Freestyle Mobile e-Learning

I was in Morocco recently for a holiday. It struck me that in the family homes I visited (Fez, a village near Khénichét outside Sidi-Kacem, and Casablanca) that the dominant technologies were satellite television and mobile phones.

The TVs always seemed to be tuned into American movies (I only saw horror or action movies) or programmes like 'Real Life Survival Stories' or 'The World's Dumbest Criminals' with Arabic subtitles. TV was watched passively, with little comment.

Some of the phones in use were modern, some were ancient bricks. But every house had at least one mobile phone, and it was obvious every adult aspired to own one. Everyone expressed great admiration of the phones we had with us - not for what they looked like, but much more for what they could do - surf the Internet, send and receive email.

I visited a small village school in the North of the country. The classroom was basically equipped - desks, books, a blackboard. There were no computers. In the family homes I stayed in, I saw just one, quite old laptop. And Internet access wasn't cheap - I saw one package advertising access for approximately 20 euro per month (the average daily wage in Morocco is about $3.50).

Education is hugely important to the average Moroccan - it can greatly increase a person's earning power. So acquiring knowledge is important. In classrooms where books are precious and computers are non-existent, it seems to me that mobile phones allied with an affordable data plan could become a leading learning technology.

Learners learn best when the knowledge is necessary, relevant and timely. I know that I use my mobile phone on the go to get the facts I need for the situation I'm in or am about to face.

And these facts aren't delivered via bite-sized SCORM/AICC compliant e-learning modules. They're freestyle - thrown at me by Google and consumed in text format. And no matter how low-fi this solution is, it fits my needs and it works. Of course I'm not earning any points in an LMS. I'm not getting tested on my retention. But I'm getting more done, and doing things more effectively in real life.

I guess I'd like to teach the world to browse, with affordable data plans...