m-Novels on the rise is a piece I wrote about m-novels and Kontax in particular for M&G’s Tech Leader.
Most of my spare time has gone into heading up the m4Lit / Kontax project (hence the lack of blog posts here). For now, catch me at that project’s blog.
Categories: literacy skills · mobile phones · mobile phones mlearning
Kontax is the m-novel that we’ve just launched as part of the m4Lit project, which I lead. It’s the world’s first English and isiXhosa m-novel. Check it out!
The Kontax launch @ the Book Lounge
Categories: literacy skills · mobile phones mlearning
Everyone knows that the mobile phone is revolutionising the way people communicate, work, play and live in Africa. Below are three ideas for mobile learning (mlearning) on the continent.
m-Novels
Given that many teens are reading and writing more than ever, not formally but on mobile phones, can these be used as platforms for exposing learners to “good” examples of the written word, and encourage them to read, write and discuss literature? There is certainly a need to explore all available channels to raise the low level of literacy amongst youth in Africa. Further, mobile phones may represent a way to alleviate the chronic shortage of books as they provide a viable distribution solution.
A project that I’ve proposed at the Shuttleworth Foundation is the m4Lit (mobile phones for literacy) pilot. If approved, this project will create a story, published on a mobisite – accessible via mobile phone web browsers and computer web browsers – to explore the opportunities for mobile-assisted literacy development. The story will be published serially (daily) and invite young readers to interact with it as it unfolds – voting on chapter endings, commenting, discussing and finally submitting a written piece as part of a competition.
The overall aim is to increase exposure to the written word and get young people to read and write more. The pilot takes an expanded view of functional literacy, framing the consumption and creation of content as a social exercise that allows for audience participation, using the technology that is in the hands of the youth. (Let’s face it, at USD299 a pop, the Kindle is not going to become the ebook reader of Africa.)
Mobile learning management systems
Building on the learning management systems (LMS) out there, like LAMS or Moodle, a mobile LMS would allow for teachers to create content as well as assignments, which learners then complete on their phones. The ImfundoYami / ImfundoYethu pilot project — “mobile learning for mathematics” — in South Africa is a good example of such a system that:
Where to get content for the system? Use open-educational resources (OERs) from sites such as Connexions or OER Commons. Such a system can be used to develop literacy and numeracy, or any learning subject for that matter.
I’ve been struggling with the question of how to make this kind of system sustainable — after all, it costs money to access data over your mobile phone. Advertising or sponsorship is one model. After my presentation at the Accenture CRM summit, Andrea Spilhaus-Mitchell, Business Development Director at Accenture South Africa suggested that there needs to be something in it for the mobile industry stakeholders. Literacy and numeracy tests would reveal much about mobile phone users, and allow for customising subscriber packages as well as marketing campaigns. In short, it’ll allow the mobile network operators and handset manufacturers to better understand their customers. Further, this kind of data (in aggregate) could be fed into larger reports, such as the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.
Adding a level of competitiveness to the tests, with an overall score or a leader board, could motivate learners to take more tests and to try harder. This has worked well in Scottish primary schools where learners play Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training on Nintendo DS, and also for Dr Math on MXit.
Alternate reality games
Lastly, I do love the idea of alternate reality games (ARG) for African learners, in which they use their mobile phones to access clues and solve the game puzzles. Ushahidi or The Grid (in South Africa) would make the games location relevant.
These are three ideas that I think could make a real impact on learning in Africa, using the device that has changed everything.
Categories: ARG · literacy skills · mobile phones mlearning
I haven’t blogged here for a while … because I’ve been doing a lot of posting at mLearning Africa, which I started in May. It’s about news, projects and research about mobile learning in Africa. Check it out!
I also recently attended a mobile learning summit in Zambia called Go Mobile! Check out an interview, posts and images from that.
