Less (in context) is more (creativity): Mlearning as a short lived traveling idea at the University of Pretoria

Abstract

Continuous technological innovations in ICTs have unleashed many new educational practices worldwide. Most higher education institutions nowadays use different kinds of Elearning. 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. Since at least at the start of the new millennium, most South African distance students only had no frills mobile devices, which do not allow them to access the internet, the UP resorted to M-learning even before the conditions for optimal use of M-learning were present. This was only possible by adapting the innovative idea of Mlearning 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 adaptation, the introduction of M-learning can 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 switched to smart phones.