A Proposal of Mobile System to Support Scenario ... - Science Direct

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ScienceDirect Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 1142 – 1148

CENTERIS 2013 - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN 2013 International Conference on Project MANagement / HCIST 2013 - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies

A proposal of mobile system to support scenario-based learning for health promotion Júlio Menezes Jra,*, Cristine Gusmãoa,b, Josiane Machiavellia a

S@BER: Tecnologias Educacionais e Sociais Research Group, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brazil Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Biomédica, Centro de Tecnologia e Geociências (CTG), Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brazil

b

Abstract Nowadays there is a great demand of qualified health professionals and a great lack of the population access to health services. One way to reduce this gap is by actions of continuing education. With the usage of mobile devices, the access to information is easily increased, but there is still a lack of appropriate pedagogical strategies that support this trend. In this context, this paper presents a scenario-based mobile solution, whose main goal is to promote health through the usage of interactive communities associated to learning objects and activities. © 2013 The Published by by Elsevier access under CC BY-NC-ND license. ©Authors 2013 Published ElsevierLtd. Ltd.Open Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SCIKA – Association for Promotion and Dissemination of CENTERIS/ProjMAN/HCIST. Scientific Knowledge Keywords: Scenario-based;Mobile health; E-learning; Gamification.

1. Introduction An important aspect in the definition of actions of continuing education consists, in a systematized way, on the integration between research and learning. The research is represented by the development of innovative technologies whereas the learning is represented by the exchange of knowledge and the definition of appropriate teaching strategies. In the context of public health, there are several possibilities due to: i) high demand of skilled professionals and health services in several locations and ii) need of the development of actions of education to the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 81 2126 3840. E-mail address: [email protected].

2212-0173 © 2013 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SCIKA – Association for Promotion and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2013.12.127

Júlio Menezes Jr et al. / Procedia Technology 9 (2013) 1142 – 1148

population. The distance education achieved a considerable growth in recent years. This expansion is realized with the recent accession of famous universities around the globe, such as University of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which today allow that students from everywhere perform courses at a low cost [1]. On the other hand, with the expansion of the distance education, there is a need of to revise the pedagogical strategies and their adherence to technologies used as a mean of propagation and dissemination of knowledge. This issue is especially relevant with the expansion of mobile technologies, which enables the usage of different resources in the aspect of user interaction. Considering the technological context on education, we can identify a set of possibilities through the usage of virtual learning environments for web or mobile – smartphones or tablets. A strategy that allows the integration between technological and pedagogical innovation is virtual scenarios, whose objective is to describe situations and activities associated by playful elements. In this context, this paper describes a proposal of a mobile application that approach the usage of scenarios to support the distance learning of health professionals and the population in general. The focus of the proposal is primary healthcare and health promotion. For better understanding, the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents main concepts and motivations; Section 3 shows the system proposal, design and main functionalities; finally, Section 4 draws some conclusions and ongoing work. 2. Background This section presents the main concepts used to design the system proposal: Mobile Health, Health Promotion, Scenario-based learning and Gamification. 2.1. Mobile Health Mobile health (or mHealth) is a term used for the practice of medicine and public healthcare supported by mobile devices – such as smartphones and tablets. MHealth emerged as a sub-segment of e-Health, which consists on the usage of information technology and communication to assist healthcare services [2]. Applications of mHealth can include: the usage of mobile devices for clinical data collection and community health; the provision of healthcare information for professionals, researchers and patients; and the direct provision of telemedicine services [3]. Some benefits of the usage of mHealth are: i) ease of access and updating of information, ii) effective usage of evidence-based medicine, iii) better usage of decision-support systems, iv) reducing of errors and inconsistencies, v) the usage of mobile applications as a learning tool to students and professionals, and others [4]. The usage of mobile devices as a learning tool in public health contributes to the reduction of social costs, because it allows the educational process without the removal of the professional from the work environment for training [5]. This practice has been seen as facilitator of the distance learning [6,7], especially in developing countries due to the decentralized nature of the management of health service in these countries. 2.2. Health Promotion According to the “The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion”, the Health Promotion is “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health” [8]. In this sense, we can highlight the usage of health situations and protocols based on real cases as a way of to improve the professional performance, allowing the continuing theoretical and practical learning.

