scholarly journals E-Mail Usage in South Pacific Distance Education

Author(s):  
Jonathan Frank ◽  
Janet Toland ◽  
Karen D. Schenk

The impact of cultural diversity on group interactions through technology is an active research area. Current research has found that a student’s culture appears to influence online interactions with teachers and other students (Freedman & Liu, 1996). Students from Asian and Western cultures have different Web-based learning styles (Liang & McQueen, 1999), and Scandinavian students demonstrate a more restrained online presence compared to their more expressive American counterparts (Bannon, 1995). Differences were also found across cultures in online compared to face-to-face discussions (Warschauer, 1996). Student engagement, discourse, and interaction are valued highly in “western” universities. With growing internationalization of western campuses, increasing use of educational technology both on and off campus, and rising distance learning enrollments, intercultural frictions are bound to increase.

2011 ◽  
pp. 2325-2332
Author(s):  
Jonathan Frank ◽  
Janet Toland ◽  
Karen D. Schenk

The impact of cultural diversity on group interactions through technology is an active research area. Current research has found that a student’s culture appears to influence online interactions with teachers and other students (Freedman & Liu, 1996). Students from Asian and Western cultures have different Web-based learning styles (Liang & McQueen, 1999), and Scandinavian students demonstrate a more restrained online presence compared to their more expressive American counterparts (Bannon, 1995). Differences were also found across cultures in online compared to face-to-face discussions (Warschauer, 1996). Student engagement, discourse, and interaction are valued highly in “western” universities. With growing internationalization of western campuses, increasing use of educational technology both on and off campus, and rising distance learning enrollments, intercultural frictions are bound to increase.


Author(s):  
Janice C. Sipior

The impact of cultural diversity on group interactions through technology is an active research area. Current research has found that a student’s culture appears to influence online interactions with teachers and other students (Freedman & Liu, 1996). Students from Asian and Western cultures have different Web-based learning styles (Liang & McQueen, 1999), and Scandinavian students demonstrate a more restrained online presence compared to their more expressive American counterparts (Bannon, 1995). Differences were also found across cultures in online compared to face-to-face discussions (Warschauer, 1996). Student engagement, discourse, and interaction are valued highly in “western” universities. With growing internationalization of western campuses, increasing use of educational technology both on and off campus, and rising distance learning enrollments, intercultural frictions are bound to increase.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-259
Author(s):  
Syamsul Bahri ◽  
Merta Simbolon ◽  
Abraham Laurens Rettob

Abstract. SMK Negeri 1 Tanah Miring is one of the schools whose lessons have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The main problem faced by teachers at SMKN 1 Tanah Miring is the lack of accessible teaching materials in the learning process, especially online teaching materials during the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this training is to provide knowledge and training to teachers on various types of online teaching materials that can be developed with the web. This training and mentoring are carried out in the form of presentations, training, and mentoring, both through face-to-face and online activities so that at the end of the activity it is hoped that you will know about online learning and various online teaching materials. The results of the evaluation of the activities showed that the majority of the participants, who were all teachers of SMK Negeri 1 Tanah Miring, were very satisfied with the implementation of this activity. However, the results of the evaluation of the impact of these activities indicate that the activities that have been implemented have been ineffective. Even though 88% of teachers managed to have their website address, only 10% of them managed to develop their website content according to the subject they were teaching.Keywords: Online Teaching Materials, Web-Based learning, Learning During the Covid-19 PandemicAbstrak. SMK Negeri 1 Tanah Miring merupakan salah satu sekolah yang pembelajarannya terdampak pandemi Covid-19. Masalah utama yang dihadapi oleh guru di SMKN 1 Tanah Miring adalah minimnya bahan ajar yang dapat diakses dalam proses pembelajaran, khususnya bahan ajar online pada masa pandemi Covid-19 ini. Tujuan pelatihan ini adalah memberikan pengetahuan dan pelatihan kepada guru tentang berbagai jenis bahan ajar online yang dapat dikembangkan dengan web. Pelatihan dan pendampingan ini dilaksanakan dalam bentuk presentasi, pelatihan, dan pendampingan, baik melalui kegiatan tatap muka maupun secara online sehingga pada akhir kegiatan diharapkan sudah memiliki pengetahuan tentang pembelajaran online serta berbagai bahan ajar online. Hasil evaluasi kegiatan menunjukkan bahwa mayoritas peserta kegiatan yang seluruhnya terdiri atas guru SMK Negeri 1 Tanah Miring sangat puas terhadap pelaksanaan kegiatan ini. Hal ini dapat dilihat dari 88% guru yang berhasil memiliki alamat website sendiri. Namun, jika dilakukan evaluasi terhadap dampak kegiatan ini bagi peserta di dalam melaksanakan aktivitasnya di sekolah, hanya 10% dari mereka yang berhasil mengembangkan konten websitenya sesuai dengan mata pelajaran yang diajarkannya. Oleh karena itu, dapat disimpulkan bahwa kegiatan yang telah dilaksanakan tidak efektif.Kata Kunci: Bahan Ajar Online, Pembelajaran Berbasis Web, Pembelajaran Masa Pandemi Covid-19


