Mobile Phones Need to Converge into Computers
It seems that the one thing that all of us agree on is that computers and mobile phones are moving toward convergence. But will such convergence resolve this debate?
For me, there are two issues that need to be addressed if such a convergence will improve education in the developing world. First, smart phones should have the features that are needed to support education. Among them are:
- The ability to communicate with multiple people simultaneously would allow teachers to communicate with multiple students and students to communicate with each other. This would support group discussions.
- The ability to access multimedia content. More and more educational content is multimedia—audio, video, graphics—this is increasingly important in helping students understand complex concepts and principles.
- The ability to run simulations and other applications. Learning is so much more than just accessing content. Students must be actively involved in their learning. Games, simulations, and other applications allow students to engage with complex ideas and apply them in creative ways.
- The ability to create and post text and multimedia content. It is important for students to also be able to generate content, not just access and use it. Tools will be needed that allow students to generate and post their own online contributions.
- The ability to collaborate on these tasks. Students learn most when they interact with each other, as well as the content. Tools that allow students to generate content should support their ability to work with each other—to contribute to joint products, to edit, to comment.
This is a pretty powerful set of capabilities. Sounds a lot like a computer, right? It’s a lot to ask of a phone. But this is what is required of technology if it is to contribute to educational improvement. Are we going to see these on an inexpensive handset in the near future? Beyond the “$100 laptop”, are we going to have a “$20 iPhone”?
Even if we have a “$20 iPhone”, will these powerful features by themselves sufficient to improve education in the developing world?
No, not when teachers are still focused on teaching and assessing rote learning. I continue to insist that we need a significant realignment in curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and teacher training that emphasizes knowledge creation, collaboration, and sharing. This will prepare students in the developing world to participate in the global knowledge economy and information society. It is only then that the immense potential of ICT – computers or smart phones – will be realized.
What do you think?
I've been particularly conscious of how I use my iPhone, since Mike and I began this debate and particularly how I use it in a way that supports my learning. Let me use and experience I had today as a way of illustrating some of the points that I make above about the features that are needed in a phone to support learning.
I am in Paris right now and after a meeting at OECD, I had a few hours available to see the sights. My wife and I are staying in an apartment on the Left Bank and I wanted to see the Pantheon, one of the sights that I hadn’t gotten around to seeing on previous trips. Heading off to the Pantheon, I pulled out my iPhone and used to map app to help me navigate through the warren of streets that is the Left Bank to get there. When I arrived, I took a photo and emailed it to my wife who was on a tour today. I told her to meet me there if she finished her tour early. (I only wish that there was an option to tag a photo with GPS coordinates to help locate where it was taken. Hey there’s an idea for a new app.)
I also looked up the Pantheon on Wikipedia and read about its history. Not speaking French, I loaded both a French-English dictionary and a French phrase app that gave both text and audio equivalents of various English questions and statements. There were various historical plaques around the building and I used the dictionary to help me understand them. As I walked through the crypt, I also looked up the Wikipedia entries for various people buried there: Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, Condorcet, Victor Hugo, Madame Currie, etc. When I was done with my visit, I texted my wife to see if we could coordinate over a place to meet for dinner.
I mention this experience to make the point that it was the computer-like features of my iPhone that most aided my learning—the multimedia, the access to the internet, the networking, the software applications. But on the other end, my wife had only a regular mobile phone, not an iPhone. She got my text messages but she won’t be able to get my photo of the Pantheon until she checks her email this evening. Nor was she able to send me photos or of her tour or supplement the tour guide with information from the internet.
It would be a huge stretch to connect my little learning experience in Paris with the learning opportunities available to children in developing countries. But I contend that if “phones” are going to support learning in these countries it will because someone develops a very inexpensive smart phone and Education Ministries change their systems to support the kind of learning that I experienced today.
I've been particularly conscious of how I use my iPhone, since Mike and I began this debate and particularly how I use it in a way that supports my learning. Let me use and experience I had today as a way of illustrating some of the points that I make above about the features that are needed in a phone to support learning.
