 Dennis, I was just wondering if everyone could introduce themselves, the participants, in the chat. That'd be great. Is there still an echo? A little bit. Okay. I'm going to get going here. So my name is John Dennis, and with me is Mikhail Kaportso on the chat, and we're from the University of Perugia. You'll notice that there's been a slight change in the title. We're talking about still the ICT solutions and key educational factors, so creating meaningful learning for children with a medical condition, key educational factors, and related ICT solutions. So all right, let's start. So in this webinar, we present the results of two focus groups conducted to collect information on key educational aspects in information and communication technologies, ICTs, involved in home and hospital education of children with a medical condition. All right, for the focus groups, I just wanted to say something about them. They're really a great way for us to be able to explore people's knowledge and experiences and can be used to examine not only what people think, but how they think and why they think that way. So therefore, the focus group members are able to explore and clarify their views. All right, so basically, before we start, I wanted to say something about children with medical conditions. For children with a medical condition, long periods of isolation can have a negative impact on their cognitive, psychological, and social well-being. Hold on, trying to move forward down here. So during these long periods of isolation, agitation, confusion, as well as attentional and executive functioning difficulties arise, resulting in behavioral and educational problems. In fact, long hospital stays and prolonged absences from school often result in these children being behind on their schoolwork. Can everyone hear me now? Yes. All right, so everyone can hear me great. So while the benefits of ICT for the education of children with a medical condition seems obvious, universal components of these KEF should guide the integration of these technologies in home and hospital education. So the KEF that we're going to be talking about are these key educational factors. These key educational factors are making sense and constructing knowledge, relationships, assuming role in front of others, metacognition, the thinking about your thinking process, individualities, so individual strategies for learning, and interinstitutional communication. This is the communication between various institutions regarding education and health of the child. These KEF were used to structure the focus groups, both the first and the second focus group, on the perception of the use of ICT for the education of children with a medical condition, but also to interpret the data. Does anyone have any questions right now about these KEF? I'll move on. So the ICT in home, hospital education, so information and communication technologies converge multiple technologies, so like writing, communication, and games that can yield enormous benefit within education. With ICT, knowledge can be gained or transferred, devoid of location. So this is important inside the home and hospital education. Can we hear me? Sorry, we have temporary problems without you once in a while. So the great thing about ICT is that, again, this knowledge can be transferred and gained, devoid of your location or time. And this is important with children who are ill. It means that they're going to be able to follow education from their classroom, even though they're not physically present in the classroom, so that students can learn wherever and whenever. And again, I want to repeat that this last thing is particularly important for children with a medical condition, for home and hospital education. By creating a virtual bridge between school and hospital, ICT can help to limit the disruption caused by the illness, helping to manage the emotions and counteract problems that can arise from them not being present in school. So ICT has a potential also, obviously, as a teaching tool. It helps the social and school integration. So going back to where we were on the communication between one of the key educational factors, the communication between the home and hospital and the mainstream school. So however, mere use of the technology and education doesn't ensure quality and process outcome. So guided by educational theory, and these educational factors, these keffs must always be taken into account and should direct technology choices. How are we doing? I have them with me, and I grab it. So the focus groups. So the focus groups were done with teachers and doctors. So the teachers were home education. So teachers that go to the home of the children who are ill and hospital education, teachers who are in the hospital, medical staff. So these are doctors and nurses, psychologists, social workers, everyone who's involved in the hospital that aids in the medical care of the child. The aim here is to understand how these educational factors relate to education of these keffs, these key educational factors, relate to the education of children with a medical condition. So basically what we did was we have this general guide for how you run a focus group. We shared them with the partners in the project and then each country ran their own focus group and then gave the information back following a report. This report matrix, the countries were Belgium, sorry. The countries were Belgium, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Spain and England. Those are the participating countries. All right, so this is the report matrix that they used. So the questions that they were asked to ask the participants of the focus group. And then they would record the responses, audio recording and then type out the actual responses inside this matrix. This matrix was then used to be analyzed by us here at the University of Perugia. And I'm going to share with you the results of what was reported back. That focus group, the first focus group, and then later the second focus group. Okay, so we got 101 doctors and teachers. We got 25 healthcare professionals and then 76 teachers. The average age of the participant was about 44 years old. 535 