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 871.2-871
Author(s):  
F. Araujo ◽  
N. Gonçalves ◽  
A. F. Mourão

Background:The outcomes of the infection by the SARS-CoV-2 in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases were largely unknown during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was hypothesized that these patients were at higher risk of morbidity and mortality due to their inherent immune dysfunction and immunosuppressive therapy. Several rheumatology societies issued recommendations urging patients not to stop their anti-rheumatic treatments.Objectives:To assess treatment compliance of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal.Methods:The web-based survey COVIDRA (COVID in RA) was developed to assess the impact of the first wave mandatory confinement in patients with RA focusing on 5 domains: RA symptoms, attitudes towards medication, employment status, physical exercise and mental health. The questionnaire was sent to RA patients through e-mail and social media of the Portuguese Society of Rheumatology and two patient associations; and it was filled locally at two rheumatology centers in Lisbon. Recruitment took place during June and July 2020. Descriptive statistics were generated by the survey software and were afterwards transported and evaluated using appropriate biostatistics software.Results:We obtained 441 valid questionnaires. Most respondents were female (88.4%), caucasian (93.6%), with a mean age of 58 (+/-13) years. The majority (57.6%) had longstanding disease (>10 years) and were treated with csDMARDs (63.2%) and/or bDMARDs/tsDMARDS (23,7%). Only 14% (N=61) discontinued or reduced the dosage or frequency of their RA treatment. Most of these changes were previously planned by the attending physician (27.9%). Only 11 patients (18%) discontinued their immunosuppressive medication out of fear of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 (corresponding to 2.5% of total responders). Another 11 patients did so because they had no prescription, couldn’t go to the community/hospital pharmacy or couldn’t afford the medication. Although these numbers preclude any statistical analysis, when compared to patients who persisted on their treatment, those discontinuing due to fear of contagion were younger (56.4 vs 58.5 years), all female (100 vs 86.8%), with long-lasting disease (≥ 11 years) (90.9% vs 57.5%), more frequently treated with bDMARDs (36.4 vs 23.1%) and presenting more symptoms of depression (54.5 vs 49.7%).Conclusion:Most RA patients complied with their treatment during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Portugal. Only a minority changed their immunosuppressive treatment due to fear of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Very similar rates of immunosuppressive discontinuation due to fear of contagion were reported by other authors (such as Schmeiser et al, Pineda-sic et al and Fragoulis et al).Disclosure of Interests:Filipe Araujo Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Biogen, Novartis, Menarini, Consultant of: MSD, Nuno Gonçalves: None declared, Ana Filipa Mourão: None declared.


Author(s):  
Bella Yigong Zhang ◽  
Mark Chignell

With the rapidly aging population and the rising number of people living with dementia (PLWD), there is an urgent need for programming and activities that can promote the health and wellbeing of PLWD. Due to staffing and budgetary constraints, there is considerable interest in using technology to support this effort. Serious games for dementia have become a very active research area. However, much of the work is being done without a strong theoretical basis. We incorporate a Montessori approach with highly tactile interactions. We have developed a person-centered design framework for serious games for dementia with initial design recommendations. This framework has the potential to facilitate future strategic design and development in the field of serious games for dementia.


