Situated Scaffolding for Sustainable Participatory Design

An extensive literature on participatory design with older adults has, thus far, little to say about the support older adults need when involved in online activities. Our research suggests that to empower older adults in participatory design, scaffolding work has to be done. Scaffolding interactions - creating temporary instructional support to help the learning of participants - is a common approach in participatory design. Yet, when applied in online participatory design with older adults, the traditional understanding of the concept does not match the way older adults' learn. Hence, we argue for a new understanding of this term, which we call situated scaffolding. We illustrate our argument with a case where older adults collaborate online as part of a participatory design project. We unpack the different dimensions of situated scaffolding and discuss how this novel understanding can be used to further inform sustainable participatory design for and with older adults.

Isolation, Community and Spirituality: British Muslim Experiences of Ramadan in Lockdown

Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, is typically a time associated with individual worship and communal gatherings as Muslims meet, eat and pray together. In 2020 especially, COVID-19 had a significant impact on the observation of the holy month. With lockdown measures in place, mosques were closed and there were prohibitions on visiting family and friends, making the month an unusual occasion. This paper draws upon qualitative PhD research on Ramadan 2020 in Britain comprising more than 50 Ramadan photo diaries from diverse Muslim participants and follow-up interviews. The findings highlight how participants experienced the benefits of isolation by being able to reflect and connect more with God and via the establishment of “Ramadan corners” in homes, while at the same time missing the mosque and the Muslim community. I further highlight how communal aspects of the holy month were maintained and transformed to suit lockdown conditions, including the use of online activities, praying in congregation at home and sharing food. Emerging from these two facets of Ramadan, I explore ideas of socially dependent spirituality and how participants negotiated communal and individual elements of their spiritual lives. Through the diverse examples discussed, I argue that material, embodied, aesthetic and emotive practices were emphasised in 2020 to recreate a ‘feeling’ of Ramadan when typical expressions of the month were unavailable.

Jordi Casanovas' #Coronavirusplays

The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 and the diffusion of the COVID-19 disease had and still has a huge impact on the world's population. The pandemic has also psychological implications and online activities can help to support people experiencing its consequences. The project COVID-19 LiTraPan aims to contribute to meet the needs that emerged during the pandemic in the field of humanistic higher education and quality assurance of distance learning. The line of research consists of the creation and study of corpora of works inspired and composed during the health emergency, and of their use for distance learning and discomfort management. In the first phase of development of the project, the author's choice fell on the Spanish and Catalan microtheatre production published online as a result of the initiative #Coronvirusplays, launched by the playwright Jordi Casanovas on 13 March 2020, which ran until 8 May 2020. In this contribution, the author synthetizes the first results of the investigation and distance learning activities in the framework of the COVID-19 LiTraPan project.

EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF MS TEAMS IN CONDUCTING WEBINAR: EVIDENCE FROM INTERNATIONAL ONLINE PROGRAM CONDUCTED IN OMAN

The quick adoption of digital platforms in the education sector will always give credit to covid-19. The imposition of lock downs and closure of border as remedial measures forced educational institutes to shift to online platforms for their routine teaching and learning activities. The higher education institutes (HEIs) were found to be more dynamic, as they utilised their online presence in interacting with external members by way of other online activities predominantly webinars. The researchers suggest that online learning will remain to be a vital part of higher education and is going to stay along with other online activities like webinar as it is flexible, accessible, and convenient for the larger section of the students. This study examines the MS team’s platform from the learner’s perspective through technology acceptance model. The 320 responses were gathered from the participants of 22 countries who participated in one-week international webinar organised by two leading HEIs in Oman an online feedback form was analysed through PLS-SEM in SmartPLS 3.3.3. The study aimed to test the degree to which the participants were able to accept MS teams, a popular online learning platform in Oman, as a suitable webinar platform. The results indicate that MS teams is found to be a sufficiently good platform to conduct webinars however, it lags in terms of ease of use or user-friendliness. The study also confirms that attitude towards e-learning influences behavioural intention that subsequently influences the actual use of the platform.