statements for the focus group that were entered into the matrix and then later categorized into 38 categories. So let's talk about some results. So first of all, we'll talk about the positive and negative statements. So we have the key educational factors. So what you're seeing here is a list of key educational factors. On the left hand side, relationships, making sense, assuming roles, metacognition, individualities. And then you have the, on the, going across you have the practices, the ICT, hospital, and home. So basically what you're seeing is when you see something it's in red, that tells you that it's a negative comment. And then when you see it in green, it's positive. So basically what you're seeing is that there's an overwhelming for hospital and home negative issues. And in fact, it's basically how we asked the question to participants. We actually asked the focus group participants to tell us problems they have at the hospital and home. But what's interesting is that you see here that each key educational factor was mentioned. People gave responses back for those, for each of those key educational factors. And it's interesting to note that there's specific ones that have more responses versus others. For example, individualities and assuming roles and relationships are the three, you know, the metacognition. Sorry, metacognition individualities are the two that have the most number of practices. And then ICT uses, there's two relationships, which is clear. You know, that Skype or WhatsApp can keep you in contact with the fellow students in your mainstream school. So let's dig a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper here. And the less managed CEPs with educational practices appears to be making sense and constructing reality, followed by assuming active roles for children. So essentially what I want to say here is that ICT is perceived as a great tool for making sense and constructing knowledge according to results from the first focus group. Let's look at this. So for relationships, there was 158 statements. 71 of them were positive and 65 of them were negative. Now, in our categorization process, you take the full statement and then via an inductive approach, you find a way to categorize each statement. And for the positive, most of the statements that were positive were about ICT as a learning tool. And then the negative was isolation. The fact that even though ICT can be used to improve the relationships between the child with the medical condition and the children in the home, the mainstream school, there's still a sensation of isolation. All right. So basically what I wanted to say is that it's really interesting that the solutions here, whether or not there's solutions for ICT that can be effective. So later on when we talk about the second focus group results, there's some answers that are given there. So the suggestions that we have are basically the idea that the stigma regarding the reentry into school for these children is something that needs to be actually dealt with. Are we OK? Any questions here so far? Can everyone hear me? It's not the ICT's fault that isolation cannot be overcome, is it? That's an interesting question. Maybe Michaela can answer that inside the chat directly. Great. That's a really great question. So making sense and constructing knowledge. All right, so here the, again, ICT learning tools was the most positive statement, categorization. And again, isolation was the most negative. We're starting to see a pattern here. So it's ironic here, and we mean this, that a communication technology, ICT, is not able to effectively solve a problem of isolation. The suggestion here is that the management of the educational setting in the hospital cannot be only sustained by teachers. You need to have this coordinated policy among the various players within the hospital as well as parents and then the school, the mainstream school, in order to manage the educational process. This lack of communication is probably the real problem. And in fact, we have this KEF that's specific for children with a medical condition, which is interinstitutional communication. So assuming roles. Assuming roles, again, is where you're able to take on roles that one assumes while they're learning. And here, the most positive is teamwork and the statement, the category that was the statements that were most often used for negative is interpersonal psychological factors. So this is the relationship between people, relationship between people in the school, the relationship between people, between fellow students or the teacher and the student. But basically, what I wanted to say here is that this working in this environment requires some cooperative learning. And it seems to be the choice for, allows children, these children with a medical condition, to have an active role in front of their peers. And ICT is indicated as an aid, was indicated by the people who were part of this focus group as an aid to. I think I wanted to say was that the presence of stigma and other problems related to interpersonal psychological factors indicates the need to properly prepare the education level of the recipients, including the class and teachers. Child with a medical condition belongs. Moving on to medical, metacognition. Now again, metacognition is thinking about your thinking processes. Statements that were positive, the one that was most frequent was experiential learning factors. And for the negative, it was safety. Talk about that for a second. So basically, metacognition is well connected with an experiential learning tools. So the possibility to perform, to be effective at metacognition, means interacting with other areas that are connected to the child who has medical condition. But the problem is that these things might be caused by lack of economic resources. So there's two pathways that we've suggested for the ICT. So the use of ICT as a medium for metacognition to get the children to think about their thinking processes. And then the use of ICT to facilitate the percussion of the student with other classmates. At the data for individualities, the statement that was most common for positive statements was communication. And for negative, it was assessment. Describe what that means. So the idea, again, for individualities is that there's individual strategies for learning. So here, the recognition of the individuality of this child that has a medical condition, a student has a medical condition, seems to be covered by several different processes that are involved in teaching these children. The problems that are identified seem to be related to the sharing of practices for the child that's there in the home and hospital school and the child who was and will be returning back to the mainstream school. All right. So the second, now I'm going to move on directly onto the second focus group. So the second focus group had exactly the same countries. Again, we have teachers and medical staff. Again, we have a report matrix where the data was entered. We have 74 doctors that participated. 