Framework for Technology-Enriched Active Class Learning of Physics in Secondary Schools in Kenya

Active learning transforms the learning process and activities from tutor focused to learner-cantered and is driven by the learner's learning ability. In other words, active learning provides an opportunity for self-directed learning that enables the learners to engage with the learning materials at personal level and pace. Thus, this chapter argues that active learning can provide equal learning opportunity for every single learner irrespective of the differences in their personality traits that would otherwise affect how they learn. Hence, this chapter proposes a framework for technology-enriched active learning for young learners that provides a personalized learning that deviates from the traditional “fit-for-all” classroom setups that tends to favour only the extrovert students. The proposed framework leverages advancement in technology such as personal learning network, virtual physics labs, massive open online courses, and crowd-sourced expert opinions to provide the learners with just-in-time active learning opportunity.

Impact of ICT Adoption on Small and Medium Enterprises in Ilala District, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

ICT plays a critical role in the growth and development of SMEs. Tanzania is a developing country where small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are perceived as the engine of growth, yet they have not attained the expected level. The adoption of ICT enables the SMEs to be more competitive. ICT plays a very important role in the current knowledge economy. The ICT sector presents a tremendous opportunity for economic growth. If ICT is adopted, it will significantly improve the performance and productivity of SMEs. The problem facing most of the SMEs is partial or non-adoption of technology. They have to adopt ICT in order to remain competitive and be competitive. The study investigates how the adoption of ICT could contribute to the success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), examines impact of information and communication technologies in small and medium enterprises growth and development. Technology acceptance model was adopted by the researcher. The case study and cross-sectional survey research design was used to generate data. This is because with such a design it is easy to collect data in a short period of time from many respondents. The researcher used questionnaires to gather data from SMEs institutions covering Ilala district in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The researcher used the sample size of 82 respondents. Simple random sampling was used in sampling SMEs in Ilala district. The data collected from the survey was analyzed using simple percentage, mean, standard deviation, and regression analysis. The results show that T1 and T3 Pearson's correlation coefficient(r) equals .231*, indicating a strong relationship in terms of correlation. p< .037 and indicates that the coefficient is significantly different from 0. We can conclude that there is correlation between T1 and T3. In particular, it seems that the more the use of computer network it stimulates the growth and development of the SMEs (r = .231, p <.037). Also T1 and T2 Pearson's correlation coefficient(r) equals .196*, indicating a strong relationship in terms of correlation. p< .077 and indicates that the coefficient is significantly different from 0 (r = .196, p <.077). ICT has great potential in the growth and development of SMEs which is still untapped in Ilala district. The adaption of ICT in SMEs business has helped to transform business to another level, sharpen market intelligence, improve efficiency, reduce supply chain from B2C, B2B, and increase customer satisfaction.

The Relevance of Feedback Mechanisms to Library Databases in Academic Libraries

This chapter studies the relevance of the feedback mechanism on the library database in academic libraries. The study is a systematic literature review which uses Kitchenham and Charters methodology. The chapter has three objectives, which are to enumerate the concept of information retrieval and its problems and the relevance of feedback mechanism to the database in academic libraries. The findings indicated that feedback is very important in the information retrieval systems most especially in relation to the database in an academic library. The contributions of this chapter show that the feedback mechanism is relevant to information retrieval. It also creates awareness among librarians of the importance of these mechanisms and encouraged them to seek for a database with these components whenever they want to buy a new database for their various institutions. The chapter, however, recommends further empirical studies on the subject matter.

Adoption of Digital Solutions for Agriculture in Africa

This chapter explores the digital innovations in the financial services sector relevant to sustainable agricultural production, the extent of their availability to the farmers and impact on productivity. It also assesses application of digital solutions on knowledge management and delivery of agricultural extension services to the farmers. Digital transformation in agricultural projects has also been covered in this chapter covering the entire project life cycle; production tasks are currently delivered as projects. Lastly, this chapter also looks at the digital innovations in marketing agricultural products.

Educational Entrepreneurship

From its onset, education has had an integral role in transforming society to become what it is. In fact, developments in society, especially in terms of human capital, have resulted from the nature of education its members have received. In the past two decades, owing to several factors, society has seen a stark transformation in economics and commerce. A major part of this development has offset the sync between education and practice, such that the earlier has fallen behind the latter. The question of institutions producing employable graduates is on the rise as educational institutions fall back in their ability to do so. Harnessing developments and latest advances in technology to carve out efficient human capital could give education a surviving chance.

The Effects of Digitalization on Entrepreneurial Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa

The objective of this study is to show the effects of digitalization on the innovative capability of companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. To meet this objective, the authors used the World Bank data (Enterprise Survey) on survey of service companies and manufacturing industries in 2016. Making use of a binary probit model and a recursive bivariate probit model, they found that digitization has a significant effect on business innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, they found that when a company has a website, its probability of introducing an innovation in to the market increases by 27% as compared to companies without a website. However, when a company has its own website, the probability to introduce an incremental innovation is 0.34 higher than radical innovation. Thus, they can recommend to entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa to invest not only in the digitalization of their companies but also and above all in research and development, which is a translational and inevitable determinant for radical innovation.

E-Commerce

Use of ecommerce technologies have been on the rise in the recent past mostly because they provide access point to the world market competitively and offer a means to which efficiency in the way of conducting business is maintained. Whereas all those benefits sound good and entice so many users to venture into this technology, ecommerce technological trust and security services are on the weighing scale and these two factors are perceived to be the most important factors that affect users' intentions to use ecommerce technologies. Considering the rise of cyber-crime activities in the world and hearing of sad stories of cybercrime offenses particularly in developing countries, this chapter then investigates the challenges of ecommerce and how such challenges have posed serious setbacks in regard to the use and adoption of ecommerce and suggest solutions to curb this challenges for the betterment of global trade and efficiency in way business is conducted through such platform. The recommendations from this study will go a long way to inspires ecommerce technology developers to incorporate secure features that can ensure confidence of use from the users' side.

Digital Remediation of African Folklore

This chapter examines the transformation of oral and written storytelling practices in African folklore industry to online digital platforms. The chapter engages the complexities, limits, and constraints of the stakeholders participatory model as it informs digital storytelling, and applies theoretical tactics to community media and the digital storytelling movement to develop an analytic framework for understanding how these stories can be used to give a voice to the voiceless, raise awareness, increase education, and promote democracy. Folklores serve a descriptive as well as prescriptive role by consistently depicting societal and cultural norms. The increasing usage of new media technologies amongst the producers and audiences of these folklores cannot be ruled out in Africa.

Smart Ideas for Smart City Development

The concept of smart city is a burgeoning strategy that is fast becoming popular as a strategy that will be able to mitigate the problems emanating from the uncontrolled population growth and urbanization. Academicians have turned their attention to the smart city concept, but an in-depth understanding of the concept is still required. There is a dearth of information on the concept and hence the phenomenon is not well understood. This study, therefore, aims to fill the gap in literature regarding smart cities and propose a framework for grasping the concept further. Based on exploratory studies on the concept of smart cities, this chapter focusses on nine key factors that will form the framework for smart cities and the smart cities initiatives. These nine critical factors include the management, organization governance, technology, people, policy, economy, natural environment, built environment, and the implications of big data on smart cities. These factors provide the basis for the development of an integrative framework that can be employed to examine the manner in which governments around the world, including Kenya, are envisioning smart city initiatives. The framework provides the agendas and directions for smart approaches that can be implemented in cities and a road map for the attainment of smart cities.