how mobile learning and social media can support learners and health professionals in “low...

How mobile learning and social media can support learners and health professionals in “low resource settings”

Christoph Pimmer, HSW, FHNW

www.londonmobilelearning.net

The London Mobile Learning Group

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Health and Medical Education & Millennium Development Goals

Poor education of carers and health professionals

Inadequately skilled health staff is seen as a typical system constraint that negatively impacts on the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (Travis et al., 2004)

Lack of basic knowledge

Little progress in meeting the information needs of frontline healthcare providers and ordinary citizens in low resource settings. (Smith & Koehlmoos, 2011)

For example: 3 in 4 doctors caring for sick children in district hospitals in Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda had poor basic knowledge of leading causes of child death (HIFA Report, 2010)

University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland

Great hopes

Technology might take a crucial role in improving education and practice of health workers (Pakenham-Walsh, Priestley, & Smith, 1997)

Increasing number: 4.7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions in 2009 (The World Bank, 2011)

Techno-centric approaches

“We will literally take tablets and drop them out of helicopters," and return a year later to see if the effort was a success” Negroponte

Poor results to date

Projects have not met the expectations to date (Kraemer, Dedrick, & Sharma, 2009)

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Role and Potential of Technology

Mobile Learning – another perspective

Learners are making mobile technology their own for and through:

meaning-making identity formation social interaction learning in informal contexts

University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland 6

Findings from a Study in Nepal

How medical students appropriate mobile phones in one of the world’s poorest countries

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Students appropriated mobiles - three main practices

1) Search for ad-hoc information

I use it during my postings […]When I am in the OP for example I don’t have the book so I go to the mobile. (Group 1)

2) Documentation and sharing of images and videos

If I see any good case I […] take a picture with my mobile. (Group 4)

[…] to flat mates. “This is the case I have seen.” […] The whole batch gets it. […] We proudly show it to the others. (Group 4)

3) Access to social networking sites

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool

Teachers

Facebook is a good medium to share much medical information”.

Students:

“A group “Medical profession, I love it.” That’s a group. I’m part of the group. […] It’s created by our seniors [senior doctors]


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Facebook: explicit forms of educational content (1)

Facebook community: «Medical Profession, wow I love it»

34529 members & 3078 FB users are talking about this (17.11.2011)

Regional scope on Nepal and India

Quizzes with open and closed questions:


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Mini-Cases:


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Electronic Books and Videos:


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Facebook: negotiation of professional identities and occupational status


Jokes as an expression of

professional identity

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Your money or your life!

Look, I’m a doctor

I have no money and no life!

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Some conclusions

MOBILE DEVICES facilitate … Situated & informal learning by linking information sources ‘ad-hoc’ to learning Cross-contextual learning by capturing and carrying learning into new situations

MOBILE DEVICES AND SOCIAL MEDIA ... Enable participation and by engaging in international professional communities. Allow for deliberate engagement with explicit forms of educational content Permit announcement and negotiation of professional identities Foster knowledge created ‘bottom up’ and not distributed by central authorities



But – need for further research

Ethical, legal and privacy issues and a number of pedagogical limitations.

Over-hasty claims regarding the more systematic use or the integration of such informal (e-)learning in formal educational settings to support education and health in developing countries should be avoided. Instead, more systematic research is needed.


References:

Pimmer, C., Linxen, S., & Gröhbiel, U. (under review). Facebook as a learning tool? A case study on the appropriation of social network sites along with mobile phones in developing countries. British Journal of Educational Technology.

Pimmer, C., Linxen, S., Gröhbiel, U., Jha, A., & Burg, G. (under review). Medical education and e-learning in developing countries: The role of mobile technology for informal learning in resource-limited environments.


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Acknowledgements

The work presented was supported by the SDC, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the KFH, the Rector’s Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences.

Grateful thanks also go to our Swiss and Nepalese research partners, and the study participants, students and teachers, for the insightful interviews and their critical feedback.
