Mobile Voting Systems for Creating Collaboration Environments and Getting Immediate Feedback

Mobile devices can enhance learning and teaching by providing instant feedback and better diagnosis of learning problems, helping design new assessment models, enhancing learner autonomy and creating new formats of enquiry-based activities. The objective of this paper is to investigate the pedagogical impact of mobile voting tools. The authors' research demonstrated that Student Response System (SRS) supported approaches influenced not only lecture design - time management, the mode of material presentation, activity switch patterns - but also learner-teacher interaction, student collaboration and output, formats of activities and tasks. SRS-supported lectures help instructors gradually move towards flipped classrooms and MOOC lecturing. The authors' analysis, based on qualitative and quantitative data collected from two student groups (56 undergraduate students) in the 2012-2013 academic year, showed that SRS supported lectures encouraged foreign language learners to produce more output in the target language, improved their intercultural competence and language skills and enhanced their motivation.

The Changing Face of Assistive Technology

Computer-based Assistive Technology (AT) has had a powerful effect on people with disabilities in the areas of reading, writing, communicating, and accessing information. One of the roadblocks for use has always been the expense of AT. Advancements in computing and mobile technology, however, are making some technology more readily available, accessible, and cost effective for people with disabilities. Computer operating systems, for example, now contain features to magnify screens for reading and in the entering of text. The mobile movement of smartphones, e-readers, and tablets has also been changing the way people with disabilities access information. The capabilities of these devices combined with the immediate availability, affordability, and ease of use, has been making the world more accessible for people with disabilities, and with mobile devices increasingly becoming a necessity for most, this trend is anticipated to only continue.

Medical Education

The notion that the medical professions are grounded in sound social and philosophical commitments to human well-being and advancement is the very foundation of medicine since time in memoriam. Caring is the essential work of all health professionals, since most patients have no medical condition explainable by the mechanistic biomedical model. Health, illness, and disease, and biomedically defined disease distributions in the community follow a Pareto distribution (aka the 80/20 split) (i.e. only a minor percentage require tertiary hospital interventions). This chapter unravels important failures inherent in current medical education approaches – the misconceptions about science, the limitations inherent in the prevailing worldviews, the shaping of attitudes and behaviors resulting from social interactions in health professional institutions, and the impact of the lack of flexibility within health professional institutions. Positing that health is a personal dynamic balanced state, represented through a somato-psycho-socio-semiotic model, is the basis on which principles for a patient-centered educational approach are developed. Such a new curriculum would embrace the complex adaptive systems principle – focusing on the interdependencies between teachers and learners, allowing the curriculum to emerge over the course based on learners' clinical exposures and experiences, fostering a critical engagement with the multifaceted knowledge base of the disciplines, and most importantly, building the necessary resilience for handling, individually and collectively, the emotional demands of caring.

Chances for and Limitations of Brain-Computer Interface use in Elderly People

Recent demographic prognoses show tendencies toward a significant increase in the number of elderly people, especially in developed countries. This makes geriatric therapy, rehabilitation, and care difficult, especially with maintaining as long as possible the highest quality of life and independence in activities of daily living. Lack of specialized personnel and financial shortages may cause increased application of Assistive Technology (AT) and associated control devices. The most advanced current devices for diagnosis, communication, and control purposes are perceived Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). BCIs use brain-derived bioelectrical signals as an input to enable diagnosis, communication, and/or control (e.g. neuroprostheses, medical robots, wheelchairs, whole integrated environments) without any movement. BCIs are regarded as novel solutions offering another breakthrough in everyday life, care, therapy, and rehabilitation in patients with severe sensory and neuropsychological deficits. However, particular issues in the area of BCIs use in elderly people should be emphasized, including influence of neurodegenerative disorders accompanied with secondary changes resulting from other medical problems (e.g. heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and osteoporosis), co-occurence of various drug therapies, etc. This chapter investigates the extent to which the available opportunities are being exploited, including both chances and limitations, medical, technical, psychological, societal, ethical, and legal issues.

