Evaluation of a breastmilk hand expression toolkit: the M.I.L.K survey study

Background Breastmilk hand expression (BMHE) is recommended to promote lactation, relieve breast engorgement, and collect milk for future infant feedings. Resources to teach this skill are limited and infrequently developed in partnership with the obstetrical population. In collaboration with maternity care experts and individuals with recent breastfeeding experience, we designed a one-page toolkit that describes the process of BMHE and includes step-by-step instructions and images to illustrate the technique. This study aimed to evaluate the readability, clarity of content, layout, and informational value of this BMHE toolkit. Methods Individuals who intended to breastfeed, were currently breastfeeding, or had recently breastfed were electronically surveyed and completed a two-part survey that consisted of radio, multi-select, Likert scale, and open-ended questions. Part one captured sociodemographic factors, obstetrical history, and breastfeeding practices. Part two collected feedback on the BMHE toolkit. Participants were recruited electronically through social media and posters were circulated in antenatal and postnatal care settings in Ottawa, Canada between November 2020 and February 2021. Results Of the 123 participants, 117 (95.1%) had heard of hand expression prior to reviewing the toolkit and 99 (80.5%) had hand expressed before. Among the 48 participants who were no longer exclusively breastfeeding at the time of the survey, 22 (45.8%) had exclusively breastfed their infant for at least six months and 7 (14.6%) had discontinued exclusive breastfeeding within the first month. When asked about the BMHE toolkit, 118 (95.9%) participants said it was informative, 115 (93.5%) said it was easy to understand, and 114 (92.7%) said it was well laid-out. When asked about information seeking behaviours, participants indicated a preference for online resources (58.5%) and video resources (22.0%). Conclusions The BMHE toolkit was well received by participants and the feedback was favourable overall. The survey feedback will be used to create a revised version of the toolkit that has been validated by the obstetrical patient population. Future research should focus on identifying implementation strategies to optimize the use of the toolkit and increase its effectiveness as an educational resource to teach participants correctly BMHE.

An App about Healthy Habits as an Educational Resource during the Pandemic

Educational institutions and their agents play a fundamental role in improving people’s health literacy and quality of life. We intend here to describe and justify an educational resource embodied in an application for mobile devices developed through a subsidized project by the Ministry of Health (Government of Andalusia); the purpose of this app is to educate young people in healthy habits. The application was designed to be easily used in both smartphones and tablets with the aim of achieving good physical, psychological and social health. The project comprises several phases and the results we have so far show that, from an early age, health institutions and educational settings must work in partnership, increasing health literacy levels. This cooperative work combined with the use of this innovative approach presents an important potential for change in the lifestyles of younger generations. This type of intervention took on a special role in the pandemic context, allowing for the maintenance of the educational stimulus in a safe context.

Open Education Co-Design as a Participatory Pedagogy in an Online Graduate Program

This paper builds on student-instructor partnerships by describing how an instructor, students, program coordinator, and members of a research team were involved in the co-design of an open educational resource in a graduate program in education. A four-part open learning design framework was used to guide the course design: (a) clarifying the co-design process; (b) buildingand sharing knowledge, and making thinkingvisible; (c) building relationships; and (d) sustaininglearning beyond the course. The framework, alongwith the collaborative team effort that was part of alarger research project, enabled the developmentof an openly licensed and accessible digital book.The project brought together a collaborative teamwho were passionate about learning more aboutopen education and a small grant supported theadditional expense of professional copyediting torefine the book.

The Implementation of Special Needs School Programs as Resource Center for Inclusive Education in Indonesia

This research is on the Implementation of special needs schools as Resources Center for Inclusive Education in Jakarta, Indonesia. This study aims to determine the implementation of special needs schools as organizers of inclusive educational resource centers. This research was conducted in a special needs school designated as an inclusive education resource center numbering 18 schools in Jakarta. This research uses a qualitative approach. Implementing the special needs schools' program as a resource center for inclusive education illustrates that the condition of inclusive education has not been maximized because there is still a lack of means to support the activities of inclusive educational resource centers. In addition, the need for training on inclusive education for teachers and education personnel becomes important for inclusive schools to do.

