TRANSFORMING SUMMATIVE LANGUAGE LITERACIES’ASSESSMENT OF TANZANIA PRIMARY EDUCATION THROUGH MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

The use of paper-pencil assessment can hardly facilitate language literacies’ assessment that focuses on the communicative aspects of the language such as speaking and listening among others. This has prompted practitioners in the field of language assessment to consider the use of ICT (information and communications technologies) such as mobile applications as among the best tools for improving language literacies’ assessment. However, summative language literacies’ assessment in Tanzania primary education is still administered in the form of paper-pencil assessment. This has led to low literacies level among primary school leavers, which eventually, hinders their career growth and participation in democratic activities nationally and internationally. Consequently, the present study investigates the possibility of transforming summative language literacies’ assessment through mobile applications. The study was conducted qualitatively using a participatory action research design with two cycles at one of the public primary schools in Ilala district, Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania. Participants included one language teacher and ten students from standard VII who were selected through the purposive sampling technique. Besides, data were collected from the language curriculum and past papers from National Examination for 2017 and 2018. Additional data were collected through interviews, focus group discussion, document analysi

Reflective practices as the cornerstone for teacher development in the 21st century: Lessons from educators’ action research projects

Research has shown that reflective practices improve teaching practices, which makes them valuable in the 21st century where the teaching context is complex due to increasing technological innovations and diversity among learners. However, it is hardly practiced among teachers. As a result, the present study aims at highlighting how reflective practices could improve teaching practices in a challenging context. The study adopted a Self-Study qualitative research approach. The data were collected through reflection, observation, and interviews from two collaborating researchers, primary school teachers, and students. Data were analyzed thematically. Findings show that reflective practices improve four main aspects of teaching practices namely assessment, teacher-student role in the classroom, teacher pedagogical competence, and teacher awareness on integrating ICT in the classroom and teacher proficiency in technology. It was revealed that RPs were effective in meeting TPD qualities. The study calls for teacher-educating institutions to ensure that teachers are provided with skills for developing reflective practices

Facilitating accommodation of learners with disabilities in summative assessment of literacies in Tanzania through mobile application

Summative Assessment of Language Literacies in Tanzania is administered in the form of a Paper-and-pencil assessment. This kind of assessment hardly accommodates learners with disabilities such as visually impaired ones because it does not allow adjustment of the font size to suit the reader’s needs. As a result, such students might end up being judged as failures in such assessments while their failure is attributed to the nature of the assessment rather than their lack of competence in language literacies. Therefore, to improve the existing situation, the present study investigated the contribution of mobile applications to accommodating learners with diverse needs in taking language literacies assessments. We adopted qualitative action research using interviews, focus group discussion, observation, and reflection as data collection methods from one language teacher and ten standard VII students who were selected purposively. We analyzed data deductively through coding, categorizing, and relating data to available conceptual constructs. Findings show that mobile application makes language assessment more accommodating because of its flexibility in terms of presentation, response delivery, and locations and time given. The study calls for the National examination council in Tanzania to consider the integration of technology in language literacies assessment to maximize the learning opportunities for learners with disabilities. Also, teacher education should empower teachers on the use of technology in their classrooms

Energy Efficient Hybrid Routing Protocol Based on the Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm and Ant Colony Optimisation for WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a particular type of distributed self-managed network with limited energy supply and communication ability. The most significant challenge of a routing protocol is the energy consumption and the extension of the network lifetime. Many energy-efficient routing algorithms were inspired by the development of Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO). However, due to the inborn defects, ACO-based routing algorithms have a slow convergence behaviour and are prone to premature, stagnation phenomenon, which hinders further route discovery, especially in a large-scale network. This paper proposes a hybrid routing algorithm by combining the Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm (AFSA) and ACO to address these issues. We utilise AFSA to perform the initial route discovery in order to find feasible routes quickly. In the route discovery algorithm, we present a hybrid algorithm by combining the crowd factor in AFSA and the pseudo-random route select strategy in ACO. Furthermore, this paper presents an improved pheromone update method by considering energy levels and path length. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm avoids the routing algorithm falling into local optimisation and stagnation, whilst speeding up the routing convergence, which is more prominent in a large-scale network. Furthermore, simulation evaluation reports that the proposed algorithm exhibits a significant improvement in terms of network lifetime

