Mobile Phone Applications

This book is a representation of the activities, which were recognised as essential components to consider, when implementing a certain ICT4D initiative in a resource constraint area in the poorest province of South Africa which is faced with significant educational challenges. This initiative was coined the ICT4RED initiative and was a research, development, innovation and implementation project that changed the way in which teachers teach with technology in their specific context over a period of 3 years (2012-2015).

StuRevu's mission is to allow current students and graduates to provide advice to prospective students and feedback to Educational Institutions. The aim is to provide this functionality through the means of an Android App. The main problems StuRevu is attempting to address are the student dropout rates in third level education and the lack of awareness of the differences in graduate unemployment rates between different graduate employment areas. These can be caused by a lack of information available to prospective students regarding their chosen college or course. StuRevu will strive to help solve these problems by creating a central, independent database of advice and information. It will basically facilitate peer recommendations in the education market and may evolve into a communication/CRM tool for the education community to more closely connect staff, students and alumni.

The use of digital technologies in the agro-food sector is growing worldwide, and applications in the urban and regional food systems represent a relevant segment of such growth. The present paper aims at reviewing the literature on which and how digital technologies support urban and regional agro-food purchasing and consumption, as well as their characteristics. Data collection was performed on Scopus and Web of Science. Articles were selected using a research string and according to specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow approach was adopted to explain data screening and selection. The 57 resulting studies were included in the final qualitative analysis, which explored the characteristics of the research studies and of the digital technologies analysed. Most of the studies analysed concerned the implications of digital technologies on local food consumption, especially focusing on consumption...

Learning in the affective domain includes the manner by which people deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations and attitudes. While out-of-class communication between instructors and students can impact all types of student learning it has its greatest impact on student affective learning. One of the primary reasons for this is that the out-of-class communication enhances student perception of instructor immediacy. Immediacy is defined as behaviour which increases psychological closeness between communicators. Research studies in instructional communication suggest that enhanced instructor immediacy is linked to more positive student-instructor relationships engendering positive attitudes, increased interest and motivation by students as well as improved attendance, retention, engagement and learning. A year-long research study was conducted into the use of text messaging for out-of-class communication and its effects on student perception of instructor immediacy. Both quantitative measures of immediacy and qualitative feedback from students show that the instructor is perceived as closer, more approachable and responsive when text messaging services are offered. The student feedback also reveals that the use of text messaging has other positive effects on student affective learning, including enhanced motivation and engagement.

Mobile digital literacy skills development as part of digital inclusion is compellingly relevant but exactly what the curriculum should contain is less evident. In this paper, we report on the development of a mobile digital literacy skills development curriculum for teachers using a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. The use of design science research for curriculum development is not common but appropriate where the relevance cycle ensured engagement with the needs of the community while the rigor cycle guided the evaluations by other stakeholders.  The main contribution of this paper is the mobile digital literacy skills development curriculum as artifact. Furthermore, the paper provides insights gained on using the DSR methodology for community informatics research

Mobile phone access has grown exponentially, transforming access to information and communication in Africa. Mobile phone penetration has increased dramatically across the urban-rural, rich-poor and literate-illiterate divides, which other technologies failed to bridge. The number of mobile phone subscriptions grew astronomically, from less than two million in 1998 to more than 620 million subscribers in Africa (Carmody, 2012). Internet users grew 85fold from 4.5m users in 2000 to over 388m users in Africa at a rate higher than any other region (Internetworldstas, 2018). Global mobile app downloads have reached 175 billion in 2017, generating more than $85 billion, yet most African countries possess an insignificant share of this, due to low literacy levels, low economic opportunities and an infrastructure that is still developing (The Guardian, 2014; Perez, 2018). The growing presence of mobile phones must be harnessed to enhance access to socioeconomic information, in order to improve standards of life in the global south. Scholars and communication enthusiasts have argued that simply providing access to the internet, without considering the relevance of content, will not change the fortunes of rural communities (Internet.org, 2014; GSMA, 2015). There is the need to provide localised and relevant content-such as local news, market prices and bus timetables-to these communities. This research resonates with Goal 9 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which seeks to increase access to information and communication technology, and provide universal and affordable access to the internet in least developed countries by 2020 (UN, 2016). In Zimbabwe, radio and television are basic technologies used for disseminating socioeconomic information, yet most of the rural communities have no access to radio and television signals, 37 years after independence. Rural mobile phone ownership is about 80%, and broadband penetration is 46.5% (ITU, 2013). In addition, Zimbabwe's average rural literacy is about 90%. These two factors-high rural literacy levels and high rural mobile phone ownership-motivated the researcher to develop a mobile phone application prototype that could be utilised by rural communities to enhance their access to socioeconomic development information that could, in turn, anchor sustainable development. The mobile phone application prototype has the potential to provide a new platform for accessing socioeconomic development information in the rural areas of Zimbabwe, including information on agriculture, health, community activities, education and the markets, plus local and national news. These can all promote sustainable development. The study followed a seven-cycle design science research methodology, from problem identification to communicating the utility of the aertefact which guided the development of the mobile phone application (Hevner, 2007). The development of the prototype followed a user-centred design, as well user experience, where high-fidelity prototypes were presented to participants selected through a random sample to be part of the development process. This process is iterative, incorporating user feedback and redesign of the prototype until the users and developers agree on the design. After designing the prototype, participants were randomly selected to evaluate the mobile phone application prototype using an adapted TAM2, whose main constructs relate to perceived usefulness and ease of use (Davis, 1989).

This study investigates the use of interactive media (WhatsApp) by Bahraini women to understand their decisions on how, why and when they use it. It supports the use of mobile technology applications to expand efficient communication and information among Arab women. Mobile technologies are very accessible to Arab women these days. A sample of 1,137 responses was collected, using a snowball sampling approach. Based on TAM literature, the study found that interactive media (e.g., WhatsApp) has enabled Bahraini women to communicate and share information with others. WhatsApp was used daily (2-3 hours) and also for sending comics and entertainment clips, important and rare news stories. Social interaction, communication, and escapism were found to be the most popular reasons for using WhatsApp. Overall, WhatsApp served as a platform used by Bahraini women to participate in social and communication activities.

Traditionally, mobile media sharing and messaging has been studied from the perspective of an individual author making media available to other users. With the aim of supporting spectator groups at large-scale events, we devel-oped a messaging application for camera phones with the idea of collectively created albums called Media Stories. The field trial at a rally competition pointed out the collec-tive and participative practices involved in the creation and sense-making of media, challenging the view of individual authorship. Members contributed actively to producing chains of messages in Media Stories, with more than half of the members as authors on average in each story. Observa-tions indicate the centrality of collocated viewing and crea-tion in the use of media. Design implications include pro-viding a “common space ” and possibilities of creating col-lective objects, adding features that enrich collocated col-lective use, and supporting the active construction of awareness ...

This paper describes a decision tree (DT) based pedometer algorithm and its implementation on Android. The DT- based pedometer can classify 3 gait patterns, including walking on level ground (WLG), up stairs (WUS) and down stairs (WDS). It can discard irrelevant motion and count user’s steps accurately. The overall classification accuracy is 89.4%. Accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetic field sensors are used in the device. When user puts his/her smart phone into the pocket, the pedometer can automatically count steps of different gait patterns. Two methods are tested to map the acceleration from mobile phone’s reference frame to the direction of gravity. Two significant features are employed to classify different gait patterns.