1 MOBILE/SCHOOL Steve Vosloo mLab Southern Africa USAID m4Ed4Dev Seminar, 14 April 2011
1 MOBILE/SCHOOL Steve Vosloo mLab Southern Africa USAID m4Ed4Dev Seminar, 14 April 2011
About me mLearning practitioner from South Africa Focus on mobiles and literacy – see www.yozaproject.com Now Mobile Impact Evangelist at mLab Southern Africa, a brand new incubator for mobile apps and content in the region www.twitter.com/mlabsa
If you had one mobile per school … What could you do? Let’s look at three scenarios …
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40042565@N06/3680283341/sizes/z/in/photostream/ (CC-BY-NC-SA)
1 Mobile/school: Scraping the barrel
The worst case scenario ….
• 1 Basic phone • SIM card with no money • Very small memory for storing content • Intermittent electricity • No mobile data coverage (voice, SMS and USSD only)
• Voice, SMS and USSD is expensive to use
Things you could do: • Regional “system strengthening” activities:
• Education Dept broadcasting updates to headmasters and teachers
• School “system strengthening” activities: • If a school can send cheap or free SMSes it can use FrontlineSMS
or SchoolTool in South Africa to: • SMS broadcast to teachers: admin updates, timetable changes,
motivational messages, etc. • SMS teacher and student attendance back to Education Dept • SMS broadcast to parents
1 Mobile/school: Scraping the barrel
Things you could do: • Classroom activities:
• SMS dictionary lookup • Wikipedia lookup using
MobileAudiowiki (mobiled.uiah.fi)
• Attach a speaker and have class listen to educational audio content (paid for by Education Dept or corporate sponsor)
• Take part in SMS-based knowledge quizzes, e.g. texttochange.org in Uganda
• Remember: phone can also be used by groups of students, one at a time
1 Mobile/school: Scraping the barrel
Image: http://mobiled.uiah.fi/?page_id=101
1 Mobile/school: Looking better
A much better scenario ….
• 1 Feature phone with camera • SIM card with not much money • Small memory for storing content • Intermittent electricity • Only GPRS mobile data coverage
• At least one of voice, SMS or mobile data is relatively cheap, e.g. in South Africa mobile data is cheap, in India SMS is very cheap
Things you could do: • All of the above, plus … • “System strengthening” of Education Administration
• Education Dept publishes info on mobisite which headmasters and teachers can access
• Classroom activities: • Take/share photos, e.g. of plants for Biology project • Record audio and video and share via Bluetooth, e.g.
Dissections for All project in South Africa (mobile phones used to create short videos of frog dissections and shared)
• Access web: m.wikipedia.org, m.dictionary.com, m.google.com, etc. • Read m-novels aloud from www.yoza.mobi
1 Mobile/school: Looking better
Things you could do: • After hours activities:
• IM Chat (using GPRS) for live tutoring, e.g. Dr Math on MXit in South Africa
• IM Chat amongst networks of teachers or headmasters for support and sharing
What else?
1 Mobile/school: Looking better
Image: http://blogs.up.ac.za/jcp2010/index.php?blog=83
1 Mobile/school: Ideal world
The ideal scenario ….
• 1 Smart phone • 1 Pico projector • SIM card, loaded with money • Memory card loaded with educational content • Constant electricity • 3G coverage
• Subsidised for educational use • Free/low cost calls • Free SMSes • “Zero rated” (free) mobile data browsing
1 Mobile/school: Ideal world
Things you could do: • All of the above, plus … • Classroom utilities:
• Play educational videos from phone through Pico projector/TV, e.g. Text2Teach project in Philippines and Tanzania
• Download and share mlearning educational resources • Collaborate with other schools on projects, e.g. via a Facebook
page • Blog, Facebook, Twitter • Download streaming video from, e.g. Khan Academy on Youtube
What else?
But maybe we should ask: What is “mobile”? • Is an MP3 player which is connected to speakers and
broadcasting an audio lesson on English or math considered a mobile device?
• How about a flash drive with educational content accessed from a nearby telecenter/cybercafé and used in a classroom by a teacher with a small projector to project learning materials for an entire class?
• Comments?
Barriers to use • Cost! • mLearning content • Lack of awareness of how mobiles can support
educational ecosystem • Lack of school “acceptable use policies” – many just ban
mobile phones • Uneven access • Electricity (although people mostly “find a way”) • Privacy issues
mLab Southern Africa newsletter We will publish news about mobile usage, mlearning and other mobile related issues, e.g. mhealth, from southern Africa To subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/joinmlabsa
Thank you [email protected] twitter.com/mlabsa
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40042565@N06/3681090988/sizes/z/in/photostream/ (CC-BY-NC-SA)