This paper is part of the UNESCO Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning. The Series seeks to better understand how mobile technologies can be used to improve educational access, equity and quality around the world. It comprises fourteen individual papers that will be published throughout 2012.
The Series is divided into two broad subsets: six papers examine mobile learning initiatives and their policy implications, and six papers examine how mobile technologies can support teachers and improve their practice.
The UNESCO Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning, of which this paper is a part, grew out of a simple, if profound, observation: today there are a staggering 5.9 billion mobile phone subscriptions on a planet with 7 billion people. For UNESCO, these numbers are alluring. If mobile phones – by far the most ubiquitous interactive information and communications technology (ICT) on Earth – can be used to help deliver and improve education, then they carry a tremendous potential to assist the learning of people everywhere.
Mobile technologies look especially promising as a vehicle to extend educational opportunities to people who have the fewest. The vast majority of mobile phone owners are not found in New York and Paris but rather in Cairo and Calcutta. Currently, over 70% of mobile subscriptions worldwide come from the developing world, and thanks to rapidly declining prices, powerful mobile handsets previously available only to wealthy individuals are increasingly within reach of the poor. Experts estimate that in Africa, the continent with the lowest mobile penetration, a majority of people already own mobile devices, and the ones who do not are purchasing them at a record pace. Access to robust mobile networks is nearly universal: 90% of the world’s population and an impressive 80% of the population living in rural areas are blanketed by a mobile network. This means that learners who might not have access to high-quality education or even schools often do have working mobile phones. […]
To access existing and forthcoming titles in the Series, please see:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/mobile-learning-resources/unescomobilelearningseries/