Activities Online and Compulsive Internet Use in Primary School-Aged Children: Whether and How it Has Changed during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

There has been a growing concern among researchers about the use of various information technologies with screens and the Internet by children and adolescents over the past decade. Researchers are concerned that such type of activities can have negative consequences for mental health. Recent studies reveal that Internet use and screen time increased due to the quarantine restrictions, lockdowns and therefore distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims: 1) based on parental reports, to find out the changes in screen time, the online activities and the compulsive Internet use (CIU) of 10-11 years old children during the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic; 2) to determine the links between children’s CIU and the screen time, online activities, children’s gender and their parents’ education. The results of this study showed that screen time was longer and children’s CIU scores were significantly higher in Spring 2020 if to compare to Autumn 2019. Boys were reported to have higher CIU scores than girls. Children’s CIU was significantly predicted by overall screen time and online activities for entertainment, especially when during quarantine.

Back to what? What STEM and Health teaching academics learnt from COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an era of innovation in higher education that was extraordinary both in its scale and suddenness. Our study, carried out in STEM and Health disciplines of a multicampus Victorian university, asked the teaching academics in the eye of this storm to reflect on what they had learnt from this experience. In particular, we asked what had worked, what had not worked, what they planned to retain in their teaching post-COVID-19, and what they would be relieved to discard. Above all, we found the experience of COVID-19 learning and teaching to be highly variegated. Academics reported some online activities which were predominantly successful, others which were predominantly unsuccessful, and still others for which the experience was quite different, depending on the context. Our data suggest that future learning and teaching policy should allow for discipline and cohort nuances and cannot be one-size-fits-all.

Problematic internet use prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic

The health and socio-economic challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have led to greater reliance on the internet to meet basic needs and responsibilities. Greater engagement in online activities may have negative mental and physical health consequences for some vulnerable individuals, particularly under mandatory self-isolation or ‘lockdown’ conditions. The present study investigated whether changes in levels of involvement in online activities during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., watching TV series, online sexual activities, video games, social networks, gambling, online shopping, and instant messaging) were associated with problematic internet use, as well as whether certain psychological risk factors (positive/negative affect and impulsivity) were significant predictors of these changes. A total of 1,275 participants (66.1% female, aged between 18-55 years) completed an online survey while in lockdown in Spain (April 15th-23rd, 2020). The survey assessed current engagement in seven different online activities and their engagement prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as psychological risk factors (affect and impulsivity). Most participants (between 60.8%-98.6% depending on the activity) reported no changes in participation in online activities, but there was a significant increase in weekly internet use (between 25 and 336 min). However, increased internet use was not accompanied by a corresponding increase in problematic use, except for problematic TV series watching and video gaming. Psychological risk factors considered in the study (affect, impulsivity traits) were largely minor or non-significant predictors. Thus, increased internet use during the lockdown in Spain was not related to a proportional growth in problematic usage, suggesting that these behavioral changes may constitute adaptive coping strategies in the context of the pandemic.

Pembelajaran Daring Dengan Keterbatasan Akses Internet di Pelosok Desa Era Covid-19 (Studi Kasus SMK Telkom Medan)

This study aims to find out the problems experienced by some students, especially those who live in remote villages related to limited internet network access during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research uses the activity method with continuing education. The subjects sampled in the study were four students of SMK Telkom Medan who live in four different villages with different conditions of limited internet network access. Based on the findings of the researchers, even though they face obstacles in online learning, they are still enthusiastic and struggle to be able to continue online learning despite their limitations. This is very different for students who live in cities with complete facilities but their learning motivation is very low. Then the online activities of some students who had online problems in remote villages were documented and made videos which were then published through social media and online media so that they hoped to generate learning motivation for other students who live with adequate facilities and infrastructure.

Distribution of residential room patterns while working from home online by anticipating the spread of virus Covid-19 virus (Universitas Budi Luhur Lecturer Houses)

The easy spread of the Covid-19 virus and its fatal effects have caused several Central and Local Governments to reduce activities outside the home including work and school which are replaced with online activities. Lecturers as academics carry out tasks that still have to teach and do Tri Dharma online from home so as to maintain health so as not to infect families but still be productive as a teacher. Based on the formulation of the problem, a descriptive research will be carried out in order to obtain an accurate picture of the field conditions regarding the facts and phenomena being studied. Observations, interviews and data from home owners will form the basis of research and several approaches include non-physical identification and physical identification. The results of this study are to determine the part of the residential room that was developed to anticipate the spread of the Covid 19 virus in the form of implementing health protocols in a residential environment by dividing the rooms of the house and parts of the house that can support work from home.