Browsing by Author "Bholah, R"

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    Educating Diabetes Patients and Youth through the Wikieducator: A Case Study from Mauritius
    (2008-09) Gunness, S; Bholah, R; Ackbarkhan, A
    PCF5 Sub-theme: Health // Mauritius has one of the highest prevalence of diabetes in the world with nearly one in five of our adults above the age of 30 years suffering from diabetes. The Government of Mauritius recognises the dire need for appropriate health education and counselling against diabetes among its citizens especially the youths. Its National Service Framework for diabetes (2007) has also highlighted "judicious and extensive use of available knowledge and resources can greatly reduce the enormous ill-health, disability and death associated with the disease." This paper critically reflects on a multi-pronged study on diabetes which is in line with Government Policy and has at least three main purposes: 1. Dissemination of important and timely information to a high-risk proportion of the population, 2. Enabling knowledge sharing outlets amongst patients who want to voice out and relate their cases and 3. Testing a cascading methodology of building communities using wiki technology. It therefore proposes an innovative and constructive methodology to disseminate appropriate and adapted information on diabetes to the Mauritian public through the Wikieducator. The Wiki environment will not only have updated material, but will also provide a platform for Diabetes patients to relate their own cases and thus create greater awareness of this non-communicable disease. The methodology proposed is based on a cascading and multiplying effect through 1 hour face to face sessions that would be held in cybercafés in three randomly chosen main villages of Mauritius. We propose to gather ten random aged diabetes patients in each village who will be introduced to the Wikieducator material and who would then be taught wiki writing techniques to relate their own cases. For the next session, each of these ten patients would in turn bring at least two more patients or parents of patients and six youths who would learn about caring for the diabetes patients and "self-preservation". We propose to have three face-to-face sessions at the end of which we would be able to compile around 60 individual comments and feedback onto the wikieducator. These material would serve as real case-studies for the diabetes courses that would be eventually mounted onto the Wikieducator. // Paper ID 413
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    Online HIV/AIDS Education: A Doorway to an Innovative Teaching and Learning Approach
    (2008-09) Bholah, R; Gungadeen, A
    PCF5 Sub-theme: Health // An increasingly high prevalence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) cases especially among the young generation has been noted in Mauritius over the last two decades. The HIV/AIDS education is now recognised as an important response to the emerging HIV/AIDS crisis and the Government of Mauritius strongly supports all policies linked with it. The Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE) being a unique tertiary institution in teacher education in the country, has been integrating HIV/AIDS education into various teacher training programmes, primary and secondary school curricula, and is also undertaking various research projects in related fields. Under the MIE-School link Initiative a project was recently initiated using a blended mode of face-to- face and online interaction of HIV/AIDS course designed for secondary school students. This was aimed at creating awareness on HIV/AIDS among students and enabling them to actively participate in the learning process and become independent learners. It also focused on developing a community of practice whereby learners were encouraged to network with their peers and friends from other schools on the above related issues. They were motivated to be instrumental in conveying HIV/AIDS education to their parents and the community at large. This project included online interaction in order to provide flexibility in the learning process where the learners can access their pedagogical resources from anywhere and at anytime. Since Internet connectivity is a major hindrance to the learning process in many schools of the island, a CD-Rom with all the learning resources on HIV/AIDS was provided to both students and teachers. The Moodle e-learning platform was used as it is an open source and is also based on socio-constructivist approach. The interface was carefully designed to make it more intuitive, user-friendly and navigable and the instructional principles were carefully applied while designing the course material. This approach was pilot tested using questionnaire and semi-structured interviews at one school for a period of one month. The findings were used to amend the online approach and materials prior to its eventual use at 2 mixed schools in two different educational zones of Mauritius. After 3 months of close monitoring, the effectiveness of whole HIV program was evaluated using questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and observations. // Paper ID 433