Abstract
Technological innovations in ICTs have unleashed new educational practices worldwide. Most
higher education institutions nowadays use different kinds of e-learning. In this paper we will
show that constraining local conditions have triggered fast adoption of mobile technology in the
distance education – coined m-learning - by the University of Pretoria. Because many distant
students in South Africa only have a mobile device instead of a computer at their disposal, the
University of Pretoria was prepared to adopt m-learning quite early. While ten years ago most
South African distance students only had simple mobile devices, without the possibility to access
internet, the UP resorted to m-learning, even before the conditions for optimal use of m-learning
were present. This was only possible by transforming the innovative idea of m-learning in a first
experimental phase to the local South African context. Because the m-learning experiments at
the University of Pretoria consisted of both elements of adoption and transformation, the
introduction of m-learning should be framed a traveling idea. We will also show that the process
of adaptation stopped once the local constraints vanished, that is, once more distance students
obtained smartphones.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 75-87 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | International journal of business anthropology |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 2 |
Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Keywords
- METIS-292266
- IR-82985