Use of Technology and Perceived Level of Engagement with 1:1 Technology

This quantitative dissertation was designed to describe to the policymakers and stakeholders of School District Z the frequency of use of the 1:1 technology, the frequency of use of other technological devices by teachers and students, and the importance of 1:1 technology to student learning. District Z provided Chromebooks to each student in Grades 6, 7, and 8 during the 2014-2015 school year with the goal of harnessing the power of technology to engage students and ultimately to improve student achievement. The researcher developed a survey instrument to capture data from approximately 1,100 students 1 year after implementation of the 1:1 Technology Initiative. The survey was administered to participating students through SurveyMonkey. No personally identifiable information was collected. An analysis of the data revealed that students self-reported daily use of computers and the majority of the students believed that access to computers was important to learning. When using computers, students used descriptions such as hardworking, interested, and engaged. These data suggested that the use of 1:1 technology can be a precursor to more student engagement and enhanced student achievement

Abstractions for designing and evaluating communication bridges for people in developing regions

This paper describes two novel abstractions that help soft- ware engineers work in developing regions to align social and technical factors when building communication systems. The abstractions extend two concepts familiar to engineers of computer networks and applications: the Open Systems Interconnect stack for design, and Quality of Service for eval- uation. The novel nature of the abstractions lies in how they help cultivate awareness of socio-cultural and technical is- sues when designing and evaluating communication bridges in the eld. Advantages of the abstractions are that they can be understood easily by software engineers, they aid communication with bene ciaries, and can therefore facili- tate collaboration. The paper makes an argument for these socially aware abstractions, describes the abstractions in de- tail, provides examples of how we used the new abstractions in the eld and then gives practical guidelines for how to use them. The simple nature of the new abstractions can help software engineers and end-users to work together to produce useful information technology based communication systems for people in developing regions.Telkom, Cisco, THRIP, NRF, SANPADWeb of Scienc

Towards communication and information access for deaf people

In tightly circumscribed communication situations an interactive system resident on a mobile device can assist Deaf people with their communication and information needs. The Deaf users considered here use South African Sign Language and information is conveyed by a collection of pre-recorded video clips and images. The system was developed according to our method of community-based co-design. We present several stages of the development as a series of case studies and highlight our experience. The first stage involved ethnographically inspired methods such as cultural probes. In the next stage we co-designed a medical consultation system that was ultimately dropped for technical reasons. A smaller system was developed for pharmaceutical dispensing and successfully implemented and tested. It now awaits deployment in an actual pharmacy. We also developed a preliminary authoring tool to tackle the problem of content generation for interactive computer literacy training. We are also working on another medical health information tool. We intend that a generic authoring tool be able to generate mobile applications for all of these scenarios. These mobile applications bridge communication gaps for Deaf people via accessible and affordable assistive technology

Using voice over IP to bridge the digital divide: a critical action research approach

There is a great disparity between those who have access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and those that do not. This phenomenon forms part of the Digital Divide. Many ICTs may be used to help overcome this divide if they are applied in a useful way, providing locally applicable content and services. Critical Action Research (CAR) is an approach used to develop such applications. CAR aims to empower people by involving them in the development process. Using CAR, this project investigates how Voice over IP (VoIP) may be applied in a productive way in an underserviced community. VoIP is an ICT used for sending voice over packet switched networks using Internet Protocol. It can be used to integrate data and voice to produce multimedia applications. In South Africa (SA), VoIP may only be provided by Telkom, the Second National Operator and the Under-Serviced Area Licensees. Using CAR and VoIP, an application is being developed to service a specific need of a particular rural community. The application will either provide a service to a small rural business or aid the provision of healthcare in rural areas. The project evaluates how well CAR integrates with a normal Software Development Lifecycle and makes policy recommendations for the use of VoIP in rural SA.Telkom, Siemens, THRI

Telemedicine using VoIP combined with a store and forward approach

Rural areas in South Africa have unique conditions such as remoteness and scarcity of reliable public facilities. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) introduced into these areas must be suitable for these conditions. Using a user-centred design approach based on Participatory Design and Action Research, we have developed a telemedicine application for a rural village in the Eastern Cape. This paper describes how we determined the requirements and design for the application and why we chose Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) combined with a store and forward approach to achieve our telemedicine goals. We present an overview of the methodology we are using, describe the software application we have developed and mention several challenges we have faced to date. Finally we conclude that VoIP and store and forward technologies are appropriate to the South African rural situation.Telkom, Siemens, THRIP, IDRC, SANPADDepartment of HE and Training approved lis

Socially Aware Software Engineering for the Developing World

While the social effects of Information Technology (IT) have received much attention there is very little work on targeted methodologies to develop IT applications and content in a developing world environment. This paper describes a methodology called Socially Aware Software Engineering we are busy formulating based on firsthand experience building Information and Communication Technology solutions. Our method is based on a classical user-centred approach from Human Computer Interaction combined with aspects of Participatory Design and cyclical software engineering practises. These approaches are wrapped into an iterative Action Research paradigm in order to directly include the community-based users of our systems. We outline three cases studies based on our evolving method. The paper concludes with suggestions on changing the nature of tertiary curricula in developing countries in a way that integrates this socially aware software engineering methodology

SoftBridge: A Multimodal Instant Messaging Bridging System

Instant Messaging is traditionally a text only affair. However, there are instances when it would be useful to bridge to other types of media, like speech. The SoftBridge is an application framework that enables this kind of communications bridging using instant messages. Its use of protocols like the Jabber Instant Messaging Protocol and the Simple Object Access Protocol makes it simple, open and extensible. It also allows bridging to non IP communications infrastructure, like the telephone network. We describe the design and architecture of the system, protocol and extensibility mechanism. Finally we describe our experimental methodology and discuss the results of our initial experiments

The role of outcome mapping in developing a rural telemedicine system

We describe the use of Outcome Mapping to guide the design of a rural telemedicine consultation system in South Africa. While Outcome Mapping was not primarily intended to guide design, we show that it tied in well with a cyclical participatory design method for an Information and Communication Technology for Development project

User interfaces for communication bridges across the digital divide

Connecting people across the "digital divide" is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centred approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across the digital divide. We have incorporated the lessons learned regarding social intelligence design in an abstraction and in a device called the SoftBridge. The SoftBridge allows communication to flow from endpoints through adapters, getting converted if necessary, and out to destination endpoints. Field trials are underway with two communities in South Africa: disadvantaged Deaf users and an isolated rural community. Initial lessons learned show that we have to design user interfaces that allow users to understand and cope with delay. We also learned that social concerns are often more important than the technical issues in designing such systems

Bridging Communications Across the Digital Divide

Connecting people across the Digital Divide is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centered approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across the Digital Divide. We have incorporated the lessons learnt regarding Social Intelligence Design in an (abstract) device called the SoftBridge. The device allows information to flow from endpoints through adapters (getting converted if necessary), and out to destination endpoints. Field trials are underway with two communities in South Africa, disadvantaged deaf users and an isolated rural community. First lessons learned show that we have to design user interfaces that allow users to understand and cope with delay (latency) as a necessary consequence of our approach