, leaving seven for the review. All studies reviewed evaluated the use of a blended learning intervention in a clinical context, although each intervention was different. Three studies included a control group, and two were qualitative in nature. Blended learning was shown to help bridge the gap between theory and practice and to improve a range of selected clinical competencies among students. CONCLUSION: Few high-quality studies were found to evaluate the role of blended learning in clinical education, and those that were found provide only rudimentary evidence that integrating technology-enhanced teaching with traditional approaches have potential to improve clinical competencies among health students. Further well-designed research into the use of blended learning in clinical education is therefore needed before we rush to adopt it.

Collaboration for the promotion of community and individual health.

Child maltreatment, although defined and measured somewhat differently in the United States and South Africa, presents social workers and others with opportunities for working cross-culturally to increase understanding of this problem and to improve assessment and intervention. This article describes a long-term multi-project collaboration between the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis in the United States that has benefited both campuses and their communities.

Child abuse in South Africa: an examination of how child abuse and neglect are defined.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to explore which of 17 categories of child maltreatment South Africans evaluated as most serious and to determine if those working with abuse and neglect evaluated abuse and neglect differently from those who did not. METHOD: A revised version of Giovannoni and Becerra's [Giovannoni, J., & Becerra, R. (1979). Defining child abuse. New York: The Free Press] questionnaire exploring the definition of abuse and neglect was completed by 181 residents of Cape Town, South Africa. The new form had 17 categories of child maltreatment, including 4 categories of societal abuse. Respondents were social workers (n = 57), human service workers (n = 42), laypersons (n = 65), and members of the child protection unit of the South African Police (n = 18). ANOVA was used to compare the groups' responses. When significant differences among groups were found, a Bonferroni post hoc test was run to determine differences between groups. RESULTS: The respondents ranked sexual abuse and child prostitution as most serious and housing and child labor as least serious of the 17 categories. There was a significant difference (p < or = .01) between groups on nine categories. When post hoc tests were run, differences were found for eight categories with laypersons generally evaluating categories as significantly more serious than social workers. CONCLUSIONS: Reasons for the order of the rankings are discussed, but concern remains that differences in the evaluation of child maltreatment will lead to difficulty in implementing a protocol for identifying and responding to incidents of abuse and neglect.