#ICT4d Using #mHealth to improve access to family planning and child health services in #Malawi by Limbanazo Kapindula

Limbanazo Kapindula (Twitter: @Limkapin) has come to ITM to help us out in setting up a mobile diabetic project (will report on this later) in Cambodia, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He comes all the way from Malawi where he was involved in three 5 year projects with Management Sciences for Health, they all came to an end in September 2011 (5 year projects). This is a short synopsis of his presentation.

Limbanazo is an IT expert, and he gave the mobile phone training to people who had never used mobile phones before.

Challenges in Malawi

Challenging infant mortality rates (69/1000 children die in the first year) and only 40% of women in Malawi had access to family planning services.

So how can the access to care be increased? How can community workers be helped?

Targeted people:

Health surveillance agents,

Community based distribution agents providing oral contraceptives HIV/AIDS.

13 of the 28 Malawi districts were targeted.

Innovation: community health care using mobile technology

Use of simple mobile phones for electronic reporting and other important communication

To help 2000 CHW (Community Health Workers) what was needed was:

Report in timely way

Get support during emergencies

Request and receive remote technical support

Refer clients/patients for secondary care

Key issues to make it successful

Training to all the users

Technical support to all

Involve the stakeholders (telecom, ministry of health…)

Planning the backup (data backup for future support).

How this mHealth project was set-up

A network between central computers that are connected via USB modems for data transfer, connected with Frontline Medic sms (enables bulk message interactions between a central location and people across any region, setting up forms, connect to patient database).

It was a simple application, so simple that it could be learned from a manual. It took three months to fit the project to the scientific demands of the researchers (java reader, specified forms), but the actual use was really easy thanks to this pre-project input, nevertheless there were some people who simply were not able to cope with the technology and they dropped out due to the pressure to keep reporting (those were mainly part of the community based distribution agents, which are volunteers).

Over 12000 text messages captured using the system within 8 months (WAW!!!).

50% of the messages was on technical information, 35% on patient reports (this division was connected to the startup of the project, dialogues between health care workers). These distinctions in the mobile communication could be recorded because they used keywords for specific communications.

Cost was a main concern for the government, after taking into account all the data, the project showed that with only 10 cents a child’s life could be saved.

If you are interested in setting up a mobile project in any region that is based on simple phones, contact Limbanazo who has all this expertise. Or take a look at the program that was used and check it out yourself.

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Help the world in #education and #ICT4D by winning prizes and let the community decide

A consortium involving Nokia, the Pearson Foundation and UNESCO have launched an “Education for All” crowdsouring challenge: “an eight-month initiative to elicit suggestions on how mobile communication can help achieve EFA goals.”.  The aim is to develop suggestions emerging from an interaction between education experts, teachers, parents, students and software developers. Each month will feature a separate EFA goal. The first month is devoted to finding solutions on how mobile communication can help achieve literacy. Prizes will be awarded monthly to the best ideas, chosen by a panel of judges.Monthly smart phone prizes will be awarded to the best ideas recognized by the panel of judges. The best ideas will be published and celebrated also in the UNESCO websites to explain their proposal in further detail and to encourage the development of the ideas into concrete projects.

How to participate?

Participating is extremely easy. Just visit the EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge website, select the appropriate EFA goal, and then click on the ‘Create an Idea’ link. (You will need to register first)

What are the upcoming challenges (European date format):

10/10/2011 - Start of EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge and launch of Literacy goal
10/11/2011 - Launch of Access to Universal Primary Education goal
09/12/2011 - Launch of Life Skills & Lifelong Learning goal
10/02/2011 - Launch of Quality of Education goal
09/03/2011 - Launch of Gender Equality in Education goal
10/04/2011 - Launch of Early Childhood Care and Development
31/05/2011 - End of EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge.

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Adults should think more like babies, as a babies brain is the most powerful #learning computer with amazing #cognitive skills

Informal learning is one of the key topics in this knowledge era. We all use it, and informal learning comes as natural to us human beings as eating. If this quest for knowledge is rooted in each one of us, it starts from the moment we are babies.

Ever since I became a parent (four months and a half now) I have been wondering at times why I put in that much effort into this small baby that barely gave me any signal of recognition in the beginning. But although I did wonder about that from time to time, I kept/keep giving; telling myself that it will pay in the long run. But at times – especially when he has one of his more difficult days – I just think, babies grow up no matter what I do, so why should I invest my precious time anyway!!! *angry, unreasonable fit*. It is on those moments that my learning network can come up with answers that south my soul, telling me it does make a difference and that no matter how intense raising a baby can be at times, investing and nurturing life is the best option no matter what.

