Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study. This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes. The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.

Research Question: Can organizations truly create value for all its stakeholders simultaneously, without a significant trade-off from one group to another? And what role does current ICT infrastructure play? Purpose: This study is aimed at determining how organizations create value simultaneously for stakeholders without a trade-off, and also examine the role of ICT (Information and communication technologies) in balancing responsibility in trying to satisfying all stakeholders (customers, suppliers, society, environment, employees and shareholders) in complex ICT environments. Methodology: The study involves business organizations in Sweden. A research questionnaire was sent to one thousand five hundred top level management executives in Swedish based business organizations, to collect data.  Business organizations were carefully selected to cut across many industry sectors. Findings: Some of the findings includes: that many companies in Sweden still have a hard time satisfying all stakeholders simultaneously without trade-off, even with the huge ICT infrastructures. We discovered that although companies invest a lot on ICT, but the combination of strategy which will bring corporate partnership and create value for all without “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is still lacking. Research Limitations: First, the study was limited to Sweden because of lack of resources to conduct interviews in many countries. Thus, there is the need to exercise caution in generalising these findings. Second, the number of respondents was limited, because it was difficult to get very busy top management executives from different companies to respond to our questionnaire.   Originality: This research work provides insight to understand and interpret balanced stakeholder value creation in companies, identify attributes for simultaneous value creation, as well as the role information and communication technology play in achieving this objective. Keywords: Stakeholder, Value Creation, Information and communication technology, Sustainable Value, and Stakeholder Analysis

This thesis is about the experimental implementation of a high-speed and robust quantum memory for light. A novel far off-resonant Raman approach to ensemble-based quantum memories in a room-temperature environment is developed and demonstrated. Storage and retrieval of sub-nanosecond, weak coherent light pulses at the single-photon-level with total efficiencies exceeding 30% and storage times of up to 4 μs are achieved. The coherence of the memory is shown by directly interfering a copy of the incident signal with the retrieved signal from the memory. The unconditional noise floor of the memory is found to be low enough to operate the memory in the quantum regime at room temperature. Multiple readout of a single stored excitation is demonstrated, suggesting that 100% readout is possible in different temporal modes. Furthermore, first results regarding the storage and retrieval of polarisation encoded qubits are obtained. This and the memory’s ability to operate in the quantum regime at room temperature with a low unconditional noise floor illustrate its potential usefulness for real world applications.

This thesis will investigate the Communication, Collaboration and Coordination among hu-manitarian organization with the application of Information and Communication Technol-ogy, and commercial paradigms. Aims to involve the relief actors and the commercial com-panies involved throughout of their Corporate Social Responsibility programs. The method-ology is chosen specifically to fit the qualitative nature of the research. The paper presents data collected for the sole purpose of this research and is later on analysed in order to draw theoretical conclusions. At the end, practical implications and suggestions for future research are included.

The purpose of this research is to explore Thailand teachers’ perspectives towards the integration of ICTs into the teaching and learning process in order to better understand how teachers use technology for classroom instruction and their perceptions of the factors that influence their use of ICTs. The study applied Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) approach to draw a systems thinking of teachers and to provide in-depth perspectives of teachers about their implementation of ICTs in the classroom. Eighteen computer teachers and twenty-two mathematics teachers participated in a focus group interview. Fifteen computer teachers and fourteen mathematics teachers were invited to participate in an individual interview. Results from the data analysis based on the IQA approach showed that teachers’ perspectives on their integration of ICTs encompassed several components including School management and administration, Content and curriculum, Teacher, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), Student, Environment, Time, and Parent or guardian. The results also revealed a systems thinking of teachers that showed the interrelationships of the affinities. The statistical analysis comparing the perceptions of two teachers groups showed that there was only one affinity, which was “Student”, found to be significantly different at the .049 level. This could be because of difference in teacher perceptions of students. For other affinities, the results showed that both groups of teachers did not perceive their work experiences in a significantly different way. / text

This case study examines the effectiveness of information and communication technology (ICT) in the Upriver Halq'eméylem language activities. The research indicates that ICT has been successful in supporting micro-level activities managed by individuals; however, while certain elements of ICT were identified by participants as having the potential to help increase fluency, fluency has not been achieved. Recommendations include the creation of a catalogue of all content developed and applications in use to be maintained by a central and agreed upon party; the use of applications in a Software as a Service (SaaS) or similar model; continuation of ongoing formal and informal meetings of the individuals who are working to revitalize the language; and, that the community attempt to determine why language is not being spoken while continuing to make the language visible. One additional finding is that the funding available may be driving the adoption of ICT within the language program; additional research is required to fully understand the effects of funding models. While these recommendations are specific to this community, they may support other decentralized language programs.

Despite the lack of substantial evidence for improvement in the quality of teaching and learning with information and communication technology (ICT), governmental organizations, including those of Canada and Australia, have made large investments into ICT. This investment has been largely predicated on the hypothesized relationship between ICT and science achievement, and the need for ICT as a means of providing broad-scale training to meet the demand for a skilled workforce. To better understand this possible relationship, this study used data from the 2006 administration of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2006) to determine the extent to which scientific literacy is predicted by student- and school-level variables related to ICT, after adjusting for student demographic characteristics and school characteristics. The findings suggest that, once student demographic characteristics and school characteristics have been accounted for, students with prior experience with ICT, who browse the Internet more frequently, and who are confident with basic ICT tasks earned higher scientific literacy scores. Gender differences existed with respect to types of productivity and entertainment software used; this difference may be attributed to personal choice and initiative to learn ICT. Finally, differences in ICT use between Canada and Australia, particularly with school use, may be due to initiatives in Australia (e.g., National Goals of Schooling for the Twenty-first Century) that promote the increased use of ICT in classrooms. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-31 11:14:15.59

