What I did
As fellow for 21st century learning at the Shuttleworth Foundation I spent the year focusing on my m4Lit, or mobiles for literacy, project. It was launched in 2009 as a pilot initiative to explore whether teens in South Africa will read stories on their mobile phones. It turns out that they will, and based on the success of the pilot phase, I was given another Fellowship year.

Phase 2 of the project essentially involved i) offering more content (which our readers had asked for), ii) improving the user experience, iii) growing the user base, and iv) working towards sustainability.

The Praekelt Foundation was brought in to redevelop the content management system. The new system publishes to a mobisite, www.yoza.mobi, as well as onto MXit (before these were two separate systems), with additional features for interactivity such as easy commenting, voting and reviewing. I called the new offering Yoza Cellphone Stories, and assembled a freelance team to help me run it: top South African authors, an editor, graphic designer, moderators, and social media mavens.

Yoza was launched in August with fourteen stories. Today there are twenty-one stories — in English, Afrikaans and isiXhoza — and growing. Publication of new stories happens on the first of every month, with writing competitions happening all the time.

What worked
1. Publishing a broader range of content, such as soccer (Streetskillz), chick-lit (Sisterz) and teen issues (Confessions), in addition to the Kontax teen adventure series, was very well received. We also published five Shakespeare plays that are being studied by South African learners.

From 2009, our m-novels have collectively been read more than 60,000 times, our readers have posted more than 40,000 comments and submitted more than 10,000 competition entries!

Feedback from our readers is mostly positive: it is clear that we are educating as well as entertaining our readers.

“I must say: the story line it self is gripping, for somereasen everytime i read the kontax stories am kept at the erge of my sit. They are always grattifiying and i can hardly wait for another1. Thank you to the contax team cause for the 1st time in years i am reading again and i lov reading now, and am a guy so you i just dont lyk readin. So thank u again guyz you da best,” by Mphuthumi Busakwe, commenting on Kontax 5: The Sext Files.

“Gr8 story guyz.. I can’t wait 4 th nxt one 2 b published. I’m totally addicted! Love th fact tht Jayden nd Latoya r bck 2gethr. P.s Please give us more than one chapter a day,” by Ms. Makes, commenting on Sisterz 2: Hidden Danger.

“2 all soccer lovers,esp players,here r technical tips,grab them. Gud luck 2d team!” by Assah, commenting on Streetskillz 2: Silver’s Treasure.

It is also clear that there is an implicit conversation happening between the story — and sometimes the Yoza brand — and the readers. We create interesting and deliberately provocative scenarios in the stories to elicit reader opinion, and they usually respond in full force. An example is the comments on this Sisterz chapter (first read the WHAT DO YOU THINK comment prompt on that page).

2. The new interface is more user-friendly and easier to maintain. The actual CMS will be open-sourced.

3. Being on MXit in Kenya has given the project a greater profile.

4. Our stories have also been published on Young Africa Live on the Vodafone Live portal, as well as on MYMsta.mobi, loveLife’s mobile social network. Two high school teachers in the Western Cape have been in contact to say that they are using Yoza in the English classroom.

5. The READ Educational Trust runs an annual Readathon competition, and for the first time teens could enter the writing competition on Yoza via their mobile phones. We also ran writing competitions in conjunction with the Sunday Times and The Sowetan newspapers.

6. We have an open call for writers to contribute stories to Yoza. So far three have been published by authors from Lapa Publishers.

7. The m4Lit project received an Honourable Mention in the Stockholm Challenge award, and has received much media coverage, both locally and internationally, including from School Library Journal, Global Post, City Press, Argus, EP Herald, The Times, M&G Online, Rapport, West Cape News, ITWeb, Soulbeat, Drum Beat, Mashable, Puku, Idasa, GSMA Development Fund, Educational Technology Debate, 5fm, YFM, East Coast Radio and the Voice of the Cape.

Bottom line: Throughout the year I have said, and still say, that the cellphone is a powerful learning and communication tool. Instead of viewing it as a distraction and a hindrance to education, I believe it should be viewed as an essential part of the solution. It is the e-reader of Africa, a device onto which we can quickly and easily publish content to a wide audience, as well as through which young people are given a voice. The high-levels of engagement on Yoza has shown that participatory culture is alive and well in Africa, although here it is via MXit comments and not Youtube videos.

What still needs work
1) Yoza is not producing enough content to feed the mobile monster. Our readers want more and they want it now. They don’t like waiting for the first of the next month to get their next story fix.

