The Use of ICT for Teaching in a Poor Resource Setting

Anandh-Rao Parathnandh

1,2

, Shailendra Sing

, Umesh Lalloo

1,2

Sandy Pillay

1,2

and Nisha Nadesanreddy

1,2

MEPI, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, 779 Umbilio Road, Durban, South Africa

School of Health Sciences, Nelson R School of Medicine, Umbilo, Durban, South Africa

CAPRISA, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, 779 Umbilio Road, Durban, South Africa

Keywords: Microwave, Windows, Mac, OS, MEPI, De-centralised.

Abstract: South Africa, like many countries in Africa is plagued by issues related to lack of bandwidth and in many of

our rural districts there is no infrastructure for any kind of internet connection. One of the key objectives of

the MEPI programme (Medical Education Partnership Initiative) is to be able to conduct de-centralised

teaching to medical students in rural hospitals via video conferencing. These students are normally doing

their community service and have no contact with their lecturers.The role of Computer Education and

Information technology is key to the successful implementation of the UKZN MEPI ENTRÉE programme.

The IT provisioning involves the setup of infrastructure and the rollout of an effective video conferencing

system that would facilitate decentralised teaching and learning. IT. The IT brief also entails the planning

and rollout of an E-Learning platform to further enhance the effectiveness of the programme. Given the

demographic diversity and lack of adequate IT infrastructure to support such and elaborate objective, IT will

have to find innovative ways to overcome these challenges.

1 INTRODUCTION

The ENTREE program plans to use various

innovative strategies to achieve its aims of student

and faculty capacity development and staff retention.

These include the use of an established, validated,

University and Department of Education approved,

postgraduate curriculum in HIV management. This

programme will be adapted for delivery to medical,

nursing and pharmacy students. The plan is to attract

a select group of medical students to concurrently

enrol in a parallel research-driven programme as a

novel approach to developing a cadre of academic

and research staff who are likely to be retained in

and contribute significantly to this field. The

University of KwaZulu-Natal is one of the leading

centres for HIV/AIDS and TB research on the

continent and has been associated with many recent

breakthroughs in both the basic science and clinical

management aspect in the field. It is ideally poised

in achieving the aims of the programme having

already graduated co-registered medical students in

basic science higher degrees. In addition, changes to

the medicine curriculum have seen the acceptance of

many students with a research background into the

undergraduate medical programme which include

both Honours and Masters students. While such

students are a minority, they potentially serve as an

existing cohort in implementing the goals of this

programme.

2 INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGY (ICT), A

TEACHING TOOL

Information and communication technology (ICT) is

now recognised as a rapidly emerging powerful

educational medium with innovative methods to

allow global dissemination of information. (1)

(Taylor et al., 2008). As ICT use expands

particularly in the developing world, an increasing

percentage of the world's population is gaining

access to knowledge resources (2) (Taylor et al.,

2008, Beux and Fieschi, 2007). The number of cell-

phone users in China already exceeds people in the

US. Even Africa is experiencing rapid technological

advancements, now considered the world's fastest

625

Parathnandh A., Sing S., Lalloo U., Pillay S. and Nadesanreddy N..

The Use of ICT for Teaching in a Poor Resource Setting.

DOI: 10.5220/0004979806250628

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (WeLL-2014), pages 625-628

ISBN: 978-989-758-020-8

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

growing mobile telephone market, with a growth

rate of 62.4% per annum (Taylor et al., 2008). The

impact of HIV/AIDS on healthcare workers has been

significant, with increased case burden, treatment of

complex patients and long working hours. Further,

poor pay, poor working conditions, isolation and

lack of educational opportunity serve as contributing

factors to the low appeal of healthcare work as a

career (3)(WHO, 2006). For those already in the

healthcare sector, out-migration accelerates in the

presence of these conditions. The 2006 World

Health Report revealed that non-physician providers

such as nurses and midwives accounted for between

50-90% of all global healthcare provision. In light of

the global nursing shortage, it is unsurprising that

these health workers are easily lured away from

developing nations; a trend likely to accelerate. So

the question arises if ICT could be used as an

adjunct to scale-up human resources in healthcare

and (more importantly) to slow the outflow from

developing nations. The potential avenues for

success in this sector are multiple. The African

Medical Research and Education Foundation

(AMREF) has developed and implemented a

program in Kenya with distance education as a key

component to "train-up" 22,000 nurses within 5

years (4) (Taylor et al., 2008). Geneva University

Hospitals have linked with a network for eHealth in

Africa, to create a low cost distance educational

network incorporating even the most remote central

African rural areas of (Geissbuhler et al., 2007). The

RAFT (Réseau en Afrique Francophone pour la

Télémédecine) program is an example of global

connectivity for Distributed e-learning. Despite

infrastructure challenges and international

bandwidth slower than DSL connections, RAFT,

which initially started in Mali, now extends to 10

French-speaking African countries. RAFT

successfully enables webcasting of video

conferences even at 25 kbits/s; tele-consultations

and the ability of physicians and health providers to

practice outside of the usually earmarked

educational centres. RAFT is an innovative program

having successfully overcome barriers which usually

inhibit delivery of educational materials through

electronic methods in low income resource

constraint settings(5) (Geissbuhler et al., 2007,

Taylor et al., 2008, Bagayoko et al., 2006).