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to document and examine the beliefs held by preservice elementary teachers prior to entering a teacher education program concerning the nature of mathematics and their perceptions about the effective use of information and communication technology (ICT) for mathematics instruction. Through an online questionnaire (N=132) followed by interviews of purposefully selected respondents (n=8), the following questions were addressed: (1) What beliefs do preservice elementary mathematics teachers hold upon entering teacher education programs regarding the nature of mathematics? (2) What beliefs do preservice elementary mathematics teachers hold upon entering teacher education programs about how ICT should be used in the classroom? and (3) How do preservice elementary mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics relate to their views about the use of ICT in teaching mathematics? Video-elicitation was used in the interviews to determine how respondents perceived various uses of interactive whiteboards. Respondents were grouped based on their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and their reactions to the videos that they were shown. It was discovered that interview respondents who held contrasting views about the nature of mathematics also held differing beliefs about teaching and learning as well as the benefits of ICT. Respondents who saw mathematics as a set of fixed naturally occurring rules, an Absolutist view, favoured teacher directed use of ICT to support the transmission of knowledge. On the other hand, those who viewed mathematics as a human construct, a Fallibilist image, were more in favour of ICT use to support student mathematics investigation and talk. The existence of a potential hidden curriculum was also discovered. Although all interview participants were shown the same videos, respondents in the two groups perceived roles of the teacher and students in the videos that were aligned with their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and teaching and learning. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-06-29 13:00:17.205

African countries have recently experienced an extraordinary and largely unanticipated boom in the uptake of mobile phones, and increasing rates of access to the internet. This thesis investigates how and why these information and communication technologies (ICT) are being adopted for use in Tanzanian micro and small enterprises (MSEs), and explores the changes they are bringing about to the existing business culture of marginalised economies. The study covers three sub-sectors of the Tanzanian economy: perishable foodstuffs trading, the informal construction industry and the export of African blackwood carvings. The analysis is based on fieldwork undertaken over a total of 15 months in 2002 and 2003, during which time business networks were revealed by physically following entrepreneurs and their contacts operating in different locations throughout the country. Entrepreneurs were asked to draw their own comparisons between the traditional pre-ICT situation and the improved ICT access of today. The discussion is informed by the findings of semi-structured interviews with these individuals, excerpts of which are presented in the text to give voice to the entrepreneurs. Various ingenious and at times unconventional methods of access to, and appropriation of, ICT is uncovered. Together these suggest that official indicators underestimate the thirst for digital consumption, especially for mobile phones, and help explain the flourishing informal economy of handset acquisition. Internet penetration and uptake for use in business, on the other hand, is revealed to be far slower. Nevertheless, the research does reveal that a sizeable amount of poorer entrepreneurs are using a triumvirate of hired or shared ICT – mobile phones, the Internet and the ‘old’ ICT of fax – to create what can appear to be a more formal enterprise than it may actually be. The ‘mobile office’ effectively allows poorer entrepreneurs to operate without premises, thereby saving costs on rent and allowing the enterprise to remain informal. This heralds a considerable change in the working practices of a significant branch of informal sector operators who have gone unnoticed, and calls for a reconstruction and redefinition of this crucial source of entrepreneurship in developing economies. Despite the huge uptake of mobile phones in particular, the work also cautions that some traditional pre-ICT aspects of the African business culture look set to remain for some time. It becomes clear that where entrepreneurs do decide to use ICT, reputation and recommendation are still very significant. This information is usually passed on when an entrepreneur meets in person with contacts from his very fluid informal networks of knowledge. Trust, and the need for direct, personal interaction through face-to-face contact – one of the most pervasive features of African MSE economies – emerge as a common theme across the case study industries and are likely to remain a crucial aspect of the way most MSE business is conducted. Mobile phones are seen to play a crucial role in improving the exchange of supply-anddemand information domestically, while a combination of applications (particularly e-mail) appear to act as tools with which to refresh relationships with sources of market information outside the country. It is suggested that ICT may be able to help entrepreneurs in moving from the personal to the impersonal exchange – a challenge that many other African businesses will also have to come to terms with as the Internet becomes an ever more important global trading tool.

Information and communication  technologies  (ICTs)  are  having a great  capability to face some challenges in both developed as well as developing countries which includes providing access,  cost  effective  and  high  quality  health  care  services.  Telemedicine  uses  ICT  to overcome  geographical   barriers,  and  increase  access  to  health  care  services.  This  is particularly beneficial for rural and underserved communities in India. This paper focuses on the rising profile of e-health on the international policy agenda and related developments  in the  National  Health Service. Few developments  in public health today create energy and opportunity present in the word "e-health". As a developing country, India is implementing the technology to deliver health information and services regarding health widely across the country. These solution  though promising also present new challenges particularly in acceptable standards, choice of technologies, overcoming traditional jurisdictional boundaries, investment, privacy and confidentiality.   In this study, examine current state of telemedicine in a developing country, India. Telemedicine has brought several benefits to the people of India, especially those living in rural and remote areas. Discussed the Indian telemedicine implementation case of Apollo Hospital and Chakrajmal village, consolidate lessons learned from cases, and culminate with potential researchable critical success factors that account for the growth and modest successes  of telemedicine  in India. This  research will  discuss  how e-health  provides the opportunity for patients to maintain longer independence and for the providers to monitor    a condition more closely. It also describes barriers and challenges for current status of e­- health. Also, an attempt is made for presenting future e-health status in Indian scenario. Further,some  recommendations  are provided for  improvement.