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UNESCO Policy Guidelines for Mobile Learning
1. Steve Vosloo
Senior Project Officer: Mobile Learning
Presented at eLearning Africa
Windhoek, Namibia, May 2013
UNESCO Policy
Guidelines for Mobile
Learning
3. UNESCO is committed to
understanding their potential to
expand educational
opportunities and sharing this
information with others.
4. Our Guiding Question:
How can countries best leverage
mobile technologies to support
the Education for All goals and
enrich learning?
5. UNESCO’s work in mobile learning
Approach:
• Conducting research and disseminating knowledge
• Providing guidance to member states
• Action projects for pilot testing and capacity building
• Convening community
Main focus areas/activities:
• Policy for mobile learning
• Teacher development and mobile technologies
• Literacy for women and girls through mobiles
• Mobiles for reading
• Crowdsourcing for Education for All
• Mobile Learning Week
6. Turning on Mobile Learning in…
• Africa and the
Middle East
• Asia
• Europe
• Latin America
• North America
• Global Themes
7. Mobile Learning for Teachers in…
• Africa and the
Middle East
• Asia
• Europe
• Latin America
• North America
• Global Themes
8. Mobile Technologies for Teacher Development
Nigeria: Support the pedagogical
practice and content knowledge
of English language teachers
Senegal: Improve the teaching of
science and math in primary
schools
Mexico: Enhance the teaching
practice of Spanish language
teachers working with students
who speak indigenous languages
Pakistan: Develop the
professional practice of early
childhood care and education
instructors working in rural areas
9. UNESCO’s work in mobile learning
Online Complementary Resources
Policy
Guidelines
for Mobile
Learning
Working Papers
Series on Mobile
Learning
Teacher
Development:
Four Country
Projects
Mobiles for
Literacy
Development of
Women and Girls
Project
Mobiles for
reading
10. Why guidelines?
• Mobile learning is not being fully leveraged
to support education
• Pockets of excellence/potential
• But very few countries have a coherent
plan/national policy, supported by leadership
• Very little integration with existing ICT4E
policies, which were written in “pre-mobile”
era
12. Aims of the guidelines:
• Raise awareness and put mobile learning onto
the ICT in Education agenda.
• Promote value and practicability of mobile
learning.
• Make high-level recommendations for
creating policies that enable mobile learning.
Primary audience:
• Policy makers
13. Collaboratively produced
• Established an expert advisory team with wide
geographic distribution
• Consultative workshop (2-3 July)
• Public input (Aug.-Sep.): responses from
individuals in over twenty countries
• Meetings with over 15 UNESCO delegations
and numerous government representatives
14. Collaboratively produced
• South Korea
• India
• Thailand
• Turkey
• South Africa
• Nigeria
• Mexico
• Uruguay
• Senegal
• United States
• Russia
• Pakistan
• Columbia
• China
16. Key areas covered
BENEFITS
Expanding reach
Assessment
Types of learning
Communities
Formal/informal
PCPD
Disabilities
System strengthening
GUIDELINES
Policies
Teacher training
Content
Gender and equal access
for all
Connectivity
Safety
System strengthening
Leadership
17. UNESCO Policy Guidelines for
Mobile Learning
Unique Benefits of
Mobile
Technologies for
Learning
Policy
Recommendations
18. 1) Expand the reach and equity of education
2) Facilitate personalized learning
3) Provide immediate feedback and assessment
4) Enable anytime, anywhere learning
5) Ensure the productive use of time spent in classrooms
6) Build new communities of students
7) Support situated learning
8) Enhance seamless learning
9) Bridge formal and informal learning
10) Minimize educational disruption in conflict and
disaster areas
11) Assist learners with disabilities
12) Improve communication and administration
13) Maximize cost efficiency
19. UNESCO Guidelines on
Mobile Learning
Unique Benefits of
Mobile
Technologies for
Learning
Policy
Recommendations
20. 1) Create or update policies related to mobile learning
2) Train teachers to advance learning through mobile
technologies
3) Provide support and training to teachers through mobile
technologies
4) Create and optimize educational content for use on
mobile devices
5) Ensure gender equality for mobile students
6) Expand and improve connectivity options while ensuring
equity
7) Develop strategies to equal access for all
8) Promote the safe, responsible, and healthy use of mobile
technologies
9) Use mobile technology to improve communication and
education management
10) Raise awareness of mobile learning through advocacy,
leadership and dialogue
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/305425495/sizes/o/ CCMOBILE PHONES (from ITU or GSMA)There are an estimated 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. 3.2 billion mobile phone subscribers.90% of world’s population and 80% of people living in rural areas have mobile coverage.105 countries have more mobile phone subscriptions than inhabitants. Developing countries accounted for more than 80% of the 660 million new mobile subscriptions added in 2011.In 2011, 142 million mobile subscriptions were added in India alone. Mobile broadband subscriptions have grown 45% annually over the last four years. Sales of tablet computers are expected to surpass sales of PCs by 2016.Cisco: There will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users by 2015 (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/world-mobile-data-traffic-to-explode-by-factor-of-26-by-2015/)For the first time in the history of the world, most people can be reached and can communicate with each other.
The simple answer is there has been a “fortuitous convergence” Mobile devices have saturated society and they are—based on our research—increasingly relevant to education.
Guiding question: How can countries best leverage mobile technologies to support EFA goals and enrich learning?All of this work has provided (and will continue to provide) essential input for the Mobile Learning Guidelines. The guidelines seek to synthesize a great deal of information into a lean document that will be useful to people like you.
Note, there is no need to create a new ICT policy for mobile learning alone
Many policy makers don’t know about the educational potential of mobile learning, or do know about it but don’t know how to respond.
Four versions in total
We identified 13 unique benefits of using mobile technologies for learning.Be aware that this was, of course, an exercise in distillation. There are other benefits and even the benefits we separated out are hardly islands; there is a great deal of cross over. For example, it can be argued that a defining characteristic of personalized learning is that it can happen anytime and anywhere. And certainly learning that can happen anytime and anywhere is going to extend the reach of education. With these qualifications in mind though, I think the list is an important starting point for policy makers and others who are asking: “What’s all the fuss about mobile learning?” I think the list highlights the main benefits of mobile learning while also differentiating it from learning facilitated by other, non-mobile ICTs. I only have time to say a few words about each of these 13 benefits, but should you want additional information, the Guidelines themselves are on the internet and can be accessed… well… anytime and anywhere you have an internet connection.
And now with those benefits in mind…UNESCO has proposed a set of 10 policy guidelines to help perhaps maximize the traction and impact of those benefits. As before, these recommendations are by no means comprehensive and there is also a bit of blurring between them. That said, they articulate how you and your colleagues might like to approach mobile learning and relevant ICT in education policy. Let me briefly provide some explanation for each of the 10 recommendations. Please keep in mind that the actual document is available to you, so no need to scribble notes.
But remember: the mobile landscape, as with the educational landscape, is uneven. Varied: infrastructure, costs, handset features, perceptions, literacy levels, etc.Most people buy there airtime here, pre-paid in small amounts.Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zantinge/5467811/sizes/l/in/photostream/ CC