MobileActive.org

Rural Africa is in need of qualified teachers in mathematics and science for primary and secondary school. Classrooms in rural Africa are often benches under a tree. The teachers themselves often have limited education in mathematics and science. As cellular telephony services pushes deeper into rural Africa, the question we asked was whether various wireless access methods could be used to assist children and teenagers with their mathematics and science education.

One of the leaders in low cost GPRS communication over cell phones is a South African based company, MXit Lifestyle, boasting over 7 million users using their mobile instant messaging chat client, MXit. According to MXit's demographics, 45% of their users are children and teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18.

Dr Math is a project which Meraka Institute initiated in January, 2007. Dr Math linked up children and teenagers using MXit on their cell phones to university students (using internet based workstations) in Pretoria who acted as tutors. The tutors would help with mathematics and, depending on the individual tutors, chemistry and physics homework problems. Currently, over 3000 children and teenagers are using this service in Southern Africa.

The m4Lit (mobile phones for literacy) pilot project will create a mobile novel (m-novel), published on a mobisite in English and in isiXhosa, to explore ways of supporting teen leisure reading and writing around fictional texts in South Africa, using mobile media.

The story will be published serially and invite readers to interact with it as it unfolds – teens will vote on and discuss the unfolding plot, leave comments, and finally submit a written piece as part of a competition. The study will contribute to the understanding of mobile literacies, from a new literacy studies perspective.

Uganda suffers from a severe shortage of professional healthcare workers. Thus, programs aimed at prevention of disease are an important complement to the limited healthcare delivery system.

We analyze two deployments of an SMS-based HIV/AIDS education system that uses a quiz format to assess people’s knowledge of the disease, including its causes and methods of prevention. The deployments were to two groups in Uganda, one a sample of mobile phone users who live in a town in northwest Uganda; the other, workers at three factories in central and southeastern Uganda. The two samples had accuracy rates above chance levels and workers at the three factories had higher rates of participation (more individuals and more questions) than the sample selected from the cell tower service area. An analysis of incorrect answers suggested that while participants had some difficulty in matching the formatting required by the quiz, literacy did not appear to be a significant problem.

We discuss the results in terms of implications for using SMS as a user interface mechanism and explore the possibility of using social ties among participants as a way to promote the scalability and sustainability of this quiz-based education method.

In NGO circles today there is a great deal of hope about economic growth in developing countries and the development of an information society as a result of the growing presence of technological possibilities in communication. At first sight, African cities (and the countryside now too) seem to be flooded with different ICT possibilities that are expected to bring ‘development’. Studies in ICT development have indeed shown some social change: economic development is visible in local markets, youth are increasingly being connected and there are possibilities for social relating that were never there before.

Societies in Africa that were very mobile of old are now integrating these changes in specific ways. This may result in these societies joining the world at large but it might also lead to Africans becoming part of the so-called Fourth World (Castells), a world disconnected from others and experiencing new inequalities but without a specific geographical location. The changes in communication technology are transforming societies both in the North and in the South and are blurring the divisions between the two.

Thinking on technology and society has gone far beyond the technological determinism that often informs discourses in development circles. The mobile phone has become a symbol of the new communication era and is challenging societies and creating new forms of relating between the North and the South. This paper uses the mobile phone and its introduction in Africa as an example of how the new wave of ICT is leading to cultural, social and economic dynamics that could take societies in unexpected directions that may not, as such, open up society but instead close part of it off.

Featherweight multimedia devices combine audio with non-electronic visual displays (e.g., paper). Because of their low cost, customizability, durability, storage capacity, and energy efficiency, they are well-suited for education and information dissemination among illiterate and semi-literate people.

We present a taxonomy of featherweight multimedia devices and also derive design recommendations from our experiences deploying featherweight multimedia in the agriculture and health domains in India. We found that with some initial guidance, illiterate users can quickly learn to use and enjoy the device, especially if they are taught by peers.

Mobile Phone ownership in low and middle-income countries has skyrocketed in the past several years. But a woman is still 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man. This figure increases to 23% if she lives in Africa, and 37% if she lives in South Asia. Closing this gender gap would bring the benefit of mobile phones to an additional 300 million women. By extending the benefits of mobile phone ownership to women, a host of social and economic goals can be advanced.

