at SoMobNet Rountable 21 Nov 2011

1. The role of social mobile media on education and
learning in developing countries
Preliminary findings from a Swiss-Nepalese research project
Sebastian Linxen & Christoph Pimmer - Institute for Information Systems - University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland

2. Background & Research Approach
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3. Technology-enhanced medical education & Millenium-Development Goals
Poor education of health professionals
 Inadequately skilled health staff is seen as a typical system constraint that negatively
impacts on the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (Travis et al., 2004)
Lack of basic knowledge
 For example: 3 in 4 doctors caring for sick children in district hospitals in Bangladesh,
Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda had poor
basic knowledge of leading causes of child death (HIFA Report, 2010)
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4. Role of technology: Great hopes
 Technology might take a crucial role in improving education and practice of health workers
(Pakenham-Walsh, Priestley, & Smith, 1997)
Increasing number: 4.7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions in 2009 (The World Bank, 2011)
Techno-centric approaches
 “We will literally take tablets and drop them out of helicopters,"
and return a year later to see if the effort was a success” Negroponte
Poor results to date
 projects have not met the expectations to date (Kraemer, Dedrick, & Sharma, 2009)
 Little progress in meeting the information needs of frontline healthcare providers and ordinary
citizens in low resource settings. (Smith & Koehlmoos, 2011)
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5. Guiding question and methods
Guiding question
How is technology used to support the learning of post- and undergraduate students in the
context of Nepalese medical education?
Methods
 Case study approach
 Focus groups (post/undergraduates, teachers, faculty)
 On-site visit, informal talks with university management and ICT support
 Selective analysis of a Facebook site indicated as relevant
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6. Facebook and mobiles as a driver for using the internet
 "Most of us use Facebook" […] "Almost every student uses Facebook" (Group 5)
 "All day. Every day. It’s an addiction." (Group 5)
 "We use mobile phones for Facebook". (Group 2)
 "The reason why most of the people have activated the internet on their SIM card is
because of Facebook." (Group 4)
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7. Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (1)
Students:
“A group “Medical profession, I love it.” That’s a group. I’m part of the group. […] It’s
created by our seniors [senior doctors]
Teachers:
“We share a lot of medical information on facebook. We share videos. And sometimes
some of our friends get free downloads of books. So we share that. Facebook is a good
medium to share much medical information”.
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8. Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (2)
Facebook community: «Medical Profession, wow I love it»
 34529 members & 3078 FB users are talking about this (17.11.2011)
 Regional scope on Nepal and India
Quizzes with open and closed questions:
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9. Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (3)
Mini-Cases:
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10. Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (4)
Electronic Books and Videos:
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11. Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (6)
Jokes as an expression of professional identity:
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12. University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland 21.11.2011 12

13. Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (5)
Health-related questions from patients:
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14. Preliminary Findings
 Social media accessed by mobiles as a rich source of learning
 Wide range of knowledge: cognitive to socio-cultural dimensions
 Range of different actors engaged (senior professionals, students and patients)
 A few “contributors” (senior doctors), many “commenters” and “lurkers”
 Knowledge created and discussed “bottom up” and not distributed by central authorities
 Social mobile media (and more in general mobile internet) increases the agency of
learners
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15. Acknowledgements
The work presented was supported by the SDC, the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation, and the KFH, the Rector’s Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied
Sciences.
Grateful thanks also go to our Swiss and Nepalese research partners, and the study
participants, students and teachers, for the insightful interviews and their critical feedback.
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