Work-Integrated Learning

Work-integrated learning (WIL) continues to be an essential topic of conversation among governments, educators, employers, and students. By various names and definitions, WIL attempts to inject the realism of workplace employment tasks into the post-secondary learning environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced stakeholders to innovate in the WIL space often using the advances in information and communications technologies (ICT) to build further bridges between learners and real work experiences. The chapter provides an overview of WIL followed by three specifics cases from marketing faculty at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). In each of the three cases, faculty used different ICT to provide engaging learning environments linking business, industry, consumers, and the learners.

Communications Technologies for Smart Grid Applications

Smart grid is a modern power grid infrastructure for improved efficiency, reliability, and safety, with smooth integration of renewable and alternative energy sources, through automated control and modern communications technologies. The smart grid offers several advantages over traditional power grids such as reduced operational costs and opening new markets to utility providers, direct communication with customer premises through advanced metering infrastructure, self-healing in case of power drops or outage, providing security against several types of attacks, and preserving power quality by increasing link quality. Typically, a heterogeneous set of networking technologies is found in the smart grid. In this chapter, smart grid communications technologies along with their advantages and disadvantages are explained. Moreover, research challenges and open research issues are provided.

A Study on PF–IFF-Based Diagnosis Model of Plant Equipment Failure

There are two types of maintenance policies for equipment: breakdown maintenance and preventive maintenance. In the case of applying preventive maintenance, the maintenance is carried out based on time or the condition of the equipment. However, with the development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the data collected from equipment has rapidly increased and the use of Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) to perform appropriate maintenance based on the condition of the equipment is increasing. In this study, based on gathered sensor data, we introduce an approach to diagnosing the condition of the equipment by extracting specific data features related to the types of failures that occur with equipment. To this end, we used the K-means clustering method, support vector machine (SVM) classifier, and Pattern Frequency–Inverse Failure mode Frequency (PF–IFF) method with the Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency (TF–IDF) method. As a case study, we applied the proposed approach to a centrifugal pump and carried out computational experiments for assessing the performance and validity of the proposed approach.

Teachers' Perspective on Personal Learning Environments via Learning Management Systems Platform

In recent years, the landscapes of teaching and learning has changed because of the utilization of information and communications technologies. In this context, the most illustrative innovations are Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). Despite of the LMS and PLEs popularity in ed-ucational contexts as well as the expand set of tools and services that they offer to learners and teachers; they are still in fancy stages. In order to present the challenges Personal Learning Environments were presented; however, it is obvious that PLEs will not replace LMS. Therefore, both types of environments should coexist and interact. In this manner, the current study took teachers’ perspective on integrating the third generation LMS into PLEs. In addition, this study conducted to find out the teachers’ perspective on how the LMS could enhance PLEs in terms of planning before applying the PLE's; designing a framework in the PLE’s; imple-menting the PLEs; interacting in PLEs; managing the learning process through the PLEs and utilizing technolo-gy in PLEs. The participants of the study were 575 teachers who were selected randomly from Saudi Arabia schools. The findings of this study found that teachers must apply a positive teaching approach, holding that knowledge is composed upon student-to-student interaction as well as student-to-teacher interaction. Further-more, this study revealed that teachers must enterprise, deliver, and support K-12 online learning.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) and database- based attendance management system

Effective record and management of students and staff attendance of academic and non academic activities/events are vital for the smooth functioning of the educational system. This is still a difficult task in most institutions, particularly in Nigeria with a large number of staff and students attending different academic and non-academic functions. This is even more difficult to manage when the traditional method of paper and pen is used to record attendance, prone to errors, and in most cases lack integrity due to manual handling of the record. Electronics and Information Communications Technologies (ICT) can be deployed to help mitigate these problems and improve reliability, ease, speed, efficiency, effectiveness, and integrity of recording and managing attendance. In this work, we used Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and database management to provide an alternative solution that addresses issues of objects (humans and non-humans) authentication, authorization, and record management with high accuracy, reliability, and integrity using RFID-Arduino technology. The system works by reading staff’s and/or student’s details stored in a unique RF tag wirelessly through theRF reader and then matched and stored the record in the system’s database. Attendancemarking was achieved by matching the scanned ID with the database record. The system was successfully implemented and tested with 10 students and staff participants with the feature of exporting the records into excel format for statistical analysis and performance evaluation.