Mobile phone ownership provides distinct benefits to women, including improved access to educational, health, business and employment opportunities. Women surveyed across low and middle-incoome countries on three continents believe that a mobile phone helps them lead a more secure, connected and productive life.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof argues that “in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.” In this paper, we present a design model for empowering low income women in the developing world, in ways that cut across individual application areas. Specifically, this model characterizes a possible trajectory for NGOs and women to engage with each other and among themselves – potentially augmented by technology – to help women escape from poverty.

The fieldwork components in this study took place over 15 weeks in three phases, with a total of 47 NGO staff members and 35 socio-economically challenged women in rural and urban India. Interviews and co-design sessions with seven proof-of-concept prototypes showed that women appeared to belong to five distinct stages of “growth” in striving towards independence. We report the technology design lessons from our co-design sessions to illustrate how user readiness, relationship building at the community and family levels, and integration with state, national and international level programs, should be taken into account in the broader context of intervention design.

This report summarises our findings on past developments and the current landscape of mLearning in the developing world through research and interviews with MNOs, technology vendors, foundations and the academic community. It is not intended to be an exhaustive evaluation of the global mLearning market, but rather a summary of activity so far and,more importantly, some guidance and ideas for future development.

The research found that there are many mLearning projects currently taking place globally, although the vast majority are on a small scale and it is assumed an even greater number are not documented. It was observed that activity is more widespread in the developed world, especially the US and the UK,where mobile technology is more prevalent and advanced, and where funding does not present as great a barrier. However, with 98% of the world’s illiterate or semiliterate population residing in developing countries, where access to schools and resource materials is at a minimum, such regions present the greatest areas of need. These markets therefore represent the greatest opportunities for mLearning programmes and products.

The past year has seen a substantial increase in mLearning initiatives and certainly there is escalating talk of its potential. But is the potential of mLearning hype or reality? Despite the many successes mLearning is experiencing, more research is needed to understand how this ubiquitous technology can be used to provide educational resources to those most in need, along with the development of a sustainable and robust business case.

In sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in rural Nigeria, students in high school face the challenge of lacking exposure to English. For most, English language class are the only opportunity for learning English. Consequently, English skills are poor.

On the other hand, the use of mobile phones in Nigeria has continued to soar, with everyone having at least one mobile phone and Short Messaging Service (SMS) becoming the cheapest and regular mode of communication across different socio-economic spheres. Thus, there is great potential for this technology to be used as an instructional tool.

In this study, an SMS-based mobile learning system is employed in teaching high school students English. In order to determine if there were significant differences between students' success rate, pretests were administered to the experimental and control groups, after both received classroom instructions from the same Instructor. Subsequently, post-tests were administered to both groups, after the experimental and control groups had received SMS-based instruction and extra classroom instructions respectively. A paired sampled t-test was carried out and the results clearly revealed that after receiving the SMS-based instruction, the experimental group performed better than their counterparts who had received additional classroom instructions.

The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is a community-based comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa over a five-year period. MVP and Ericsson’s Consumer Lab collaborated to investigate the baseline conditions for enhanced connectivity and integrating mobile telephony in MVP sites. It is hypothesized that this will accelerate the achievement of the MDGs through improved communication and availability of information. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the research team aimed to assess the effects of network strengthening and strategic integration in the context of a rural village in a low-income African country.

Four Millennium Village sites were examined for this study on connectivity: Bonsaaso, Ghana; Dertu, Kenya; Ikaram, Nigeria; and Mbola, Tanzania. The survey results from the sites showed common attributes for mobile phone owners but usage trends differed across study sites. Given the results, in three of the four sites, there is a significant market to be explored for voice services to be strengthened and made more easily available in terms of infrastructure and costs. Lessons drawn from these sites can provide us with useful insights into the potential for development and use of mobile phones in the rest of the continent, in addition to providing useful policy implications.

Adapted from Executive Summary: With the aim of providing developing member countries (DMCs) with better guidance to use information and communication technology (ICT) effectively in education, the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) funded a 21-month regional technical assistance (RETA) in Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, and Samoa. The RETA researched approaches to using ICT in education in ways that succeed in improving teaching and learning and also are sustainable given the region’s development challenges.

The study in Bangladesh, part of the e-Teacher Training component, complements the existing ADB-funded Teaching Quality Improvement in Secondary Education Project (TQI-SEP;2005–2011), which has as one of its objectives, to provide in-service professional development to all serving teachers working in secondary schools recognized by the Ministry of Education (MoE) at least once during the project period. 