Promoting Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Guidelines and Principles through Reflective Journal Assessment

This chapter aims to examine the challenges to, and opportunities for, promoting Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and usability guidelines and principles through reflective journal assessment by information systems students from the Australian and Portuguese higher education sectors. In order to raise students' awareness of HCI and aspects of usability, especially in the Web development process, a new unit was developed by the first researcher called Information Systems 650 (IS650) in Australia. From this unit was derived the Web Site Planning and Development (WSPD) course introduced in Portugal. The reflective journal assessment approach was employed to enhance students' learning and knowledge of HCI and its usability aspects. This study provides empirical evidence from 64 students from Australia and Portugal, based on quantitative and qualitative data derived from three sources: students' formal and informal feedback and an online survey. Students confirmed that the use of reflective journal assessment consolidated their understanding of HCI and usability guidelines and principles and improved their reading, searching, researching, and writing skills, and their proficiency with the endnote software.

Exploring the Potential of Mobile Applications to Support Learning and Engagement in Elementary Classes

Mobile devices have integrated themselves in society where they are used naturally and invisibly by individuals. Despite the fact that these devices are available to teachers and learners, the traditional style of classes is still the dominant style. This research explores the utilization of mobile applications in traditional classroom settings, and how this affects students' learning and engagement. An action research project was conducted in Bahrain to study the differences between the utilization of mobile applications in a classroom setting in a private school, with more technology exposure, and in a public school, with limited technology exposure. The study found that the use of mobile applications in classrooms increased students' engagement despite differences in the utilization of technology. The study also found that integrating mobile applications in classrooms has the potential to enhance students' performance.

Integrating Educational Robotics to Enhance Learning for Gifted and Talented Students

Using educational robotics as a learning tool fosters gifted and talented students' learning, helping to instill the qualities necessary for them to be successful 21st century citizens and innovators who can profoundly affect the future US economy. Educational robotics provides a stimulating hands-on learning environment in which students constantly encounter problems that trigger inquiries, inspiring them to develop new solutions, test them out using the physical robots, and reiterate the process until they successfully solve the problems. Although educational robotics is considered “the most perfect instructional approach currently available” (Gura, 2013, para. 2), just bringing the tool into a classroom does not necessarily create the learning transformation that we wish to witness. The chapter presents the theories behind ideal Robotics in Education (RiE) approaches, introducing tips to ensure effective student learning and to maximize the potential of able students to display giftedness.

Integrating Mobile Learning in an Undergraduate Course

This study investigated students' perceptions towards the affordances and challenges of integrating mobile learning (m-learning) into an undergraduate course. It also examined the impact of students' gender on their perceived affordances and challenges. The relationship between students' perceived affordances and perceived challenges of m-learning was also explored. Questionnaires distributed to 76 students and semi-structured interviews conducted with 17 students were used for collecting data to answer the research questions. The results revealed that students' perceptions towards the affordances of m-learning were particularly positive. They indicated that m-learning can provide an active, flexible, contextualised, and situated learning environment. However, several challenges are associated with m-learning integration. Most notable are: distraction, small device screens, plagiarism, cost, and parents' negative attitudes toward m-learning. The study also revealed that students' gender significantly impacted on the perceived affordances and challenges of m-learning. Finally, a negative significant correlation was found between mobile technology affordances and challenges.

Open Source Applications for Image Visualization and Processing in Neuroimaging Training

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the major role and potential of three of the most powerful open source computerized tools for the advanced processing of medical images, in the study of neuroanatomy. DICOM images were acquired with radiodiagnostic equipment using 1.5 Tesla Magnetic Resonance (MR) images. Images were further processed using the following applications: first, OsiriXTM version 4.0 32 bits for OS; Second, 3D Slicer version 4.3; and finally, MRIcron, version 6. Advanced neuroimaging processing requires two key features: segmentation and three-dimensional or volumetric reconstruction. Examples of identification and reconstruction of some of the most complex neuroimaging elements such vascular ones and tractographies are included in this paper. The three selected applications represent some of the most versatile technologies within the field of medical imaging.

From Image to XML

Page layout analysis and the creation of an XML document from a document image are useful for many applications including the preservation of archived documents, robust electronic access to printed documents, and access to print materials by the visually impaired. In this paper, the authors describe a document image process pipeline comprised of techniques for the identification of article headings and the related body text, the aggregation of the body text with the headings, and the creation of an XML document. The pipeline was developed to support multiple document images captured by the head-mounted cameras of a reading device for the visually impaired. Both automatic and manual adaptations of the pipeline processed a sample of 25 newspaper document images. By comparing the automatic and manual processes, we show that overall our approach generates high-quality XML encoded documents for use in further processing, such as a text-to-speech for the visually impaired.