Luckily for my son, my partner is the one really giving at this moment – at home 24/7. Always there, almost always patient and with a remarkable – truly remarkable – sense for stimulating the cognitive brain of our preciously young baby (she’s a teacher at heart). Learning him to grab, crawl, speak on the basis of a never relentless stream of examples and motivational acknowledgment when our son takes action.

Alison Gopnik was the one enlightening me this October morning. She works on the subject of cognitive development and draws on psychological, neuroscientific and philosophical works to create and prove her own research findings. She is a professor at Berkeley.

In this 18 minute session on the cognitive characteristics of babies and preschool children Alison says:

How is it possible that babies know so much more then we think they do?

The answer lies in evolution. There is a relationship between the duration of the childhood of a species and how big the brain is of that species. Crows, rooks… are very smart birds (like chimps), they have a longer lasting childhood than for example chickens. And when looking at these two species the crows are much capable of solving complex dilemma’s then chickens.

So the duration of childhood is the connection to knowledge and learning. This also means that evolution had to come up with a solution to allow learning to happen along many years before autonomy steps in. This might be why children are so dependent for such a long time (in general and looking at western society).

A revolution has been taken place in the understanding of our brains and how it evolves. This is based on findings of reverent Bayes on machine learning (based on probability theory) and started from why scientists come to results, and he put it in a mathematical model.Babies use the same mathematical model: babies make complicated mathematical equations that allow them to distill how the world works. To proof this hypothesis, Alison did some simple preschool statistic tests (with four year old's). In a short time, the 4 year old's found the correct probability measure, and they use these results to shape their world. The interesting thing here is that 4 year old's actually are better at finding improbable theories than adults do (GREAT stuff!).

Children actually do experimental research, but it is called ‘playing’.

Adult cognition is different from child’s cognition, as the adults are much less open, very focused, purposed driven span of attention. Children are less focused, but more open, holistic information intake. So they are flooded by synapse dynamics.

Until you have done all that learning, you are vulnerable. Evolution enables us to learn.

At times adults consciousness can expand and meeting the children’s consciousness: this happens when we are in a completely new situation (in love in Paris after 3 double espresso’s).

So if we – as humans want to achieve the openness of mind that will enable us to come up with new hypothesis in a matter of instants, we – as adults need to think more like children again.  

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#Change11 #MOOC a great audio slide presentation about connected knowledge and collective learning

The Mother of all Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the so called Change11 is well on its way and the course keeps generating amazingly good content. The latest slidecast is offered by Allison Littlejohn director at the Caledonian Academy and she talks about Connected Knowledge and Collective Learning. The really interesting part here is that she does not only describe what it is, but also how we - as members of the contemporary knowledge society - can learn (or should I say better learn?) to cope with the abundance of content that is created.

Connected Knowledge, collective learning

View another webinar from caledonianacademy

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free #mLearning journal iJIM new issue published

This is a nice mLeanring journal to send your papers to (short and full papers). Great new issue with topics on mobile gaming, mobile collaborative learning design, mobile learning performance support, language learning and other. At the end you can also find two calls for papers, one is for a special issue of iJIM on the topic of VANETS (combination social computing and cars/vehicles).

International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM) has just published its latest issue at http://www.i-jim.org. We invite you to have a look at the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to read articles and items of interest.

*International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM)* Volume 5, Issue 4 (2011)

*Table of Contents*

-------------------

*Papers*

***Mobile Tourist Guide – An Intelligent Wireless System to Improve Tourism, using Semantic Web (Hosam El-Sofany, Samir Abou El-Seoud)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1695

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1695

***How to Improve the Accessibility and Reduce the  Total Cost of Ownership with Ecolig Protocol and Android in Mobile Learning (Samira Muhammad Ismail, Paulo Victor De Oliveira Miguel, Gilmar Barreto)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1648

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1648

***The Effectiveness of Mobile Learning in the Form of Performance Support System in Higher Education (Nevena Mileva)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1692

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1692

***Leaner Open Modeling in Adaptive Mobile Learning System for Supporting Student to Learn English (Viet Anh Nguyen, Van Cong Pham)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1789

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1789

***Using Mobile Devices and Gaming as a Means of Building Vocabulary (Jennifer Betsy Redd, Denise Schmidt)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1683

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1683

*Short Papers*

***GPS Navigation and Tracking Device

(Yahya Salameh Khraisat, Mohammad Al-Khateeb, Yahya Abu-Alreesh, Anas Ayyash, Osama Lahlouh)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1781

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1781

***Developing Mobile Collaborative Learning Applications for Mobile Users (Kwang B Lee)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1823

--> http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v5i4.1823

*Calls*

***International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace - ICELW2012 (Call For Papers)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1826

***Special Issue iJIM "VANETS"

(Call For Papers)

--> http://online-journals.org/i-jim/article/view/1827

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Blogphilosophy: Do I/we act upon Steve @Jobs’ words or am I only nodding but not acting for #change?

