Furthering the advance of m-learning in developing countries is governed by a combination of five key constraints, four of which are technical. (Other nontechnical constraints such as literacy, culture, and language, are not covered here). Depending on the target area, none or all of these may apply. I consider these issues to be as follows.
Mobile Ownership
Although growing at a phenomenal rate, mobile ownership in many developing countries is still relatively low, and nowhere close to the near 100 percent penetration rates that we see in many mature markets. If educational establishments begin to embrace mobile technology to any significant extent, then issues of ownership and access to handsets by students need to be addressed to ensure that, in the words of a recent American president, “no child is left behind”. Putting learning tools in the hands of children in developing countries is a key objective of MIT’s One Laptop Per Child project. Many people believe that the mobile phone would be a better tool to work with. The debate continues.
Mobile Technology
Where pupils do own, or have access to, mobile phones, more often than not—and this is particularly the case in many rural areas—these phones will be either older models, or lower-end handsets with limited functionality. In order to develop appropriate teaching tools, the reality of the target market needs to be considered. The wider community should most likely consider ownership and use of PDAs and Pocket PCs as non-existent.
Network Access
Higher-end handsets with data capability are only useful in areas where the mobile network can service them, and where costs of data access are not prohibitive. In many cases neither of these are a safe bet. By way of an example, during a recent one-month visit to Uganda working with Grameen, I was able to connect to the Internet using my phone approximately 10 percent of the time.
Device Limitations and Lack of Industry Standards
Mobile phones may be ubiquitous, highly portable, shareable, immediate, and always-on, but there also limitations that challenge even the most talented mobile applications developers—small (and generally low-resolution) displays, awkward text input methods, slow data access (if at all), and issues of battery life, among others. On top of all that, the mobile industry has historically suffered from a lack of standards, with different manufacturers supporting different video and audio formats, no standard screen size and resolution, lack of regular support for Java and/or Flash, incompatible browsers (if at all), and a wide array of memory sizes. All of this fragments the platform landscape, making developing an m-learning application a real challenge.
“A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it”. – Scott Allen