I am in Paris right now and after a meeting at OECD, I had a few hours available to see the sights. My wife and I are staying in an apartment on the Left Bank and I wanted to see the Pantheon, one of the sights that I hadn’t gotten around to seeing on previous trips. Heading off to the Pantheon, I pulled out my iPhone and used to map app to help me navigate through the warren of streets that is the Left Bank to get there. When I arrived, I took a photo and emailed it to my wife who was on a tour today. I told her to meet me there if she finished her tour early. (I only wish that there was an option to tag a photo with GPS coordinates to help locate where it was taken. Hey there’s an idea for a new app.)
I also looked up the Pantheon on Wikipedia and read about its history. Not speaking French, I loaded both a French-English dictionary and a French phrase app that gave both text and audio equivalents of various English questions and statements. There were various historical plaques around the building and I used the dictionary to help me understand them. As I walked through the crypt, I also looked up the Wikipedia entries for various people buried there: Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, Condorcet, Victor Hugo, Madame Currie, etc. When I was done with my visit, I texted my wife to see if we could coordinate over a place to meet for dinner.
I mention this experience to make the point that it was the computer-like features of my iPhone that most aided my learning—the multimedia, the access to the internet, the networking, the software applications. But on the other end, my wife had only a regular mobile phone, not an iPhone. She got my text messages but she won’t be able to get my photo of the Pantheon until she checks her email this evening. Nor was she able to send me photos or of her tour or supplement the tour guide with information from the internet.
It would be a huge stretch to connect my little learning experience in Paris with the learning opportunities available to children in developing countries. But I contend that if “phones” are going to support learning in these countries it will because someone develops a very inexpensive smart phone and Education Ministries change their systems to support the kind of learning that I experienced today.
As always, Bob's points are excellent.
No doubt our grandchildren will be confused about why we even had a discussion about 'PCs vs. phones' at all. (My son is already confused at why an iPod Touch running Skype isn't a 'phone'.) With few exceptions, education ministries have done a poor job of changing to support the kind of learning enabled by PCs today. If and where 'phones' are relevant learning tools to students in developing countries, let's hope that policymakers don't (belatedly) orient themselves to plan on how to take advantage of just the PC. Learning-centric, device-agnostic … that should be our aim. Todd (below) is right to say that this requires a participatory design effort, oriented to the particular needs of individual learners (and the teachers and education systems that support them).
Bob, I have also been very conscious of the way i use my phone after this debate started 🙂 Let just say that as a result, I have more appreciation for google and wikipedia (ok and and CNN mobile). Last week, the Kenyan government in its annual budget reading has removed taxes on cell phones with a view to increasing access. The next day, the newspapers were awash with adverts highlighting reduced phone prices. I looked at the various phones on offer and saw several "wap enabled camera phones" for $30 and even better ones for $40. Thats a dramatic drop in price for a wap enabled phone. And these were "branded" phones from Nokia and Samsung. Now I bet those cheap phones with wap could do many if not all of the things the iphone did for Bob's trip at a fraction of the cost. In short, cheap smart phones may already be here or they are certainly coming to a store near you- at least in the developing world.
I do think we are coming to a point where price/performance/network capabilities of mobile devices will allow for the explosion of the use of "computing" tools in developing nations. At the $15-50 range, mobile phones are an economic possibility for a growing number of people.
As educators, if the Smartphone era is coming, and coming soon (or already here), now is the time that we need to be preparing for it. The lack of quality resources that scaffold learning is one of the biggest challenges that smartphones can address. Tools that allow for the distribution of materials, collaborative learning between students, feedback between teacher and student, and communication to the outside world need to be developed. Teacher training programs need to be developed, for this change will amount to a complete rethinking of where the physical focus of a classroom will be (from teacher in the front to student groups spread out).
There is great potential here, but it will take a collective participatory design effort to build systems that speak to the challenges of developing nations.
A friend recently reminded me that the most important things when it comes to education and training through electronic mechanisms, are rich content delivery and UI.
The problem is that this side of the market has been cornered by commercial vendors such as Adobe, and has not been paid much attention by the open source community.
Perhaps delivery of educational content on mobile phones could become more financially viable if delivered through a web browser using open source RIA frameworks?
This needs to be highlighted to the open source community.