Participation in OER Creation: A Trajectory of Values

This paper provides an analysis of interviews with seven faculty members who engaged in creating Open textbooks funded by government grants at a university in Canada in 2018. Using four values—access and equity, community and connection, agency and ownership, and risk and responsibility—identified by Sinkinson (2018), McAndrew (2018), and Keyek-Fransen (2018), we traced the ways in which university faculty members’ understanding of Open changed through the process of Open Educational Resource creation. As a teaching support-focused unit, we explore ways to provide our faculty and instructors with meaningful opportunities to develop their Open pedagogy. These findings reconceive the way that Open Educational Practice can be promoted at our University and others. Instead of focusing solely on OER creation, our faculty started engaging in thinking through the different conceptions of Open educational practice and identifying which concepts resonated with them. By reframing the ways in which faculty thought about Open Educational Practices, we have been better able to address the ways in which we support them.

The Project of Communicative Educational Resource in Russian as a Foreign Language with the Use of V-Learning Technology

The article describes the project structure of an electronic educational resource in Russian as a foreign language which is based on a system of social interaction including a component of virtual simulation of the Russian language environment. The relevance of the study arises from modern trends in the development of communicative language learning and computer technology that provides the need to study and develop new efficient approaches improving the theory and practice of distance learning of Russian as a foreign language. The purpose of the study is to make a theoretical research on drawing up the structure of an electronic educational resource in Russian as a foreign language with the use of a virtual simulator of the Russian language environment as its component. The main methods are observation of modern trends in the development of electronic resources, analysis of research literature, generalization of the authors' empirical experience in the development of prototypes of learning systems based on the technology of virtual worlds and educational and game applications in the Russian language. The research materials are the works of Russian and foreign researchers devoted to the use of virtual reality technology in language learning. In the course of the study, the modern trends in the development of electronic resources were analyzed, and on this basis the basic principles and practical approaches to the formation of an electronic language environment were identified. The study resulted in theoretical and practical provisions considering an electronic educational resource in Russian as a foreign language as a living and self-developing virtual ecosystem. The results can be used to create a communication-oriented electronic educational resource on Russian as a foreign language.

Educational uses of Cartography. An example on the use of GIS to deal with depopulation by skill processes

This paper analyses the use of Cartography made by Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in K 12 education levels with these two objectives:Get students familiar with this type of Geographical representation. Achieve that students get skill learning on Geography and Cartography. To achieve these main objectives, the paper develops and shows some educational resources about depopulation processes in the Spanish region of Aragon. The choice of this topic is based on its cartographical possibilities and to the capacity of these processes to shape land. These educational resources are publicly and freely available to be used with students between 12 and 18 years old.This paper begins justifying the choice of this topic and analysing the pedagogical and educational possibilities of GIS. Second, it is studied the current and past depopulation processes that took place in Aragon, along with the ways of cartographical representation commonly used in education and, the ones used to create these materials, reasoning our choice. Then, the paper describes the materials and resources and provides free downloading links. Fourth, we conclude with the evaluation of the initially proposed objectives, with a focus on the quality and advantages of the use of GIS as educational resource. The paper concludes with some future research suggestions.

SCREEN NOW: a new educational resource for diabetes and eye health

Diabetes retinopathy is a feared complication of diabetes. Anne Phillips describes a new educational resource to explain the need for retinal screening to people living with diabetes and health professionals

Didactic Conditions for the Building and Implementation of Individual Educational Trajectories of Students Using an Interactive Educational Platform

The article discusses the didactic principles and requirements for the design of electronic educational resources. The requirements are supplemented with new principles and conditions that should be observed when designing an electronic educational resource, contributing to improving the quality of education and its individualization. The principles of metered assistance, control of initial knowledge, interactivity, purposefulness, completeness of the provision of educational material on the discipline, optimal and integrated use of modern computer tools, electronic summary have been described. The didactic conditions necessary for the successful operation of an electronic educational resource, the characteristics of internal and external requirements for learning tools have been indicated, the real didactic possibilities of learning tools have been taken into account.