There is something that happens when people get their death certificate. When Steve Jobs addressed the Stanford students (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc) he got a lot of one-liners out: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life” and “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. Stay hungry. Stay foolish”. A lot of us nodded when we heard those words and we think “yes man!” but do we act upon this call for action? Do I act upon it, or do I simply keep seated in my chair, behind the same desk I have seen for 5 consecutive years? Do I take what I have learned in these past few years and move towards a new, personal knowledge action goal? Will I live my life? Will you?

Randy Pausch had the same urgency to get some meaningful thoughts out there, when he knew he was on the verge of dying (see his last lecture here http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/). His main idea was, never accept a NO for an answer and to live your dreams. He dreamed and through his actions he created, just like Steve Jobs did. Do I live my dream? Was my dream to listen to others simply because this keeps me in a safe place? Or do I act upon the nod I gave when I heard Randy Pausche’s speech?

The thing is, I am a nice person. I want to be nice, friendliness does not come natural to me, it is a choice. The only thing is, I am beginning to wonder whether this choice was/is not merely an excuse not to step on anyone’s toes… maybe I deluded myself that nice would keep me safe from harm and it would get me somewhere. Being nice, simply keeps me in a non-threatening space, but then… non-threatening spaces never got my mind into a mental high. Am I really happy to live without a higher goal? To simply earn enough money to make my life comfortable? Thinking about this makes me feel so … grey, so part of a grey, robotic like commuting group… I cannot help myself to remember the movie Brazil, in which bureaucracy is so well depicted. Shifting papers in the illusion to be part of something bigger… but when the boss no longer looks, shift to bread and games for comfort.

So who am I? I am in the mainstream, working for a company whose major focus is not on education, but on health research which is a wonderful thing, but ... unless you are a doctor, I will not move beyond a certain echelon. I travel to conferences at occasions, giving speeches which I like… but I have the feeling I never move beyond this mainstream flow of consciousness, however, my heart and head want to, they are hungry for it. At times – in the past - I got myself out there on a limb and … that felt good. But the last few years I seem to have lost the courage (not the urge!) to position myself out there on the edge. I feel that if I stay at this mainstream space that I build for myself, I will never accomplish anything which will satisfy my heart and soul… dying soulless is not something to look forward to.

The only thing is: what would be meaningful in learning? What do I belief that needs to be changed? Or is this question yet again a simple excuse, whispered in my ear by the demon that wants to keep me in the same place, for years, so change would never happen? How are your demons doing after thinking about death, after listening to Steve Jobs?

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5 Calls for #papers or #proposals on #elearning and #mLearning mix of corporate and #academic

When calls for papers enter my mailbox, I organize them and ... I decided to share them on a regular basis (lets say once a month), hoping to meet up with this wonderful eLearning network that roams the globe.

Learning Solutions conference and expo (big conference)

When:  March 21-23, 2012
Where: Orlando, Florida

Deadline for submissions: 14 October 2011

Read the submission instructions and submit your proposal today.

Call for Research proposals on ICT4D from SIRCA II

When and where: A Grant for 18 months, you need to live in the country for which you put in a proposal.

Deadline for interest registration: October 14, 2011
Deadline for proposal submission: November 1, 2011

More information: www.sirca.org.sg

Proposals for research projects on Information Societies and Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) carried out in the Global South will be accepted.

Pre-application Registration
Applicants must register by October 14, 2011 via email at sirca2@ntu.ed.sg prior to submitting a proposal application.
The email subject header should read “SIRCA II Registration”, and the body should include the following details:
• Full Name of Principal Investigator
• (Tentative) Research Title (this can be changed at the time of fi lling in online application form)
• Country of Research

The 3rd International Conference on Education, Training and Informatics: ICETI 2012
More information(www.2012iiisconferences.org/iceti)

Where: Orlando, Florida, USA

When: 25 - 28 March 2012

Deadline for submissions: 26th October 2011.

 Submissions for *Face-to-Face* or for *Virtual* Participation are both accepted. Both kinds of submissions will have the same reviewing process and the accepted papers will be included in the same proceedings.

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE MOBILE LEARNING 2012

Where: Berlin, Germany, 

When: 11 to 13 March 2012

Deadline for submissions: 28 October 2011

Focus: mLearning, more info: (http://www.mlearning-conf.org/) 

eLearning Africa 2012

Where: Benin at Le Palais des Congrès de Cotonou
When: May 23rd to 25th 2012
Deadline for submissions: 9 December 2011
The focus of eLA 2012 will be on education, development and sustainability. For more information on the specific themes, please click here. Details about the Call for Papers 2012, such as information on submission requirements and deadlines, session formats, as well as the proposal forms can be accessed here.

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