Trends in Distance Education and Open Learning: Policy ... - ADEA

3. M-learning projects in AfricaM-UbuntuLiteracy Through Mobile PhonesM-Ubuntu uses inexpensive, low-threshold mobile phone technologies to empower teachersto address Africa’s literacy crisis.M-Ubuntu is applying the Zulu concept of Ubuntu - besttranslated as "I am because we are." to this challenge. At the heart of the pilot project aretwo teams of reform- minded teachers and their enthusiastic learners. Spectrum nearJohannesburg contends with crime & other social dislocations accompanying urbanization.Ramosadi located near Botswana, struggles to serve orphans. Developed with and forstudents and fellow teachers, M-Ubuntu is connecting South African teachers with m-literacy coaches in the United States and England to help them open new vistas to learnerson the wrong side of the literacy and digital divide.Through M-Ubuntu teachers are usingrecycled smart phones to bring the power of handheld computing to their classrooms. Ourfocus is on project-based learning, access to the best in South African and global literature,and the development of critical reading, writing and thinking skills. The pilot phase of theproject, 2009-2010, involved 20 teachers and 600 learners. Future plans call for expansionto additional teams of teachers in Africa and possibly beyond.Building capacity to use mobile technologiesPROTEGE QV, a Cameroonian NGO working for “Promotion of Technologies that GuaranteeEnvironment and a better Quality of Life” conducted capacity building in 2005 for leadersof 20 rural women’s associations to explore the potential of SMS for networking andcommunications. The training covered:• Defining information: oral and written communication• Defining the types of information sharing activities within network associations• Discussion of different communication practices and media, with their relative strengthsand weaknesses (including face to face, post, radio, internet, newsletters)• Introduction to the options offered by mobile phones, technical support for writing andsending SMS to individuals or groups, and tips on using SMS to communicate withinnetworks.Protégé QV have noted that since the training the women not only use SMS tocommunicate within their networks, but also with the head office of the NGO, which is 400km from some of the rural areas where the associations operate, in order to accesssupport materials, information on training and advice on follow up activities.63