74 doctors and teachers. 14 of them were health care professionals and 59 of them teachers. The age was roughly the same as the first focus group. We had 485 statements by the focus group participants that were again categorized as results. The categories by focus themes. So again, let me report that. Let me just reiterate this, that the first focus group collected information on the key educational factors in the home and hospital education. The second one, this one here, assessed and discussed ICT-related solutions for the education of children with a medical condition. So there's nothing on the slide. There's 278 statements were mentioned by teachers. What's interesting is that 10 ICTs were mentioned where the most common ones were email, Skype, Coin Dropbox. These were actually the technologies that were mentioned. And it's interesting that in particular that the ICTs that were mentioned were actually discussed and being used in multiple ways. This is probably obvious, but email was described as being used in six separate ways. You can see right there that it was used as a communication tool. It's obvious for sharing information, for increasing knowledge, for integration, and for as a learning tool by teachers. I'm starting to see a pattern. We're not seeing graphs. OK, I'm going to have to go back. I'm going to go forward and tell you what should be there. And thankfully, I printed this out. So the frequency of use. So frequency of use. So what you should be seeing, and you're not, because it's not showing up on Adobe, is there's a table that you have the frequency of use. And inside here, you'd see that there's multiple. So for example, there's a software called BedNet that is used almost every day. That was one of the top ICT technologies. Another one, for example, is Google Docs. That was used about 3% of all ICTs where it was Google Docs. And it was used on a daily basis. Education 365 was 10% of all the ICTs was Education 365. And that was used occasionally. So problems emerging from ICT in the home and hospital education, you should be seeing exactly a table that had problems. So the most frequent problem was technical factors. And this was about 17% of all problems was technical factors. They're followed by administration or connectivity factors, the ability of that ICT to be connected, to be used properly. Now, mentioned during the first round of focus group, isolation factors were also mentioned during the second round. So the repetition of these isolation factors helps underscore the fact that ICT, at least in its current form, is not able to resolve the fundamental issue of isolation. That happens with children with a medical condition. So ICT solutions need to take into account the fact that these children are not in their mainstream school. And no matter what an ICT can do, the positive it can do for isolation, it's still going to be part of the process that they will have this sensation of being isolated. Now, a coordinated integration between the home and hospital school is going to definitely help resolve some of these problems that we saw in this focus group. So basically what I wanted to say was also another thing was that developing ICT solutions without taking into account the psychological aspects of the child with medical condition can actually aggravate the problem. And that was something that was mentioned multiple times during this focus group. I thought it doesn't have a table. There it is. A pedagogical aspect where ICT can make a difference. You should have been seeing here the categories, which were communication information sharing, was the most frequently used listed categories. So that was 34% of the time that was listed. Software as a learning support was listed about 13%. And then increasing knowledge was a third with about 11%. So considering the results from the first round, the thing that's really interesting is that since the ICTs were perceived to be the most useful for the CAF making sense and constructing knowledge, what was found in the second round of focus group when the discussion moved to how can an ICT make a difference, it was truly ICTs are definitely a fantastic tool for creating this path, this making sense and constructing knowledge that the child needs. So without a doubt, it came through in the first focus group and was reiterated and underscored in the second focus group. Are we doing OK? Great. All right, yet another table that did not come through, but we'll enjoy this. So on this table, you should have seen the limits of ICT. Now, it's pretty obvious that one of the things that ICT cannot replace is face-to-face interaction. In fact, when the focus group, the second focus group, talked specifically about the limits of ICT, this is in fact the number one thing that was mentioned by the focus group participants, the inability to replace face-to-face interaction. And of course, the second one, since relationships are so important, since isolation is one of the things that was talked about so many times, its personal relationships was the second and that was listed about 18% of the time. So face-to-face interaction really is a crucial aspect of the educational process. It's no accident. The reality of kids who have a medical condition is where face-to-face interaction, where face-to-face interaction with