2) There is a novelty factor to m-novels. The Yoza stories have not had as many reads and competition entries as the first Kontax stories. Although more comments are made on Yoza stories than before. This novelty-factor has forced us to continually try to improve the user experience and offer targeted content.

3) Sustainability is still not resolved. At this stage, m4Lit has not secured any revenue other than the Shuttleworth Foundation funding, although a number of positive conversations are currently underway for sponsorship.

Future plans
A clear business opportunity has emerged. Our readers are crying out for content about issues, e.g. teen pregnancy or how to handle money. Below is a word cloud of what our readers told us they want to read about. As you can see, it covers the full range of “issues”.

Non-profit organisations, governments and corporates want to communicate their messages to young people, e.g. healthy sexual behaviour or financial literacy. Yoza is the bridge between these groups.

We now have a platform to run Yoza, a team that can offer full-service mobile content campaigns, and a MXit footprint in South Africa and Kenya, with plans to grow into other countries. We are well-placed to transition from Yoza the “cellphone stories library” to Yoza the “mobile social marketing service”. A major milestone is to secure a big first sponsor.

We want young people across Africa to use their phones for reading, writing and learning – and believe that this can ultimately be a positive influence on their lives. In short: more content, more users, more participation, and greater impact.

Living out loud
As Fellows we are required to “live out loud”. On the topic of mlearning, I am a regular event speaker and panelist. I have presented on m4Lit at TEDx Soweto (watch video) and Tech4Africa, eLearning Africa in Zambia, and twice at the World Bank in Washington. I recently gave a thematic keynote at the Open Innovation Africa Summit in Kenya, and at the International Seminar on Mobile Technologies for Learning and Development in Barcelona.

I have been Interviewed by BBC’s Digital Planet as well as PRI’s The World, which is broadcast on National Public Radio in the USA. I regularly write for the M&G’s The Teacher. I am an advisor to the Department of Basic Education on its Guidelines on e-Safety in Schools.

Overall it has been an exciting year and I feel that the project has made a significant contribution to mlearning in Africa. I would like to thank the Shuttleworth Foundation. My three-year fellowship provided a wonderful opportunity to develop innovative projects and live out loud in the mlearning space. I look forward to seeing the work that was begun during my fellowship continue to grow.

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The World Bank’s infoDev programme held it’s annual symposium in Washington DC and I was invited to sit on a panel to discuss the m4Lit project. The symposium was called Clean Green and Mobile – Making Technology Work for the Poor. There was a high level of interest in the project and it’s findings.

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It was a fun and interesting day, with lots of different perspectives and stories — less of a technology focus than the usual TED formula, which I think really worked. A key theme throughout the day was the highly differentiated society of South Africa, with so many people not really having access to meaningful participation in the Web 2.0 way that many of us in the audience do. Not everyone has an iPhone, not everyone watches YouTube. I spoke about literacy in the age of participation, mainly covering the findings of the m4Lit project and the huge potential of mobile phones for literacy development in Africa. A key point I made was that in the developing world participation for most people will happen through mobile phones.

Highlights

For me the following speakers and messages were highlights. Speaker bios and links are on the TEDx Soweto site.

Khaya Dlanga, blogger, ad exec, youtuber and general good guy, told his life story (in a very funny way!) — about a rural herd boy form the Transkei who, by the age of ten, had already kicked a marijuana habit; who had to drop out of advertising school because he couldn’t afford the fees; and about his first CV, based on which he was immediately hired. It was for a copy writing job and contained something along the lines of:

I’m black
I don’t belong to COSATU
Some of my best friends are white
I used to write FREE MANDELA and ONE MAN ONE VOTE on school walls
As you know, that was a very successful campaign

When he first started posting videos on YouTube — before he became famous — he deliberately used an oblique username so that he wouldn’t be recognised (“Back then it was embarrassing to post videos of yourself on the internet!”). He spoke about the need to create a narrative about yourself on the web before others create one about you. Think about what your strengths are, who you want to be, and be it. He ended by recalling how this herd boy came to ask Barrack Obama an interview question via YouTube, clearly an achievement he is very proud of!

