Exploring Students’ Factors in Online Teaching during COVID-19 Lockdown from their Lecturers’ Viewpoint and Perspectives

The global community is currently harnessing the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 Education response, to build more resilient education systems. This can effectively be achieved via empirical evidence of the experiences of all stakeholders in education in all nations during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. The purpose of this study was to explore student factors in the lecturers’ experience of their online emergency remote teaching (ERT) in the College of Education, Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria during the COVID-19 lockdown. Using a quantitative descriptive design, the lecturers completed a structured questionnaire about their online ERT experiences. The findings suggest that generally, the students chose the familiar WhatsApp (chat and voice) messaging as against the use of zoom and other platforms for the ERT. Top students’ challenges are:unpreparedness for the ERT.experience of unavailable/unstable network/internet access andinability to purchase enough data.In addition, students lacked:smart phones/laptops/computers,necessary ICT skills, anddid not embrace the ERT, although it engaged them academically during the lockdown.Based on these results and in view of prevalent/imminent lockdown due to emerging new variants of the COVID-19 such as delta and omicron, interventions/strategies for achieving successful and satisfactory online teaching are recommended.

PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF WHATSAPP VOICE MESSAGING: INVESTIGATING EFL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES

Rapid emergence of wireless technologies and ownership of mobile devices have changed many aspects of peoples’ lives. These mobile technologies have been integrated into language learning and teaching as well. Successful and effective use of these technologies in language learning, however, depends on the incorporation of pedagogical principles guided by theories of second language acquisition (SLA). Accordingly, informed by the interaction hypothesis (Gass & Mackey, 2015), this study employed a messaging application, WhatsApp, to help language learners improve their communication skills. Nine A1 level EFL students used WhatsApp voice messaging with their peers outside the classes to accomplish the tasks assigned to them for four weeks in the spring semester of 2018. Later, their experiences were investigated by means of written surveys. Content analysis of the data demonstrated that all the students who took part in the study benefitted from the WhatsApp voice messaging practice and perceived numerous benefits. These included speaking and pronunciation development, an opportunity for language practice, review of previous learning, overcoming shyness, and awareness and correction of errors. The findings were discussed in the light of the existing literature and certain implications arose for both language learners and teachers. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0760/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

WhatsApp audios and the remediation of radio: Disinformation in Brazilian 2018 presidential election

This article brings the results of an investigation into the role of WhatsApp audio messages in the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, proposing that instant voice messaging borrows elements from radio language. We started from a broader research, conducted by the Brazilian National Institute of Science and Technology in Digital Democracy (INCT.DD, in its Portuguese acronym), which identified a network composed of 220 WhatsApp groups – all of them with open-entry links – supporting six different candidates. Those groups put together thousands of anonymized profiles linked through connections to similar groups, configuring an extensive network. More than 1 million messages, including 98,000 audios, were gathered and downloaded during 2018 Brazilian electoral period (from June to October). We focused on eighteen audios with major circulation (totalling 3622 appearances) among the ones shared at least 100 times, which were extracted and analysed. The use of radio content analysis techniques pointed out strong evidence that audio messaging remediate radiophonic elements such as intimacy and colloquial language to accelerate disinformation campaigns.

Carceral-border cinema

The articles in this dossier critically discuss the film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, 2017) and reflect on its creation and response. The film is unique in many ways. It was shot clandestinely on a smartphone; shots were smuggled out of the Manus Island immigration detention centre (which has now been dismantled, but was located on the Lombrum Naval Base and officially called Manus Regional Processing Centre) to Lorengau, the main town on the island, then to Australia, and then sent to the codirector in the Netherlands. One of the filmmakers, Behrouz Boochani, was imprisoned at the time of filming and production, an imprisonment which continues at the time of writing; and the two codirectors have never met—the whole film project was conducted over WhatsApp voice messaging and never with conversations in real time due to poor reception in the prison.

Competition in traditional telecommunications markets and OTT

Purpose – Economic activity is based increasingly on the Internet. This development generates multiple benefits for consumers but also competition challenges for operators and regulatory authorities. Methodology/approach/design – The study considers the recent evolution of the traditional voice, messaging and video telecommunications services, as well as OTT of similar functionality that coexist in the markets with them. Based on the literature review, the degree of substitution and / or complementarity between traditional services and OTT is analyzed from a demand perspective. Findings – No conclusions can be set, as certain conditions of consumption substitution is observed, while in others, complementarity between services. From the perspective of suppliers, there is a certain complementarity that is reflected in a greater number of associations between operators and OTT.

Mobile-Based Nutrition Counseling and Unconditional Cash Transfers for Improving Maternal and Child Nutrition in Bangladesh: Pilot Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Inappropriate feeding practices, inadequate nutrition knowledge, and insufficient access to food are major risk factors for maternal and child undernutrition. There is evidence to suggest that the combination of cash transfer and nutrition education improves child growth. However, a cost-effective delivery platform is needed to achieve complete, population-wide coverage of these interventions. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and perceived appropriateness of an intervention package consisting of voice messaging, direct counseling, and unconditional cash transfers all on a mobile platform for changing perceptions on nutrition during pregnancy and the first year of a child’s life in a poor rural community in Bangladesh. METHODS We conducted a mixed-methods pilot study. We recruited 340 pregnant or recently delivered, lactating women from rural Bangladesh. The intervention consisted of an unconditional cash transfer combined with nutrition counseling, both delivered on a mobile platform. The participants received a mobile phone and BDT 787 per month (US $10). We used a voice messaging service to deliver nutrition-related messages. We provided additional nutrition counseling through a nutrition counselor from a call center. We carried out cross-sectional surveys at baseline and at the end of the study, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews with participants and their family members. RESULTS Approximately 89% (245/275) of participants reported that they were able to operate the mobile phones without much trouble. Charging of the mobile handsets posed some challenges since only approximately 45% (124/275) households in our study had electricity at home. Approximately 26% (72/275) women reported they had charged their mobile phones at their neighbor’s house, while 34% (94/275) reported that they charged it at a marketplace. Less than 10% (22/275) of women reported difficulties understanding the voice messages or direct counseling through mobile phones, while only 3% (8/275) of women reported they had some problems withdrawing cash from the mobile bank agent. Approximately 87% (236/275) women reported spending the cash to purchase food for themselves and their children. CONCLUSIONS The nature of our study precludes any conclusion about the effectiveness of the intervention package. However, the high coverage of our intervention and the positive feedback from the mothers were encouraging and support the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of this program. Further research is needed to determine the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of mobile-based nutrition counseling and unconditional cash transfers in improving maternal and child nutrition in Bangladesh.