5.1: Introduction

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Learning Outcomes

Strategize ways in which mobile technologies can help close the digital divide.
Use devices such as mobile phones and iPods to promote learning in developing nations.
Compare the benefits to learning of mobile devices with those offered by the traditional classroom.

For every personal computer in a developing country there are roughly four mobile phones. Although many of these are likely to be older or low-end models, today’s high-end devices have the equivalent processing power of a personal computer from the mid-1990s. In comparison, personal computers today have more number crunching ability than all the computers that took the Apollo rocket to the moon 25 years earlier. The boundary between mobile phones, handheld game consoles, entertainment devices and personal computers is becoming increasingly blurred, with devices such as the Blackberry, Symbian-driven smartphones, GPS-enabled mobile phones, Ultra Mobile PCs, and Nokia’s N-Gage breaking new ground. Technology continues to advance at a remarkable pace, opening up new opportunities few people would have considered a few short years ago.

5.1.1.png — Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): South African phone shop