John Perlman, radio presenter and football philanthropist, spoke about the Dreamfields project, his way of getting involved in the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Dreamfields provides sponsored sports kits (Dreambags) to school kids in South Africa. Everything to kit out a whole team is in the Dreambag. They also build soccer fields and hold regional tournaments. One school to which they gave the kit beat Morocco Swallows U19; another of their teams became provincial champs within 6 months. It’s an awesome project that is making a real difference in the kids’ lives. The bit I liked the most was that Dreamfields is not about finding the next Ronaldo or Kaka or Lucas Radebe. Rather, it’s about helping kids have a dream and be the best at whatever they do, whether they become Constitutional Court judges, CEOs of top companies, plumbers or carpenters. There are many roles in society that all need filling — the key is to be the best at whatever you do. Go John!

Steven Newton, head of Google SA (not for much longer though), spoke about the need for relevant, affordable content in Africa, which will be accessed via mobile phones. He’s not too worried about the issue of access to mobile phones — that’s a problem that can be solved (I agree — mobile phones present more of an effective use than an access issue).

Simon Gear, environmental scientist, offered a way for each individual to do their bit to arrest climate change. He asked us to picture a triangle with health, wealth and happiness at the corners. Through examples he showed that by improving any 2 of the 3 of those, the environment will be helped. For example, by going for a walk in a park you improve your health and your happiness. Well used parks are better looked after by the municipality, so the environment is helped. Or by eating less meat every week you improve your health and your wealth (veggies are cheaper than meat). “Factory farming” of animals is reduced this way — so the environment scores. On the issue of happiness, he pointed out that people who spend their money on experiences are happier than those who spend it on things. Basically, we need to buy less and do more.

There were interesting ideas through violin sounds from Samson Diamond, the Standard bank Young Artist of the Year for 2010. Along with his sister and another co-performer, he made beautiful music to demonstrate that it takes different sounds (people) to work together in a way that is harmonious (like a true society should be).

We were taken on a dreamy journey through the three principles of drawing by Khaya Mtshali, graphic designer, lecturer and wise young soul.

To end the day BCUC gave a blistering performance — one 25-minute song that left the performers sweating!

BCUC (Image: Steve Vosloo, CC-BY)

Lolights

One or two participants didn’t stick to the time schedule (obviously not familiar with the strict TED approach). They also could have made more of a point, a message. I wasn’t sure what the big idea was that they thought was worth spreading (the TED motto).

Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it a valuable day. Big up to the TEDx Soweto team for organising the event (and self-funding it after potential sponsors dropped them at the last minute). The organisers pointed out that they’ve had to really sell TED as a concept. For so many of us TED is the standard for big ideas and compelling presentations. No sell necessary. We all need to do our bit to raise awareness in SA of the value of the TED model, and the exciting potential of holding our own TEDx events. African solutions to African problems!

I really look forward to attending future Soweto TEDxes!

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Africa is book-poor but mobile phone-rich, so m4Lit‘s idea to use phones as a way to get teens to read and write is an innovative one, right? No. Applying Parvathi’s points to m4Lit: for our readers the innovation isn’t reading and writing on mobile phones. It’s reading kick-ass stories, affordably, easily (they always have their cellphones with them, they don’t always have books or magazines with them), and being able to make comments and have the world see them in near real time (beats writing a snail mail letter to the author). These are the “layers” that make up the innovative proposition. The mobile phone simply enables all of this. Key to realising the innovative proposition is telling readers that the stories are there — so need to market effectively (and innovatively) — and quickly moderating readers’ contributions.

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Texting and literacy
Kevin Sherman, an ICT Education Specialist at the Schools Development Unit, University of Cape Town, spoke about using text messaging to teach literacy skills. It was a fun session where various groups had to translate conventional English passages to txtspk and back again. Afterwards we thought of all the learning activities that we’d employed in the exercise — a list of about 20 points. When weighing up this list against the negatives usually associated with texting, e.g that it might be bad for spelling and grammar, the positives very much won.

Primary school teacher, Fiona Beel, talking about how much her learners have enjoyed blogging (License: CC-BY-NC-SA)

Mobiles for literacy
I spoke about the m4Lit (mobiles for literacy) project, presenting an overview of the project findings. The presentation and research reports will be launched on Wednesday, 17 March. What was interesting is that nobody in the audience during Kevin’s talk or my talk was opposed to texting and using cellphones to get kids to read and write. Usually there is the voice of dissatisfaction in the audience, but not a single one on Saturday. One of the teachers did mention, however, that his school has a strict ban on cellphones, so learners would need to do their cellphone reading and writing after school.

