The value of community technology workers for LPG use: A pilot in Shirati, Tanzania

Background Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 calls for the adoption and continued use of clean-burning stoves by the 2.9 billion people relying on unclean fuels (both solid biomass and kerosene). However, to date, the clean cooking literature has found low rates of efficient stove adoption and continued use. This paper presents the application of a public health community engagement model to the use of clean cooking fuels. We implemented a pilot study with Community Technology Workers (CTWs) as a means to overcome maintenance, education, and behavioral barriers to clean fuel use in rural Tanzania. Methods The intervention was a free 6 kg Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinder and stove coupled with education from a local technically trained CTW on LPG use. We evaluated the training, work, and impact of a CTW on LPG use on 30 randomly selected households from two villages in a rural district of Tanzania over a 1-year period. After an initial baseline survey, technically trained local CTWs educated the households on safe LPG use and conducted 34 follow up surveys over the next year on their cooking fuel use. Additionally, we conducted qualitative interviews with all households and a focus group with six of the households. Results The results from the mixed methods approach show that 80% of families (n = 24) consistently refilled their LPG cylinders and ~ 40% of households exclusively used LPG. Households reported appreciating the CTWs’ visits for providing education and maintenance support, giving them confidence to use LPG safely, reminding them to save for their cylinder, and providing a community driven effort to use clean fuel. Conclusions The findings demonstrate the feasibility of this type of community infrastructure model to promote and facilitate consistent LPG use, but suggest the need to couple this local support with financial mechanisms (e.g., a microsavings program). This model could be a mechanism to increase LPG use, particularly in rural, low-income areas.

Black Twitter is gold

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole. --- Sheena Erete, Editor

Strategies to Design Technology Promoting Social Participation of People With Dementia and Their Caregivers

Community-dwelling people with dementia and their caregivers face increasing challenges to active social participation as the condition progresses. Potential difficulties include disclosing the condition, navigating through available support and sustaining interpersonal relationships. Dementia-friendly support services and interventions targeting caregiving dyads can promote social participation. Interventions serve as a communication channel for the dyads to engage, interact and partake in their community. Technology as a facilitator is gaining momentum; increasing evidence suggests that technological solutions contribute to promoting social health for people with dementia and family caregivers. Patient and public involvement and rigorous evaluations of solutions are needed to ensure successful implementation of dementia-friendly technologies. This symposium, presented as a part of the Marie-Curie Innovative-Training-Network action, H2020-MSCA-ITN, grant agreement number 813196, comprises four pertinent presentations. The first presentation outlines the effectiveness of technological interventions to improve social participation of older adults with and without dementia, and barriers and facilitators these interventions present. The second presentation describes disclosure decisions faced by dyads and Patient and public involvement findings on how an existing empowerment intervention supporting disclosure decision-making can transfer to an online environment. The third presentation reports on findings from a study evaluating a tablet-based activation system designed to engage caregiving dyads in social sessions. The final presentation lifts the focus towards how existing online environments can be adapted through dementia-friendly privacy policy agreements, and thereby support social participation of this user group online. Our discussant, Jane Flanagan, synthesizes the presentations and leads a discussion of future directions for policy and practice.

Teacher Professional Development: Mobile and Limited Technology-enhanced Pedagogy

This qualitative case study seeks to document and understand the influence of technology integrated/supported professional development (PD) on preK-12 grade teachers in Nepal. The study focuses on the value of collaborative, university-school relationships to foster buy-in among teachers to integrate technology for increased student learning. We used the TPACK framework and sociocultural theory of learning to understand how and why technology integration at a rural school in a poor country would support more engaged pedagogy for learning. The PDs were co-designed by the researchers with teachers’ input, and further supported in its implementation when teachers tried out the new strategies in their classrooms. Data was collected utilizing methods of observations, self-reflective fieldnotes, informal interviews, and artifacts. Data analysis indicated that effective and locally suitable technology integration relies on building relationships with the teachers and school community; technology integration needs to be focused on the local needs of students and teachers based on their resources and curricular demands; and while limited (mobile) technology integration can support better learning, student-centered inquiry-based pedagogy needs to guide technology use in class. Furthermore, the study argues that recognizing and valuing local cultural and school contexts are central to successful PD in technology integration.

Using black feminist epistemologies and activist frameworks to counter structural racism in design

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole. --- Sheena Erete, Editor

How the ideology of monolingualism drives us to monolingual interaction

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole. --- Sheena Erete, Editor

Validity of Student Worksheets using Inquiry Based Learning Models with Science Technology Society Approach for Physics Learning

Physics learning aims to develop knowledge and train students' thinking skills. But in reality, students haven’t been able to develop because they are less trained to find concepts independently. Student worksheets includes teaching materials that can help students find concepts and apply these concepts. The purpose of this study was to produce student worksheets using the inquiry based learning model with the community technology science approach with criteria valid. Learning using a valid student worksheets can improved student’s competence. This type of research is R&D using the Plomp model. The validity assesment is carried out by expert reviews, then analyzed using Aiken’s V formula. The results of validity of student worksheets meet the valid criteria of 0.79. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the student worksheets uses the inquiry based learning model with a science technology society approach valid for use in Physics learning.

Analisis Pengaruh Penerapan Model Pembelajaran Sains Teknologi Masyarakat Terhadap Hasil Belajar Siswa

This study aimed to analyze the influence of the model of learning science society technology to the learning outcomes of students at SMP Negeri 3 Batukliang. This research uses experimental methods. The sample in this study were 24 students of class VIIIC. This research data collection using tests, observation, and documentation. While the data analysis technique of this study used the t-test. These results indicate that the value t count bigger than t-table at significance level of 5% with db = 24-1 = 23 (7.768> 2,069), so this research can be concluded that there is influence of science learning model community technology on learning outcomes students in biology class VIII at SMP Negeri 3 Batukliang.

Group Roundtable: Queer Tech Futures, Social Justice, and Community-Based Technology Education

This essay describes a year-long community-based collaboration between faculty at Purdue University, a game designer at University of Chicago, and MAVEN Youth. Project partners sought to develop a community technology curriculum that centers the lives of LGBTQ and non-binary youth and imagines queer bodies as central to any future we wish to inhabit. Over the year-long project, the partners developed a series of social justice game design workshops for LGBTQ youth and a speculative design Hack-4-Queer Youth Futures. These types of collaborations and “making-and-telling” practices are vital to imagining inclusive and livable futures. This collaboration is an outgrowth of stakeholder engagement for the Big Data Ethics project at Purdue University supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The goal of the group roundtable format is to gain better insight into the potential for embedding critical science and technology studies (STS) and social justice pedagogy into community-based tech diversity initiatives.