Title: The digital revolution in sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Laila Ali
Source: Al Jazeera English
Date (published): 12/10/2011
Date (accessed): 17/10/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Much has been written about the role technology played in bringing social and political change across much of the Middle East and North Africa, but less is known about the technological revolution that is taking place and transforming people's lives in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is estimated that by 2015 sub-Saharan Africa will have more people with mobile phone network access than electricity access at home. People with internet and no home electricity will reach 138 million, according to the Cisco Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2010-2015.

This deep and rapid mobile penetration is catapulting developing countries into the 21st century and bringing new and previously unimagined opportunities. While schools in the developed world enforce strict policies to keep mobile phones out of the classroom, African schools and universities are now exploring the use of mobile technology to assist teaching.
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Mobile education
Under the BridgeIt initiative, known locally as Elimu kwa Teknologia or Education through Technology, teachers download video content using Nokia N95 mobile phones, which are connected to TVs in their classrooms, allowing rural schools and communities access to a digital catalogue of locally-developed or adapted educational content.
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E-learning
In South Africa the concept of using mobile technology to support distant learners is also gaining ground. Pretoria University considers it an extension of e-learning - where distance learners use the internet to access materials to support their studies.
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An app for that
The use of mobile technology in Africa is not limited to the field of education. In Kenya, high mobile penetration spurred the development of ground-breaking applications that are positioning the country as a regional leader in technology."

Title: Learning with Mobile Devices Somewhere Near the Bottom of the Pyramid
Author: John Traxler
Source: Educational Technology Debate
Publisher: UNESCO
Date (published): 06/07/2011
Date (accessed): 17/07/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Mobile phones hold out enormous promise as the single ICT most likely to deliver education in Africa, and to do so on a sustainable, equitable and scalable basis. I think however that so far, we have not often seen much progress beyond fixed-term, small-scale and subsidised pilots and it is worth exploring whether mobile phones can really deliver their promise.

Delivering education in Africa using mobile phones probably strikes governments, institutions and practitioners as easy and obvious because mobile phones and mobile networks are almost universally accessible and reliable in places where environment, economics, infrastructure and security might variously militate against any other ICTs and where the demographics of mobile phone ownership, access and competence, unlike most other ICTs, takes us near to the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ – the actual ‘bottom of the pyramid’ is of course populated by people who can’t even afford mobile phones! Furthermore, mobile phones are an individual ICT not an institutional or corporate ICT and are not predicated on access to colleges, business centres, cyber-cafes or maybe even cities. Therefore, learning on mobile phones should work.

The current World Bank Group and the African Development Bank study is intended “to raise awareness and stimulate action, especially among African governments and development practitioners”. These are indeed vital prerequisites but perhaps ‘critical awareness’ and ‘rigorously evidence-based action’ are even more vital. This is important debate is often characterised by simplifications, misplaced optimism and untested assertions. Hopefully this piece will strike a better balance.

My contention is that whilst many good projects using mobile devices to support learning, by definition, do good work and thus deserve to be praised and celebrated, our problems start when we try to understand these projects, when we try to reason and infer about these projects, when we try to explain and disseminate them in the hope that we can reproduce and replicate them. This is all the more worrying as we overlook the far larger number of less successful projects or when we group, organise and cluster projects in order to find common generalisable themes, forces, causes and mechanisms. Therein lies our problem with scale, sustainability and equity.

Something is wrong and we need to dig beneath the surface. What are my reasons for advocating such caution?"

Title: Mobile Phones for Teaching and Learning Science
Author: Sameera Wijerathna
Source: ICT4D
Date (published): 05/11/2009
Date (accessed): 06/11/2009
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Currently mobile phones are banned in Sri Lankan schools. But recently a research study on effectiveness of mobile phone for teaching and learning science was carried out in central province of Sri Lanka by a PhD student together with Department of Education of the University of Peradeniya in collaboration with the University of Bristol, UK. Dialog Telekom (a telecommunication company in Sri Lanka) supported this initiative by means of providing technical expertise and other resources.
How will students use mobile phones if it is already banned in Sri Lankan Schools?

Title: Kontax, a teen m-novel in a local African language
Author: Steve Vosloo
Source: mLearning Africa
Date (published): 16/10/2009
Date (accessed): 18/10/2009
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
On 30 September 2009, the world’s first mobile novel – or m-novel – published in both English and isiXhosa was launched. Kontax, a teen mystery story, was created for the Shuttleworth Foundation’s m4Lit project, lead by Steve Vosloo.

Standing for “mobiles for literacy” the project aims to explore whether teens are interested in reading stories on their cellphones, whether and how they write using their cellphones, and whether cellphones might be used to develop literacy skills and a love of reading. The hope behind the m4Lit project is that by researching the role of cellphones in teen reading and writing, educationalists and publishers can better understand the opportunities and challenges for literacy practices presented by the most popular communication device used by any teen today.

See also:
m4Lit: a teen m-novel project in South Africa
Conference paper describing the project (in pdf)