Zambian learners on their mobile phones (Source: mLearning Africa, CC-BY-NC-SA)
Categories: mobile phones mlearning
(Source: HDI Youth Marketeers)
At mLearning Africa I blogged about the results of the fifth annual Sunday Times Generation Next Study. The study, conducted by HDI Youth Marketeers in conjunction with Monash University (South Africa), polled 5,272 South African youth about their brand preferences and consumer behaviour.
What is clear from the study is that youth like to be connected, entertained and to participate (consume and produce content). The mobile phone is at the heart of this behaviour — which has implications for teaching and learning in the 21st century.
Categories: mobile phones mlearning · participatory culture
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Categories: mobile phones mlearning
Texting refers to the use of abbreviations and other techniques to craft SMS and instant messages. Texting does not always follow the standard rules of English grammar, nor usual word spellings. It is so pervasive that some regard it as an emergent language register in it’s own right. This is largely due to the proliferation of mobile phones as well as internet-based instant messaging (IM).
For a number of years teachers and parents have blamed texting for two ills: the corruption of language and the degradation in spelling of youth writing. Is there any good to come from this “modern scourge”? In the evolution of language, are we witnessing a major change akin to that brought about by Geoffrey Chaucer, the 14th-century author who wrote in vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin?
To answer these questions, I wrote an issue paper that explores the issue of texting, first by defining literacy, then describing the empirical research available on the effects of texting on youth literacy, which underpin the positive perspectives a number of linguists ascribe to texting. Examples of positive interventions – in classroom and informal learning contexts – that leverage the popularity of texting are outlined. Finally, research questions regarding texting in the South African context are offered. All comments welcome!
Download paper (pdf)
(Image: Texting by adotjdotsmith. CC-BY-SA-2.0)
Categories: mobile phones mlearning · texting
Today I gave a presentation at the 3rd Annual Education Conference in Southern Africa called …
For the fortunate learners in South Africa who have access to a computer lab at school, they often only spend 30 minutes per week at these PCs. At the same time, up to 90% of youth have access to a cellphone. The argument of my presentation is that we — educators, researchers, policy makers and parents — need to engage with the full gamut of ICTs and digital media in the lives of young people when we think of their teaching and learning. It is the only plausible response.
Cellphones and (digital) gaming present opportunities — and risks — for learning. It is time to seriously consider the digital lives of young people — to exploit the concomitant opportunities and minimise the risks — so that the growing gap between their in-school and out-of-school experiences is narrowed.
Even in the computer lab, much more needs to be done to fully utilise the affordances of ICTs. Researchers from the University of Cape Town, Mastin Prinsloo and Marion Walton, present a bleak case study of how early literacy is taught at one primary school in Cape Town. They describe their observation of learners and teachers in the school’s computer lab in Situated responses to the digital literacies of electronic communication in marginal school settings (2008):
The teachers enthusiastically supported the use of this [pre-reading] software because it was consistent with their own ideas about how reading as a basic skill should be introduced: as a drill and practice activity.
Children encounter literacy in the context of the authority relations and pedagogical practices that characterize schooling in this setting.
The way they were expected to behave in school contrasts sharply with the potential of ICTs for children’s experimentation, self-instruction and individual choices and creativity
We really need to change this. If that is all we’re going to use powerful PCs for, then we might as well not bother.
Categories: gaming · informal learning · mobile phones mlearning · participatory culture
At the Web4Dev conference in New York I met with the founders, inventors and creators of some pretty amazing mobile-for-development projects. Below are my top five, with some thoughts on how they could be used for education.
Ushahidi
Ushahidi — which means “testimony” in Swahili — is a free, open-source platform to crowdsource crisis information. It allows anyone to submit information through SMS, email or web form, with each submission pinned to a map. The aggregate effect is a compelling visualisation of an event as it unfolds, told by citizen journalists. It has been used to report on the botched elections in Kenya, the DRC and the war in Gaza.
I told Erik Hersman, the White African behind Ushahidi, that it should be used for an alternate reality game with teenagers in Cape Town.