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We also must consider the different profiles of health professionals, in which each profile develop different types of activities or services in an integrated way, with the goal of to guarantee the quality of the assistance. Therefore, several applications can be executed, allowing the interface between service, demand and educational actions. Additionally, we can highlight that several information can be used by the users of the health services, the population. This kind of action allows the permanent education in order to improve the quality of their lives and healthcare [8]. Hence, we can realize the importance of the means of dissemination of knowledge through the technology as a way of to improve the access to information about health, as well as its benefits when we used on a large scale. 2.3. Virtual Scenarios One interesting strategy that allows the usage of technological resources available in mobile devices is the usage of virtual scenarios, enabling the interactivity and the best stimulus to learning [9]. Through virtual scenarios, we can use multimedia resources to present common situations, usually followed by other learning objects, such as videos, images, animations and exercises. In this perspective, the student becomes the lead author of the associated discoveries [10]. Scenario-based strategies allow that the students organize and structure answers to presented situations, as well as allow the usage of practical activities that represent or even require other activities and knowledge obtained on the real world. In fact, virtual scenarios are alternatives that allow the appropriate usage of multimedia tools to support the defined educational goals, complementing traditional learning objects, such as books and booklets. Using mobile devices, traditional learning objects can be enhanced, for example, by including interactive elements, such as images, videos, animations, interactions with other people from the same network, individual activities (tests, quizzes, etc.) and collective activities (forums of discussion, activities that require interaction with the real world, etc.). 2.4. Gamification Another concept, closely related to the usage of virtual scenarios is gamification. This concept combines elements of games to achieve specific purposes, such as launch challenges, use strategies, get points to achieve determined goals and release the access to blocked items, conquer space, obtain visibility and rewards, badges and awards [11, 12]. Therefore, gamification integrates games mechanics into different contexts, providing motivation and engagement of participants for a certain purpose. Through educational technologies, gamification requires interactive elements associated to the reality. For example, in education, gamification enriches virtual scenarios, allowing the design of playful elements with the goal of to keep the student more engaged in the activities, while the goals of the educational resources must be achieved. 2.5. E-learning E-learning is commonly defined as the use of computer technology to deliver information through the internet and instruction to individuals [13]. The most common application of e-learning is online courses through learning management systems, but the raise of mobile devices users brings other possibilities of learning, specially due to the better portability, new trends on usability, connectivity, providing different


educational software for specific purposes. Additionally, the great challenge of e-learning is to provide the appropriate means of to deliver information and knowledge with the available technology. 3. The Proposal Within the presented motivations and background, this proposal consists in an environment that supports the process of learning, focused on health promotion, using virtual scenarios and gamification. The focus of the system is health professionals and rural population in training or students. The proposal, called “SABER Comunidades”, comprises a set of virtual scenarios (communities), whose goal is to present situation-problems of health for students, workers and the population, allowing then developing educational activities. SABER means: Saúde, Bem-estar e Educação em Rede (in English: Health, Well-being and Education in Network). SABER aims to integrate to extension and academic specializing courses, complementing the existing teaching materials, through the usage of mobile technologies (smartphones and tablets) together with learning virtual environments. Therefore, the idea is to develop learning objects using multimedia resources enhanced by the usage of mobile devices through the presentation of situations-problems, associated to specific activities. Even the goal of the proposal approaches the learning on healthcare of different targets, the core of the SABER converges to the development of virtual and “gamified” scenarios based on common situations of healthcare. For example, for medicine students, we can provide a clinical case, whereas for the population, we can provide guidelines for prevention of a disease, both using virtual scenarios. Therefore, the SABER comprises in a technology to support the definition of these scenarios, supported by a process of content generation. In fact the proposal consists on a technological framework to design virtual scenarios to mobile devices in an integrated manner. To design these artifacts, it is necessary the definition of a process of content generation, that is an essential element to the success of the objectives of the proposal. Through this process, which involves professors, designers and software developers, the scenarios and learning objects are defined, considering the specificities of the course and the audience. Therefore, SABER is composed by the following elements: 1. Pedagogical solution: defined from the goals of teaching and learning, the pedagogical solution conceives the proposal of instructional material and associated activities, using differentiated and playful learning strategies. 2. Technological solution: it comprises the transition and/or production of instructional material with the goal of to make better usage of mobile technology resources. In this solution the navigation engine is defined, as well as the design of the interactive elements that will support the pedagogical solution. 3. Content generation process: it comprises the definition and specification of a process to generate and evaluate the defined scenarios and associate activities. This process is responsible for integrating the pedagogical and technological solutions. 3.1. System Design The mobile application was designed for Android platform, version 3.1. It is based on free and open-source technologies, using the Java programing language. The system is composed by four main elements, as shown at Fig. 1. • Main: core of the system, it is responsible for coordinating the whole mobile application.