peers can really make a difference. Obviously, inside the home and hospital education, inside the home, it's going to be very hard. So inside the hospital, it's a little bit easier with children who are already inside the hospital school. So the idea is that there's a stigma that's associated with their illness and that the face-to-face interactions can actually help reduce that. The second thing is that education is a system of relations. And these relations can be supported by ICT, but obviously, they can't be replaced. They can't be replaced and ICT alone cannot create these relationships. So some final thoughts to move towards the end. So the use of ICT in home and hospital education is really important. It's clear that these technologies exist in order to help improve the communication between all of the key players that are engaging for the education of these children. Now, when looking at the key role of relationships, if isolation is one of the fundamental problems, if face-to-face interaction is something that ICT can't replace, if one of the key things that ICT can make a difference is communication, then relationships is something that can't be denied. So social bonds here between the children that are in this home and hospital education is fundamentally important. Social bonds even between them and the children are in the mainstream school is important. Those can't be lost. These bonds help make the education of these children with a medical condition easier. So the problems with home and hospital education associated with ICT are clear. Too often, ICT seems to be introduced without the proper support, which includes network infrastructure, relationships, the communication between the home and hospital education and the mainstream school, equipment, assistance. So while these problems are something that must be addressed in order to actually use ICTs within a home and hospital education. So we think that the use of ICTs can help with the education of children with a medical condition, and especially when looking at the key educational factors and how important those are for the education of children with a medical condition. That is it. And I am ready to answer any of your questions that you might have, or Mikaela can answer as well. Oh yeah, right. So obviously for the, you'll see that Mikaela is going to put inside the chat here several web pages, links for web pages for the LEHO project, for the practical guide, which is a result of the three years of work that's been on LEHO, and several other tools and technologies that came out of the LEHO project. Is there any interesting narrative, comments, or success stories from your focus groups that you would like to share with us? Yeah, one of the things that was mentioned multiple times inside the focus groups was the use of Panda, our monkey in my chair. So monkey in my chair, which is actually not an ICT, technically, because there's no technology other than a monkey that's being put, Panda in my seat. Thank you. And this was, without a doubt, the one technology, one tool that was used where people had incredible success stories. The idea is that there's a Panda or a monkey or that remains in the seat, the mainstream school seat, the chair that the child would sit in. And then inside that, it's like a backpacker. And inside that, you could, the children from the mainstream school can put in notes or the teacher could put in homework assignments. And then that's delivered to the child who's either at home or in the hospital. And this was talked about several times passionately inside the focus groups as being absolutely a fantastic tool. Yeah, so Suzanne writes that this works well for the hospital school that she works with. And it's actually the only thing that children really look at, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, it was passionately talked about during the second focus group. Oh, that's interesting. They could be made more ICT by adding a memory stick with recorded things and pictures. That's really cool. I like that. And you could record audio messages. And I take pictures, put them on it. Yeah, I think so too. I think that the comment here about it's ironic that it's not an ICT solution is absolutely fantastic. Sorry, and we're back. The idea is, yeah, I think that it's really interesting because it's a vehicle that can be used. It's a physical vehicle that can be transported. And that can be like a physical manifestation of a real physical relationship. And I don't think it's any accident that it's widely used and well received. Yeah, right. And we have a couple of comments here. Let's see. Yeah, I think that's the idea of turning the pan in your seat into the e-panda. It would be interesting to see if there's a way to integrate the pan to the physical panda with this Suzanne's idea for a USB stick. And then maybe even creating a platform inside it that you can interact with. That'd be really, I think that could be really cool. No, I don't think you can touch it and feel any panda. But if you continued to have the physical panda and then created a platform that could be integrated with the physical panda, where people could write messages also in addition to the physical one, maybe it could be, yeah, exactly. Maybe it could be a really cool way to help with maintaining the calf of relationships. That's great, yeah. Yeah. Yep, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So the idea is definitely that the panda in your chair or the monkey in my chair is a way of enabling the children in the mainstream school to have a continuation. And at the same time, the child with the medical need who's in the home or hospital school then also knows that they are present. There's like a physical manifestation of presence of themselves inside the mainstream school. Yeah, I did mention Google Doc as a tool being used. And so the question is whether or not you're using a Google Docs. And that was something that was used and talked about in order to share assignments between the mainstream school and the home and hospital school. Absolutely, Google Docs is a great way to do that. I don't think that anyone mentioned one of the features that people don't use enough in Google Docs, which is the ability to physically be present on the document at exactly the same time. So you can do real time editing or real time writing inside the Google Doc. And off the top of my head, I don't think anyone mentioned it in the second focus group. