If you had one mobile phone per school, what could you do with that? How could it support education? Presented virtually by Steve Vosloo at USAID m4Ed4Dev Seminar, 14 April 2011

1. 1 MOBILE/SCHOOL
Steve Vosloo
mLab Southern Africa
USAID m4Ed4Dev Seminar, 14 April 2011

2. 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

3. 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)

4. 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

5. 1 Mobile/school: Scraping the barrel
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

6. 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
Image: http://mobiled.uiah.fi/?page_id=101

7. 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

8. 1 Mobile/school: Looking better
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

9. 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?
Image: http://blogs.up.ac.za/jcp2010/index.php?blog=83

10. 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

11. 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?

12. 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?

13. 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

14. 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

15. Thank you
steve@mlab.co.za
twitter.com/mlabsa
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40042565@N06/3681090988/sizes/z/in/photostream/ (CC-BY-NC-SA)