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The purpose of this study was to describe instances of pedagogical practices of teachers using ICTs and the enhancements of practices using traditional methods, to more fundamental changes in their approach to teaching. Using a mixed method, the research examined the impact of increased education level on the ICT use competence perception and the influence of ICT knowledge level and skills on the adoption of blended learning contents. Four schools were used for this study; two picked out of 50 that are enhanced with ICT infrastructures while the other two were picked from schools without enough ICT infrastructures. Three research questions guided the study. Data collection included teachers, schools inspection officers, curriculum development experts, teacher trainees, and policymakers' interviews, questionnaires, classroom observations, and document reviews. Data analysis concentrated on the central questions of the study. The results suggested that teachers' education level could not determine their ICT knowledge level. Either, the ICT knowledge level has influences on the decision to use blended learning. Barriers to ICT use in education were revealed as: internal--more of personal attitudes and perceptions about a technology, and external--lack of availability and accessibility to the relevant resources (hardware and software), lack of framework that address integration of ICTs in teaching and learning, and unreliable Internet connection. Resulting from the results, this study suggests a goal-oriented teacher training framework which should address a complex integration of technology, content, pedagogy, school infrastructures, and the overall objectives of the education systems as trivial of ICT use determining factors.

With the education systems demand of contemporary technologies, teacher trainees should be imparted with competencies and skills to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into their future teaching and learning practices. This study assessed classroom ICTs integration opportunities and the challenges in relation to Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) and SAMR (Substitute, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) models. The case study involved tutors and teacher trainees (N = 206) from teacher training colleges. Results indicated that, majority of respondents have low pedagogical ICT competencies. However, tutors exhibited good knowledge level in all TPACK and SAMR constructs that we assessed, teacher trainees' revealed poor skills and inefficient support on the use of basic ICTs (hardware, software, and associated peripherals). The impacts of TPACK and SAMR models characteristics related to the technology use planning and redesign of learning tasks was evident. Most of the challenges identified were associated to the lack of infrastructures, readiness to change and lack of competencies on pedagogical ICTs applications. Among others, we recommend the government to work on a harmonized ICT in education integration framework; that consider the existing opportunities and challenges facing Tanzania teacher training systems. Further work should focus on carrying out an experimental research design to unlock the existing ICT use realities.

Pragmatically, machine learning techniques can improve educators' capacity to monitor students' learning progress when applied to quality data. For developing countries, the major obstacle has been the unavailability of quality data that fits the purpose. This is partly because the in-use information systems are either not properly managed or not accessible due to ethical issues and bureaucratic processes and procedures. System log data, which is readily available for educators who use electronic learning management systems, provides opportunities for applying machine learning techniques and devising practical solutions. This study analyzed real system log data as a viable alternative for potential use in machine learning based monitoring of students who are receding in their learning. The analysis proposed several indicators of recession, and how they can be combined to ease monitoring and visualization. The proposed indicators and visualization can be used by educators to monitor students and intervene proactively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of fuzzy logic and crowdsourcing can be a powerful tool for generating geospatial data for pedestrians with mobility challenges in urban areas. Although potentially useful, information about the accessibility of paths that is generated through crowdsourcing is susceptible to a high degree of imprecision. Spatial data management is required for such systems, which supports the management of uncertain data. Fuzzy theory allows us to model ambiguous information. To fill this gap, an improved method based on a fuzzy relational PostGIS database (FPostGIS) is proposed. The method includes extensions to represent imprecise data within an entity-relationship (ER) data model specifically tailored for path accessibility, and a set of steps for the derivation of FPostGIS from this extended ER model. According to the case study, this methodology has been applied in the design and development of decision support application within the Maps for Easy Paths (MEP) project. This application stores and retrieves accessibility information about a particular path and allows performing spatial operations and analysis inside the database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information systems are developed based on different requirements and different technologies. Integration of these systems is of vital importance as they cannot work in isolation, they need to share and exchange data with other information systems. The Information Systems handle data of different types and format's, finding a way to make them communicate is important as they need to exchange data during transactions, communication and different aspects which may require their interactions. In Tanzanian Local Government Authorities (LGAs), fixed asset data are not centralized, individual Local Government Authority stores their own data in isolation yet accountability is required through the provision of centralized storage for easy data access and easier data integration with other Information Systems in order to enhance fixed asset accountability. The study was carried out through reviewing of literature on the existing Information System integration approaches in order to identify and propose the best approach to be used in fixed asset management systems in LGA's in Tanzania. The different approaches which are used for systems integration such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Common Object Request Broker (CORBA), Common Object Model (COM) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) were evaluated under the factors considered at the LGA. The XML was preferred over SOA, CORBA and COM because of some challenges in governance, data security, availability of expertise for support, maintenance, implementation cost, performance, compliance with government changing policies and service reliability. The proposed approach integrates data for all the Local Government Authorities at a centralized location and middleware transforms the centralized data into XML so it can easily be used by other Information Systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]