Using Browser Data to Understand Desires to Spend Time Online

There is growing recognition that many people feel the need to reduce and/or manage their use of the internet and other digital communications technologies in support of their wellbeing. To understand the role played by various usage factors in desires to regulate time spent online we used Mozilla Firefox browser telemetry to investigate how six metrics pertaining to time spent on the internet and the diversity and intensity of use predict participants’ (n = 8,094) desires to spend more or less time online. Across all six metrics, we did not find evidence for a relationship between browser usage metrics and participants wanting to spend more or less time online, and this finding was robust across various analytical pathways. The study highlights a number of considerations and concerns that need to be addressed in future industry-academia collaborations that draw on trace data or usage telemetry.

COVID-19: Threat or ally in the teaching-learning process in phytopathology?

<p>Preventive confinement against COVID-19 changed the teaching-learning process of the Phytopathology course at the Faculty of Agronomy of the UCR. Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) were integrated into a program called ‘Phytopathology 2020, at the distance but together’. Each student received at her home a box of materials, including culture media and a paper microscope, that allowed her to set up and carry out different phytopathological techniques. The result obtained exceeded expectations and previous results in 16 years of teaching experience. The integration of the family into the educational project was surprising, fostering values of mutual commitment in education and prevention of COVID-19.</p>

Information and communications technologies in library facilities in disadvantaged rural schools in South Africa: Lessons from Limpopo province

Universally, information and communications technologies (ICTs) have revolutionised multiple ways of executing tasks in many sectors. In the education sector, ICTs provide a scaffold to enhance technology-driven teaching and learning information needs of the teachers and learners in a school environment. The aim of the study was to investigate the availability and use of ICTs in library facilities in primary schools in disadvantaged rural communities in Limpopo province, South Africa. The study targeted all 18 primary schools in Lebopo Circuit of Mankweng Cluster. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from teacher-librarians who attended a school library workshop at a local high school. Purposive sampling was employed in the selection of the teacher-librarians and all 18 schools were represented by one teacher-librarian. The findings indicate that there are few ICTs used by the teachers to enhance teaching and learning in different library facilities in disadvantaged rural schools. The study recommends that additional ICTs should be procured by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) for distribution to all schools to mitigate technology-driven information needs of teachers and learners. Furthermore, as vandalism was cited as a challenge in all schools, security needs upgrading to protect the few available ICTs.

The Impact of COVID Pandemic Consequences on Public Demand for Competence Formation in Humanitarian Education

The COVID pandemic has affected all human activity, most of all education. Lockdowns obliterated traditional teaching. Student attitudes towards educational format and content have also changed. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the pandemic consequences on public demand for competence formation in humanitarian education. Gathered through systemic written surveys (Project Tuning methodology) and interviewing the respondents (173 faculty and 322 students), participants to CIES-2020 and PPPMSF-2021 international conferences, the data were systematized, rated and analyzed using the methods of statistical analysis. Consequently, actual public demand for student competences was formulated. Top five choices by the faculty include: 1) ability to adapt to and act in new situation; 2) commitment to safety; 3) ability to search for, process and analyze information; 4) skills in the use of information and communications technologies; 5) ability to evaluate and maintain the quality of work. The student choices differ from faculty prioritizing the abilities: 1) to work autonomously; 2) to design and manage projects; 3) to adapt to and act in new situation; 4) to apply knowledge in practical situations; 5) to work in an international context. The results have shown a statistically significant difference between the public demand prior to the pandemic and after the introduction of social distancing measures. Views of faculty and students on the importance of particular competences have remained divergent, and the specific priorities are changing. One noticeable trend is prioritizing the ability to adapt to new situations by both faculty and students.