Luís Mendes Gomes

Facebook vs moodle: Surveying university students on the use of learning management systems to support learning activities outside the classroom

Learning management systems and social networks on Web have been tools most used by students in higher education institutions as learning support tools outside of the classroom. In this paper, we present the results from a survey conducted at a Portuguese university to 159 students in Computer Science and Psychology about the purposes and reasons for the use of Moodle and Facebook. We conclude, among other conclusions, that they complement each other: while the first is mostly used for formal communication with teachers, the second is mostly used for informal communication with peers.

Demonstration of programming in Python using a remote lab with Raspberry Pi

The development of programming skills in computer science students, namely algorithm thinking and logical reasoning, is an important challenge to overcome their difficulties in CS1 and CS2 courses. With the advent of Internet of Things, the actual approaches based on project-oriented learning processes can be extended to use experimental setups with low cost microcomputers. In this paper, we provide a demonstration of online experiences with Raspberry Pi, connected to a wireless sensor network, in order to give CS2 students the ability to interact to physical world through practical examples in the context of online experimentation.

An IoT remote lab for seismic monitoring in a programming course

Emergent technologies combining online labs with IoT devices and real physical world situations have a high potential to promote innovation in higher educational programming courses. The adoption of IoT low cost devices can stimulate students to actively participate in the process of making their own remote labs. Following a project-based approach, we intend to improve CS2 students programming skills, with experiences in a laboratory to monitor seismic activity, in order to overcome their difficulties, to increase their motivation, to emphasize interaction with the external world through practical examples, as well as encourage them to self-study and problem solving.

A Remote Laboratory Architecture for Agile Learning

The objective of this paper is to design and develop a new concept for an educational platform, where the focus is to engage students into learning by shifting the current paradigm of learning methodologies, enabling new ways to organize information into a more intuitive fashion, leveraging the usage of gamification techniques, and the power of social networks.

FARMACIL: An application for mobile devices supporting the management of the medication regime

In this article we present and discuss a prototype for a mobile application to manage the drug regime of a wearer. From a survey of requirements, along with doctors, pharmacists and users of the national health system, we designed a prototype of FARMACIL application, for which we have obtained very promising results in acceptance testing, from a universe of people in various age groups.

Cuid@Web: A supporting plataform for informal caregivers

Informal caregivers contribute decisively to improving the quality of life of people with special needs (the elderly or people with temporary or permanent disabilities) to extend the stay of these people in their home or family environment. However, by giving priority to the dependent person they are facing serious risks jeopardizing their own health. In this paper, we present the Cuid@Web project that aims to create a Web infrastructure to support informal caregivers, promoting their literacy in health, through the development of skills related to their duties and the management of risks to their health.

Contributions to promote the adequacy of an approach based on services to EHR

There are many issues to consider when we develop an information system for managing the electronic health record (EHR). It must be useful for several types of users, entities and departments of health services. Also, it must be flexible to meet a broad set of needs and cover a wide range of clinical and non-clinical areas in health. In this paper we describe a regional healthcare system, having in mind to illustrate a distributed, heterogeneous healthcare system, and then to discuss the suitability of the Triple Helix model for governance in a service-oriented architecture context, following the OpenEHR.