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm thinking about, exactly. I mean, it's great to think about Google Doc not as a place where you can assign things and write things, but as a way where you can co-create. So I mean, one of the features that is just, again, repeat, that's fantastic about Google Doc is that you can write it exactly the same time on a document. It's completely real time editing. But no, they didn't mention that. OK, Suzanne was talking about the E-twinning project. Yeah, I think it's really interesting too that the E-twinning could have been used. And it was discussed, but it didn't really come up. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I agree that the idea for Google Docs is, I mean, it's great when you're able to edit exactly the same document. Obviously, you never have to send it off via an attachment inside an email. But one of the great things about Google Docs is being able to meet on the document and actually talk about it and work on it the exact same time. In fact, when collaborating with colleagues, we have the document on Google Docs, and then we have a Skype call, and then we edit the document as we're having the Skype call. And it's great. You talk to each other, then you see each other typing. Yeah, so I agree too. So one of the problems with the E-twinning is that it takes a lot of time to coordinate. Agreed? That's true. Yeah, the Google Hangout, if you wanted to stay in Google. Exactly. Is that a switching over to Skype? Suzanne says that Google Docs works well in a work scenario, but it might be difficult to arrange the classroom setting. Yeah, I don't know. It would be interesting to test it out and see if they could actually co-create, you know, synchronously. But I don't know. I don't know if it's been used, that part of the software. Ah, exactly. So the idea is, the difficulty is arranging for the child with the medical condition to be online at the same time. Yeah, and that could be a potential problem. So maybe you are more likely to have asynchronous communication through Google Docs, you know? Yeah, Suzanne comments about the fact that it was sometimes even impossible to get online. And in fact, in some areas of the hospital, it was one of the things that came out of the focus groups. First, especially the first focus group was the technological limitations and even liability issues and even issues regarding machines working, whatever, that you had to limit access to the internet inside certain areas in the hospital. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Michela wrote that in education, sometimes less information means better concentration. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, Michela and I could probably talk a lot about this about the research in education that demonstrates that ICT in the classroom, in the regular classroom actually deteriorates learning. Yep, there's great data that demonstrates just having a computer next to you inside a classroom, not even having a computer in front of you, but having a computer next to you reduces memory for the topic that you're learning. So you're less likely to remember what was taught to you if you had a computer next to you that someone was typing on. It's not like ICT is the solution. Yep, exactly. Yep, it's not just often distracting. In my, in teaching at the university, I have written in my program, so the syllabus for the courses that they're not allowed to have computers. I don't allow computers in the classroom. I don't allow cell phones on iPads. They have to write with a pen and paper. In fact, I think Michela just put a link into an article. Yeah, I don't think it's any accident, Suzanne, that they're talking about that. It's exactly the same thing that came out of our focus groups here in Italy, that in our focus group, she says the medics talked a lot about being physically present with the children, how important that was. I mean, if relationships is the end result from the second focus group and how important relationships, and one of the limitations is the, let me fix the auto for a second. And one of the limitations for ICT is that it can't solve face-to-face interactions. You need it, so, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's not just laptop, first of all, multitasking is a disaster. And second of all, the temptations are incredible. And even if you shut off the internet, even if you limit everything that you could possibly imagine, just the shiny screen is a distraction. It stops people from paying attention. I mean, it's the point where I wonder whether or not I'm gonna use PowerPoint in my teaching if I should just stand up at a whiteboard and just write on the whiteboard that whether or not students will learn more. My student will still, Suzanne writes, my daughter will stare at a blank TV. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my firm belief is that just like when I go out to eat with my friends, the cell phones get all got stacked up on the table and we ignore them, no one's able to touch them. Yeah, I mean, I think that these devices are really useful, but they should be used in limitation. And it's really ironic that it's ironic that the technologies that the panda in your seat and the monkey in your seat, whatever, is the technology that was talked about with the most passion, with the most, it was the thing that really got people excited about. And it's not technically ICT. Yes. I think if anyone has anything else they wanna say, that's great. I'm going to be shutting down, okay? It was really a pleasure having you and thank you very much for attending. Thanks. I apologize again for the slides that didn't have the tables. I assume we'll put the slides up on the Leho webpage so you can download it and see the gorgeous tables with all the beautiful numbers. Don't worry about being late, Suzanne. Yes, don't forget to check out the Leho website. Bye-bye.