How Does Politics Affect Electronic Healthcare Adoption

In the 21 century, the term e-healthcare has become the common buzzword in the world. Its popularity is directly related to the rate of its adoption and benefits that it offers to individuals and governments. Among the common benefits include reduction in medical errors, improvements on physician efficiency, improvement in physician-patient relationship and an increase in the quality of care delivered. Despite all these benefits, politics is one among the obstacles hindering its adoption. In this paper we analyse how politics at local, national and international levels affect e-healthcare adoption and thereafter we suggest appropriate alternatives to overcome these obstacles

Clustering Opportunistic Ant-based Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

The wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have a wide range of applications in many ereas, including many kinds of uses such as environmental monitoring and chemical detection. Due to the restriction of energy supply, the improvement of routing performance is the major motivation in WSNs. We present a Clustering Opportunistic Ant-based Routing protocol (COAR), which comprises the following main contributions to achieve high energy efficient and well load-balance: (i) in the clustering algorithm, we caculate the theoretical value of energy dissipation, which will make the number of clusters fluctuate around the expected value, (ii) define novel heuristic function and pheromone update manner, develop an improved ant-based routing algorithm, in this way, the optimal path with lower energy level and shorter link length is established, and (iii) propose the energy-based opportunistic broadcasting mechanism to reduce the routing control overhead. We implement COAR protocol in NS2 simulator and our extensive evaluation shows that COAR is superior to some seminal routing algorithms under a wide range of scenarios

Using the Crytek Game Engine in the Technological University Dublin

It is envisaged that within the next 10 years. the Technological University Dublin (DIT), Ireland’s largest third level university, will move to a new campus in Grangegorman, located in the north inner city of Dublin This site is currently being used as a hospital. It has twelve listed buildings and is located in a densely populated urban community. This paper describes how the Crytek 3D Game engine is being used to create a game MOD (modification) of the current hospital site, how it will be used in the construction and public consultation process of the new campus and how students in the DIT are learning computer science in an new way

Password-Based Authentication and Phishing

The most common mechanism for online authenti- cation is the username-password. Majority of e- commerce applications are designed to provide pass- word authentication via an HTML form, with the assumption that the user needs to determine if it is safe to enter the password. In order to avoid phish- ing attacks, the user is expected to distinguish be- tween a phishing and a genuine website by checking the browser security indicators. Alternative authentication models suggest using images for authentication, introducing variations of Password Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE) pro- tocols into TLS, using digital objects as passwords. Some authentication models suggest sending one- time password (OTP) tokens out-of-band to the user. Most computer users have too many passwords and keep forgetting them. Common issue for all authen- tication models is how to restore a legitimate user access to their account without authentication, i.e. password reset. In this paper, we investigate current password based authentication models and review their impact on phishing. We investigate two categories of issues 1) deployment obstacles for the \u27stronger\u27 authenti- cation models, and 2) security issues created by the number of passwords user needs to memorize

Speech Synthesis for PDA

A Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesiser is a computer-based system that should be able to read any text aloud. This paper presents the design and implementation of a speech synthesiser for a PDA. Our implementation is based on FreeTTS by Sun Microsystems Inc. This paper focuses on the issues that arise during the development and the differences with the desktop synthesiser. We carry out detailed experiments on different platforms to show how the quality and speed of conversion varies. Our TTS implementation on a P DA, apart from being platform independent produces the same sound quality with a far less powerful processor than the desktop synthesiser on which it was based

A Viewpoint of Tanzania E-Commerce and Implementation Barriers

The growing rate of ICT utilization particularly the Internet and mobile phones has influenced at an exponential rate online interaction and communication among the generality of the populace. However, with the enormity of businesses on the Internet, Tanzania is yet to harness the opportunities for optimal financial gains. This study is exploratory in nature as it attempts to unveil the prospects of ecommerce implementation, participation, motivation and opportunity to the developing countries like Tanzania where by the domestic market is very big to ensure the growth of agricultural sector. The paper proposes to investigate the ability of consumers to purchase online, the available motivation to do so, and the opportunities for Internet access. We argue the Government and central bank to encourage innovative new technological developments by pre-regulating electronic money to familiarize itself with electronic money schemes generally. Findings revealed that Tanzanians have the ability to participate in e-commerce, but there is need for improved national image to bring in the element of trust and discipline within, and before the international communities. Currently, consumers source for information online but make purchases the traditional way