Inventions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Kico ◽  
Nikos Grammalidis ◽  
Yiannis Christidis ◽  
Fotis Liarokapis

According to UNESCO, cultural heritage does not only include monuments and collections of objects, but also contains traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed to our descendants. Folk dances represent part of cultural heritage and their preservation for the next generations appears of major importance. Digitization and visualization of folk dances form an increasingly active research area in computer science. In parallel to the rapidly advancing technologies, new ways for learning folk dances are explored, making the digitization and visualization of assorted folk dances for learning purposes using different equipment possible. Along with challenges and limitations, solutions that can assist the learning process and provide the user with meaningful feedback are proposed. In this paper, an overview of the techniques used for the recording of dance moves is presented. The different ways of visualization and giving the feedback to the user are reviewed as well as ways of performance evaluation. This paper reviews advances in digitization and visualization of folk dances from 2000 to 2018.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Sara Alomari ◽  
Mona Alghamdi ◽  
Fahd S. Alotaibi

The auditing services of the outsourced data, especially big data, have been an active research area recently. Many schemes of remotely data auditing (RDA) have been proposed. Both categories of RDA, which are Provable Data Possession (PDP) and Proof of Retrievability (PoR), mostly represent the core schemes for most researchers to derive new schemes that support additional capabilities such as batch and dynamic auditing. In this paper, we choose the most popular PDP schemes to be investigated due to the existence of many PDP techniques which are further improved to achieve efficient integrity verification. We firstly review the work of literature to form the required knowledge about the auditing services and related schemes. Secondly, we specify a methodology to be adhered to attain the research goals. Then, we define each selected PDP scheme and the auditing properties to be used to compare between the chosen schemes. Therefore, we decide, if possible, which scheme is optimal in handling big data auditing.


Optical Character Recognition has been an active research area in computer science for several years. Several research works undertaken on various languages in India. In this paper an attempt has been made to find out the percentage of accuracy in word and character segmentation of Hindi (National language of India) and Odia is one of the Regional Language mostly spoken in Odisha and a few Eastern India states. A comparative article has been published under this article. 10 sets of each printed Odia and Devanagari scripts with different word limits were used in this study. The documents were scanned at 300dpi before adopting pre-processing and segmentation procedure. The result shows that the percentage of accuracy both in word and character segmentation is higher in Odia language as compared to Hindi language. One of the reasons is the use of headers line in Hindi which makes the segmentation process cumbersome. Thus, it can be concluded that the accuracy level can vary from one language to the other and from word segmentation to that of the character segmentation.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulla Hakala

Purpose Listening to the customers has long been a key phrase and success element in product branding. This paper aims to highlight the importance of listening to residents during the branding of a place. The study explores ways of listening to residents to ensure they are heard and also discusses the challenges and benefits related to place branding flowing from having residents participate in decision-making processes. Design/methodology/approach Listening to residents and offering opportunities to participate requires place branders to fully attend to, comprehend and respond to residents’ comments, requests, ideas and feedback. This study reports on how two Nordic cities – Turku and Helsinki – listen to their residents. The data used comprise face-to-face interviews, telephone and e-mail conversations and documentary material. Findings Residents should not be considered as one homogeneous target; participation options and channels should be adapted to the demographics and geographic issues of the different regions and resident groups. Research limitations/implications The role of residents and the importance of listening are crucial features in the emerging concept of inclusive place branding (Kavaratzis et al., 2017); its future conceptual development could benefit from the case examples at hand. Practical implications City authorities should listen to residents and provide them with opportunities to actively contribute to decision-making. Other cities could learn from the examples introduced in the paper. Originality/value This paper documents two Nordic examples of cities putting into practice a policy of listening to the residents, a previously neglected research area.


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