MobilED: a mobile tools and services platform for formal and informal learning

Abstract

MobilED is a South African initiative aimed at designing teaching and learning environments that are meaningfully enhanced with mobile technologies and services. The deliverables are the development of a set of scenarios and guidelines on how mobile technologies could be used for teaching and learning within and outside the school context. The applicability of mobile phones in an educational environment is examined, with a specific focus on the differences and similarities between the developing and developed worlds. The first phase of the project in South Africa focused on the use of low-cost mobile phones, which are readily available in the developing world, and the second phase examined the use of more advanced mobile phones with multimedia capabilities. Pilots in South Africa are being replicated in Finland, India and Brazil to explore the cultural, social and organizational context of the utilization of mobile phones in and out of school in a developing and developed world context.