Telemedicine is the delivery of healthcare

services at a distance using communication and

information technologies. It involves secure

transmission of medical data and information, in

multiple formats including image and video for

patient diagnosis and management (6,7) (Elder and

Clarke, 2007, Saliba et al., 2012). Technological

advances have allowed cross-border international

delivery of health care(8) (Helble, 2011). For

example, the ability to transmit high definition

digital images across the world has enabled British

hospitals to have access to specialist radiology

services from Australian radiologists at night

(Helble, 2011, Saliba et al., 2012). Despite this, the

global telemedicine market is expected to grow from

US$9.8 billion in 2010 to US$23 billion in 2015

(7)(Saliba et al., 2012).

2.1 Learning Management Systems

The so-called learning management systems

(LMSs), offers a super ordinate structure to

dedicated content. It provides organised and

structured content to students (or interns), generally

in a modular fashion and used for many different

domains. Often LMSs also provide monitoring tools

of material usage, online evaluation and testing, and

a forum for communication between learners and

teachers. Learning material is posted in a LMS and

personalised classrooms can be generated by each

user. LMSs of universities are focal points for

providing learning material or computer-based

examinations to learners(9) (Mildenberger et al.,

2011). LMSs range from systems for managing

educational records and training, to software for

online or university course distribution using the

Internet with inclusive features for online

collaboration. Tertiary institutions use LMSs to both

deliver and augment on-campus courses. Learning

content management systems are a related

technology focused on the development,

management and publishing of the content to be

delivered via an LMS

2.2 Moodle

Moodle is an open Course Management System and

is commonly referred to as a Learning Management

System. It has become very popular amongst

lecturers and students alike. Moodle (abbreviation

for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning

Environment) is a free open-source e-learning

software platform, also known as a Learning Course

Management System or Virtual Learning

Environment (VLE). Originally developed to help

educators create online courses focusing on

interaction and collaborative content construction,

today it is a platform in continual evolution. The

first version of Moodle was released in August 2002.

As a license-free platform there is no limit to its

CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

626

growth. Institutions can add as many Moodle servers

as required. While the main focus of the Moodle

project is to provide educators with the necessary

tools to manage and promote e-learning, various

methods to use the platform exist. Moodle is

scalable from a few students in a single classroom to

an audience of thousands. Moodle is also used in

blended learning to augment face-to-face courses. Its

interactive platform has chat facilities, databases,

wikis and editable glossaries(10,11) (Wikipedia,

Accessed 10 November 2012, Moodle, Accessed 10

November 2012).

2.3 Objectives of the Research

2.3.1 Primary Objectives

 To demonstrate that an appropriate infrastructure

and method of working improves the outcome of

Medical Students’ studies at the University of

KwaZulu-Natal and the MEPI Project

 Develop and maintain the LMS and Moodle

programs to deliver the MEPI / ENTREE content,

ensuring controlled access and secure content

transmission.

 Integrate MEPI / ENTREE e-learning software

with UKZN IT system and with local departments

/ partners.

 Ensure suitable software integration between

UKZN and Columbia University.

 Develop suitable internet capacity at all clinical

sites.

2.3.2 Secondary Objectives

 To enable MEPI / ENTREE to meet the needs of

learners in the programme

 To support MEPI / ENTREE in the strategic

planning, and process development that is

necessary to underpin their developm

 ent and embedding of e-learning.

 To promote learning research, innovation and

development that begin with a focus on student

learning rather than on developments in

technology per

se, enabling students to learn

through and be supported by technology.

2.4 Results

The results of the MEPI programme and its

innovation for video conferencing have exceeded its

expected outcomes. This is evident in the fact that

primary objective listed above was to provide de-

centralised teaching but it has provided the

university with a resource that has benefited other

departments. Through this innovation patients are

being diagnosed remotely and this happens at least

once per week through video conferencing to

multiple sites.

We have learnt that if we think out of the box it is

possible to innovate and conduct teaching even in

the poorest of areas. These innovations can

sometimes yield results that can benefit a wider

population such as the example above.

This was achieved by:

 Use of microwave technology to replace

conventional methods of connecting.

 Multi point conference unit which can connect to

multiple platforms example Windows, Mac/Ipad

OS, and android devices .

 Recording lectures for those who miss them.

 The use of mobile technology such as cell

phones and tablet PC’s to view teaching were

also unexpected outcomes that the project

delivered.

Figure 1.

3 CONCLUSIONS

We have learnt that if we think creatively it is

possible to innovate and conduct de-centralised

teaching even in the poorest of areas. These

innovations can sometimes yield results that can

benefit a wider population such as the examples

above.

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627

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