GeoChat
GeoChat supports relief workers after a major humanitarian crisis, when reliable team-based communication is critical but notoriously difficult to achieve. This open-source group communications technology lets team members interact to maintain shared geospatial awareness of who is doing what where — over any device, on any platform, over any network. According to Robert Kirkpatrick, of InSTEDD, it works like this:
Even those not on the ground, e.g. the support team back at UN headquarters, can visualize the remote team on the surface of a map and interact with them. GeoChat is nearing public Beta release.
GeoChat beta test
For educational purposes, this tool could be used by learners when mapping their community. Or for co-ordinating on-the-ground players, and distance players, during that alternate reality game!
Text to Change
In a pilot project in Uganda, Text to Change — an mhealth non-profit organisation — used an SMS-based quiz to raise awareness around HIV/AIDS. The quiz, which reached 15,000 subscribers, had two goals: i) to collect information, and ii) to promote voluntary counseling and testing (VCT). As an incentive to answer questions, free airtime was offered.
The quiz allowed TTC to assess the rate of correct answers within certain socio-economic sectors; this information was passed to UNICEF to inform their interventions. The quiz also resulted in a 40% increase in the number of people who sought VCT. All in all, a very successful project!
Hajo van Beijma and I spoke about how TTC could be used in South Africa (SA) for education. Some ideas:
RapidSMS
RapidSMS is an SMS-based open-source monitoring and data collection platform developed by UNICEF’s Innovations and Development team. An SMS submitting quantitative data consists of a keyword followed by parameters, e.g. “User5889 2″ could be HIV-patient number 5889 reporting that she’s just taken her second dose of anti-retroviral medicine for the day. Qualitative data can also be submitted — ideal for when polling communities. The RapidSMS interface allows for editing and visualisation of the received data, as well as exporting it for spreadsheets.
As the UNICEF team, Evan Wheeler, Christopher Fabian and Erica Kochi said in their report on Innovation for Africa, “rather than hiring consultants for monthly visits to hundreds of schools to survey teacher attendance, why not visit once and teach children to send UNICEF a SMS on days their teacher is not present?”
Talking book by Literacy Bridge
Literacy Bridge is a non-profit organisation with the goal of making knowledge accessible to people living in poverty. The bet of Cliff Schmidt — it’s founder — is on audio, and so he created the talking book: a low cost, ruggedised audio player/recorder. The device has awesome features, such as simple device-to-device copying (no PC or network needed), audio hyperlinking (e.g. to a glossary of terms used in the audio piece), and slow play for reading practice.
In Africa, many people have low-access or no-access to ICT. The talking book is perfect for empowering this audience.
The conference made it clear that crowd-sourcing, user participation, SMS and geospatial visualisation (mapping) of information are all red hot right now.
Categories: ARG · mobile phones · mobile phones mlearning · participatory culture · web4dev09
The Handheld Learning 2008 conference, held in London, UK, kicked off this morning.
First up: Andrew Pinder, Chairman of Becta, which focuses on how to use technology to support teaching and learning in schools. It will launch a “surge” to address the lack of effective and productive use of technology in schools. Why? Because research proves that, when correctly used, technology does support educational attainment and raise grades. For young people, probably the only time they’re not using technology is when they’re in school. This is puzzling and demotivating for them, especially as they know that ICT literacy is required for 95% of jobs.
The forthcoming campaign — called Next Generation Learning — is aimed at teachers and parents, to demonstrate the benefits and necessity of using technology in education. They will also lobby government to ensure home access for all. Not PCs for all, but affordable access through any device with a screen. They are talking to the corporate sector to put together packages for low-income homes. They are interested in getting a good deal for the learner that results in educational outcomes.
In January ‘09 Becta is hosting a meeting of Education Departments from around the world (SA is attending) in an effort get the sentiment of Next Generation Learning being implemented globally.
Categories: HandheldLearning2008 · mobile phones mlearning
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