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•

• •

Database: responsible for performing reading and writing of the database of the mobile device. Therefore, all the elements used to compose the scenarios and learning objects are stored on database. This feature provides a scalable system, once we can insert new scenarios and associated activities or learning objects easily. Activity controller: responsible for manipulating the activities and learning objects, such as screens (which is a part of the virtual scenario), quizzes, audios, videos and so on. Web browser: responsible for accessing external contents on the web. It allows the connection to another virtual learning environments.

Fig. 1.Mobile system design

In fact, the system is designed to support several scenarios, combined with different learning objects, providing a scalable architecture. In this version, each user has a profile, which allows motivating the user to unlocking new scenarios (if he/she gets a minimum desirable score), improving score and connecting with other users. 3.2. Main Functionalities For better understanding of the concept of the SABER, the Fig. 2 presents the prototype of the technological solution. The first version was developed to support an academic specialization course on primary care for physicians, nurses and dentists that work in Brazilian public health. The user, after authentication, is invited to navigate in a scenario that represents a part of northeast region of Brazil. In this scenario a story is presented, based on real facts, and during the navigation interactive elements are presented, such as images, videos, checkpoints, curiosities, exercises and other activities and resources. The application provides scenarios containing case studies, in which, in a community, several health situations will be approached using concepts of gamification.


Fig. 2.Mobile system screenshots

In the Fig. 2, for example, the system presents a story in a rural area of Brazil, in which the main character is a patient with dental problems. From the described situation, the student is invited to answer a multiplechoice question based on the presented case. If the student selects the correct answer, he/she earns a score, which will be computed to the discipline by this scenario. If the student selects the wrong answer, the system informs the reason for the error and provides access to sources about the subject. In both cases (correct or wrong answer), the student is invited to participate in a specific forum about the subject, available at the virtual learning environment of the course. 4. Conclusions and Ongoing Work This paper presented a proposal of mobile system for continuing education in health promotion through virtual scenario and gamification – SABER Comunidades. Its main purpose is to complement traditional educational objects, allowing a differentiated view of resources in the process of e-learning. Therefore, with the usage of mobile technologies, it is possible to enrich the pedagogical strategies with the insertion of playful elements, as well as through better usage of the interactive resources of mobile devices. Additionally, it provides new opportunities of developing innovation in a multidisciplinary view, by integrating concepts of education, psychology and mobile technologies. Currently, the system is being evolved in order to support different scenarios, with increased capability of interactions, for courses of extension and specializations using the process of content generation. At this moment, we are defining the actions on pedagogical and design point of view for posterior implementation on

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mobile devices. We also are performing an analytical study of gamification concepts and architectural models in the context of health promotion and mobile devices in education for health professionals and population. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank to Brazilian Ministry of Communications and Healthcare for the financial support given to this work.

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