The study equipped two subject trainers, a training coordinator, and a cluster of 10 schools with “smartphones”2 (with video, speakerphone, and three-way calling capabilities), for use by 20 Bangla and math teachers in 10 schools of the Barisal region in southern Bangladesh. The existing training curriculum was revised from a 2-week, face-to-face workshop to a 6-week distance-mode training based on printed materials and practical application of training content with peers. The phones were intended primarily to enhance communication, motivation, and multimedia delivery.

The objective of the study was to develop a case study on the use of mobile connectivity in support of distance education and to determine whether:

• it is an effective mode for teacher training and improvement in classroom practice
• it is a suitable mode to reach rural and remote teachers, including women and disadvantaged groups
• it presents other benefits in terms of education administration (including student assessment and costs) and pedagogy.

The study also sought to determine the costs of this model, and the features of the smartphones that would be most useful as a support to distance learning.

We present an innovative approach to healthcare worker (HCW) training using mobile phones as a personal learning environment. Twenty physicians used individual Smartphones (Nokia N95 and iPhone), each equipped with a portable solar charger. Doctors worked in urban and peri-urban HIV/AIDS clinics in Peru, where almost 70% of the nation's HIV patients in need are on treatment. A set of 3D learning scenarios simulating interactive clinical cases was developed and adapted to the Smartphones for a continuing medical education program lasting 3 months. A mobile educational platform supporting learning events tracked participant learning progress. A discussion forum accessible via mobile connected participants to a group of HIV specialists available for back-up of the medical information. Learning outcomes were verified through mobile quizzes using multiple choice questions at the end of each module.

In December 2009, a mid-term evaluation was conducted, targeting both technical feasibility and user satisfaction. It also highlighted user perception of the program and the technical challenges encountered using mobile devices for lifelong learning.

With a response rate of 90% (18/20 questionnaires returned), the overall satisfaction of using mobile tools was generally greater for the iPhone. Access to Skype and Facebook, screen/keyboard size, and image quality were cited as more troublesome for the Nokia N95 compared to the iPhone.

Training, supervision and clinical mentoring of health workers are the cornerstone of the scaling up process of HIV/AIDS care in resource-limited settings (RLSs). Educational modules on mobile phones can give flexibility to HCWs for accessing learning content anywhere. However lack of softwares interoperability and the high investment cost for the Smartphones' purchase could represent a limitation to the wide spread use of such kind mLearning programs in RLSs.

The cell phone, now the most widely used medium in Asia, has major educational implications. Most users, however, do not realize the cell phone's potential for education, nor even for the communication functions for which it was originally designed. Most educators still see the computer and the cell phone as unrelated devices, and the tiny cell phone more as a personal accessory, especially for young people.

With falling prices and increasing functionality, however, it is virtually certain that not too far in the future all of the world's students will have a cell phone. This is sufficient reason and motivation for educators to explore the possibility of making the cell phone an important tool in the educational systems of developed and developing countries.

This article describes the experience of two major projects that are studying the potential of cell phone and short message service (SMS) techniques for formal and nonformal education in the Philippines and Mongolia. The studies have yielded positive reactions from students and trainees about the potential of these techniques, and are suggesting design and logistical principles for use in educational cell phone implementation.

The ability to collect data is key to the success of many organizations operating in the developing world. Given the weaknesses of current tools and the surge in mobile phone growth, there's an opportunity for mobile and cloud technologies to enable timely and efficient data collection. This paper discusses Open Data Kit (ODK), a suite of tools that enable efficient and timely data collection on cell phones. ODK is designed to let users own, visualize, and share data without the difficulties of setting up and maintaining servers. The tools are easy to use, deploy, and scale. They also go beyond open source - they're based on open standards and supported by a larger community.

With the push to better school results in mathematics, science, and technology related subjects, often language education is moved into the background. In Africa, however, education is often not in the mother tongue of the learners. Pupils are in a position where they are trying to learn complicated subjects such as science and mathematics in a language which is not their home language. In some African countries, there are dozens if not hundreds of languages. Hadeda is a project where primary school pupils (and even secondary school pupils) are encouraged to practice spelling words or vocabulary words using their cell phone. Hadeda allows the language teacher to create spelling lists or vocabulary lists in English and Afrikaans. Hadeda then generates a fun cell phone application using multiple text-to-speech engines to encourage pupils to practice spelling the words.