Education reform
The day started with a presentation by Dr Ursula Hoadley, who was part of a task team organised by the Minister of Basic Education in 2009 to review the implementation of the Curriculum 2005 (1997), Review of C2005 (2000) and the National Curriculum Statement (2004). The committee traveled around the country, listened to teachers’ complaints and suggestions for change. What they found was massive confusion around the different policies, and therefore inconsistencies in the way these were implemented.

Over the last decade, in the classroom there has been a focus on group work, the construction of learner knowledge, and a marginalisation of textbooks. The policy focus has been on the “how of teaching,” with a neglect of the “what of teaching” — and this has resulted in problematic practices in the classroom. Teachers complained that they didn’t know what they actually had to teach!

Some of the committee’s recommendations include:

• Streamline and clarify policies:
  • Single document per learning area/subject per phase, grade R to 12.
  • Design clear, succinct, unambiguous policy and guidelines in clear language, e.g. get rid of “learning areas” and “learning programmes”, and replace with “subjects”.
• Reorganise subjects and time allocations in the Foundation Phase (FP) to give more prominence to languages and mathematics.
• The abandoning of Learning Outcomes (LOs) and Assessment Standards (ASs) as curriculum organisers — from OBE. LOs and ASs have not shown to effectively mark learning progress for learners and also draw teachers into bureaucratic box-ticking.
• Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM):
  • That a national LTSM catalogue be produced. BUT there are also too many textbooks in the market — need to rationalise and ensure quality.
  • That the role of textbooks be reasserted.
  • A textbook for every learner for every subject in every grade.

A return to a focus on content and clear guidelines on what needs to be implemented and how — a “return to syllabus”.

The Minister of Basic Education wholeheartedly accepted the report. Now it needs to be implemented. The bureaucratic machine of government, and the tensions between the report’s recommendations and existing laws and policies is making implementation a slow and uncertain process. Much heated debate is raging at the moment, e.g. the argument for state control of publishing, e.g. one textbook for a particular subject per grade, as opposed to a choice of 16 different textbooks offered at the moment.

The audience noted that we should be aware of binary thinking towards policies, where the pendulum now swings away from “process” back to “content”. Ursula responded that the report was not a pendulum swing where practices that are appropriate in certain settings, e.g. groupwork, are thrown out wholesale. The report is an attempt to address the criticisms and failures of the last 15 years, to make it simpler and easier for teachers to teach.

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Abstract: The m4Lit (mobile phones for literacy) pilot project will create a mobile novel (m-novel), published on a mobisite in English and in isiXhosa, to explore ways of supporting teen leisure reading and writing around fictional texts in South Africa, using mobile media. The story will be published serially and invite readers to interact with it as it unfolds – teens will vote on and discuss the unfolding plot, leave comments, and finally submit a written piece as part of a competition. The study will contribute to the understanding of mobile literacies, from a new literacy studies perspective.

By: Steve Vosloo, Shuttleworth Foundation; Dr Marion Walton, Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape Town; Associate Professor Ana Deumert, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Cape Town.

Download paper (PDF)

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(Source: Shuttleworth Foundation, CC-BY)

On 30 September 2009, the world’s first mobile novel – or m-novel – published in both English and isiXhosa was launched. Kontax, a teen mystery story, was created for the Shuttleworth Foundation’s m4Lit project, lead by Steve Vosloo.

Standing for “mobiles for literacy” the project aims to explore whether teens are interested in reading stories on their cellphones, whether and how they write using their cellphones, and whether cellphones might be used to develop literacy skills and a love of reading. The hope behind the m4Lit project is that by researching the role of cellphones in teen reading and writing, educationalists and publishers can better understand the opportunities and challenges for literacy practices presented by the most popular communication device used by any teen today.

So far 16 of the 21 chapters have been published, with a number of very positive comments from the readers. There is a research component to the project, with teens being interviewed to understand their literacy practices, cellphone usage, digital literacies, and thoughts on Kontax. The full project findings will be released in December 2009.

Links:

Kontax can be read via computer or cellphone at: http://kontax.mobi

The project blog: http://m4lit.wordpress.com

Launch press release: http://tinyurl.com/kontax-pr2

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Presented at: Gauteng principals conference, NAPTOSA (National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa), Johannesburg, 31 July 2009

Download presentation (PPT)

Or view it below:

Notes: 230 principals were at the conference, representing a diverse range of schools, from the very under-resourced to the very privileged. The presentation urged them to rethink banning cellphones at school and to consider their value for learning, assessment and administration. While MXit, the mobile instant messaging sevice, is much hated, only 4 of the 230 principals have actually used it.

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