Laura @ CET

Why is there so much fuss about cell phones? And why especially in education? How come mlearning is a buzzword and there are now Mobile Learning professors in the academe (see for example http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~cm1990/)? Are cell phones nirvana and the promised land? Is it really such an extraordinary opportunity? Why are there such anxieties and why are many educators and parents getting their toes in a tangle?

This is an enormous conversation with many answers and debates. But briefly, I think the exceptional  pervasiveness and the unique affordances of cell phones are the two main reasons for all the fuss. And although cell phones are a big deal globally, they are an especial big deal in developing countries.

It is worth spending some time considering the access issue alone, although it is hard to separate this from the affordances because the matter is not merely about access to digital technology per se, it is about access to what is afforded by those technologies.

I have asked various people of late what they imagine the percentage of cell phone penetration is globally. The answers vary widely- from 20% on the one end to 80% on the other. The answer is 61%- yes that is sixty one per cent, almost two thirds of the world’s population owns a cell phone. (Yes, I know use is different but lets stick to ownership. Use is probably more.) So, the total mobile subscriptions in 2009 are over 4 billion. And 1.15 billion new phones were sold in 2008.

And yes, ownership is slippery because we know that some people own sim cards but not the actual devices (as Kreuzer 2009 notes for example in his study where 4% of the students own the sim cards only), and there are “public’ mobile phones, and there are handsets shared amongst friends.

My last two blog postings provided sobering statistics on growing digital divides especially connectivity divides. Cell phones are startling different and it is this potential for digital democracy that gets everyone steamed up with excitement. This ITU graph highlights the stunning growth in cell phone subscriptions globally, and shows the concomitant decrease in fixed line subscriptions.

The implications for developing countries are dramatic as shown in these graphs which break down the penetration in terms of developed/ developing countries and show the shift over just a few years. These ITU graphs highlight why cell phones are such an opportunity in developing country contexts, especially when seen in the light of computer divides.

The overall global decrease in fixed phone lines is echoed in South Africa where the number of households with phone lines dropped from 20% in 2007 to 18% in 2008 (according to AMPS figures). But what a low starting base- only one fifth of households with phone lines (with no doubt a serious difference between rural and urban areas).

The comparison becomes interesting when comparing South Africa with the UK and the USA. Unsurprisingly the differences in terms of fixed lines are stark. What is much more surprising is the fact that South Africa has a higher cell phone subscription rate than the United States does. 

South Africa has 966.1 mobile phone subscribers per 1000 people, and is ranked 42nd out of 222 countries, according to siteatlas's 2007 figures, whose map puts South Africa in the unusual position of being highly ranked for something other than oft- reported negative measures.

Interestingly the South African advertising industry household survey figures for cell phone penetration are much lower as the AMPS graph below shows. Their figures state that the population penetration percentage is 67%. (Such a large discrepancy from reputable sources implies there are significant differences in precisely what is measured and how it is measured.)

Nevertheless, even the lowest figures show that more than two thirds of the South population overall have cell phones, and then even when this is considered across socio-economic groups, the figures are encouraging.

Consider:

·        Of all cell phones in use today, 92% have a basic browser (Ahonen 2009);

·        South Africa has the third largest mobile  internet using population in the world;

·        South Africa ranks 6th in the global Top 10 for mobile internet usage, ahead of both the US (7th) and the UK (9th) (Opera 2008);

·        South Africa has double the number of mobile internet users compared to desktop users (Joubert 2008).

Unlike other forms of technology which focus on either content or communication, cell phones are able to do both. And unlike one-to-many media, cell phones enable interactivity.

Of course there are challenges and threats, including the rise of smart phones and the danger of another dimension of the digital divide manifesting in the mobile world. And although the figures are startling, they are not yet completely pervasive which lends weight to James and Vesteeg’s 2007 comment that the digital divide that really matters is about those who live with access to a mobile network and those who don’t.

There are also important issues to be considered about digital literacies which presently tend to pertain to networked computers (although of course mobile literacies are also forms of digital literacies); about the extent to which research about computer use can be transferred to cell phone technologies; and about the potential "merging" of different kinds of devices (such as PDAs, laptops and cell phones). These are beginning to receive attention.

The point, though, is that the opportunities for mobile affordances to be exploited for learning ends are already being demonstrated with wonderful examples of creativity and imagination often in difficult, diverse and complex conditions. This blog post hopefully contextualises why this is the case.