Presented at the mEducation Alliance Symposium 2012, Washington DC, 6 September 2012

1. UNESCO Policy Guidelines for
Mobile Learning
Inviting input into draft v2.1
Steve Vosloo
UNESCO Programme Specialist: Mobile Learning
Presented at the mEducation Alliance Symposium 2012
Washington DC, 6 September 2012

2. UNESCO’s work in mobile learning
Teacher Gender and
Development: Working Mobile
Four Country Papers Series: Learning
Projects Global Project
Reviews
Issues Paper Issue Paper on
on Mobile the Future of
Learning Mobile
Policy Guidelines
Learning
for Mobile
Learning
Policy
Online Support Resources

3. Turning on Mobile Learning in …
• Africa and the
Middle East
• Asia
• Europe
• Latin America
• North America
• Global Themes

4. Mobile Learning for Teachers in…
• Africa and the
Middle East
• Asia
• Europe
• Latin America
• North America
• Global Themes

5. “This series of papers is highly recommended
reading, given its geographic diversity and the
breadth (if not depth) of initiatives it considers.”

7. Aims of the Guidelines:
• Raise awareness and put mobile learning onto
the ICT in Education agenda.
• Promote value and practicability of mobile
learning.
• Make high-level recommendations for
creating policies that enable mobile learning.
Primary Audience:
• Policy makers

8. Policy Guidelines
Consultative Workshop,
UNESCO, 2-3 July 2012

9. UNESCO Policy Guidelines on Mobile
Learning (v2.1)
Two main sections
Unique Benefits of
Mobile Policy
Technologies for Recommendations
Learning

10. 1) Expand the reach and equity of education
2) Facilitate personalized learning
3) Power anytime, anywhere learning
4) Provide immediate feedback and assessment
5) Ensure the productive use of time spent in
classrooms
6) Build new communities of students
7) Support situated learning
8) Enhance seamless learning
9) Bridge formal and informal learning
10) Improve communication and administration
11) Maximize cost efficiency

11. Expand the reach and equity of education
• Increased access to mobile technologies
• Extending educational opportunities, e.g.
BridgeIT/Text2Teach, BBC Janala
• New pathways for learning
• Mobile learning replaces complements
existing education investments and
approaches in ways that best utilize the
attributes of mobile devices

12. Facilitate personalized learning
• Mobile devices are generally owned by their
users, highly customizable, and carried
throughout the day  personalisation
• Individualise learning based on different
learning styles

13. Power anytime, anywhere learning
• Long or quick learning experiences
• UNECSCO Mobile Literacy Project

14. Provide immediate feedback and assessment
• Immediate indicators of success
• Potential for highly targeted content
• Make teachers more efficient by automating
the distribution, collection, evaluation, and
documentation of assessments

15. Ensure the productive use of time spent in
classrooms
• Mobiles can be used to access informational
content outside of schools
• Use time in class to discuss ideas, share
alternate interpretations, work
collaboratively, and participate in laboratory
activities

16. Build new communities of students
• Yoza Cellphone Stories
• Pink Phone project in Cambodia
• MOOCs
• Peer-to-peer learning

17. Support situated learning
• EcoMOBILE environmental field trips
• Augmented reality

18. Enhance seamless learning
• Enabled by cloud computing

19. Bridge formal and informal learning
• Example: language learning apps
• Hear, “speak”, flag for later review, access
supplementary materials

20. Improve communication and administration
• Messages sent by mobile devices are generally
faster, more reliable, more efficient, and less
expensive than alternative channels of
communication
• Disseminate and elicit information
• Support peer-to-peer learning amongst
teachers, e.g. Teaching Biology Project
• EMIS

21. Maximize cost efficiency
• Mobile learning initiatives can be cost-
effective
• Can leverage the technology people already
own

22. 1) Create or update policies related to mobile learning
2) Train teachers to advance learning through mobile
technologies
3) Provide support and training to teachers through mobile
technologies
4) Optimize educational content for use on mobile devices
5) Ensure gender equality for mobile students
6) Expand and improve connectivity options while ensuring
equity
7) Develop strategies to provide devices for students who
cannot afford them
8) Use mobile technology to improve communication and
education management
9) Promote the safe, responsible, and healthy use of mobile
technologies
10) Raise awareness of mobile learning through advocacy,
leadership, and dialogue

23. Create or update policies related to mobile
learning
• Most policies are “pre-mobile”
• Need to review existing ICT in education policies
• Examine the unique educational potentials and
challenges offered by mobile technology
and, when appropriate, incorporate these into
broader ICT in education policies
• Avoid blanket prohibitions of particular devices
• Provide guidance on how new investments in
technology can work in conjunction with existing
educational investments and initiatives

24. Train teachers to advance learning through
mobile technologies
• Prioritise the professional development of
teachers
• Encourage teacher training institutes to
incorporate mobile learning into their
programs and curriculum
• Provide opportunities for teachers to share
strategies for effectively integrating
technology in schools with similar needs and
student populations

25. Provide support and training to teachers
through mobile technologies
• Ensure that, where
possible, curriculum, educational
resources, and lesson plans are available to
teachers via mobile devices
• Support projects that explore the practicability
of providing professional development via
mobile technology

26. Optimize educational content for use on mobile
devices
• Ensure that, where possible, content, including online
repositories of educational resources, is as widely
accessible as possible from mobile devices
• OER: Support the open licensing of mobile content to
ensure its widest possible use and adaptation
• Encourage the development of platforms or software that
allow classroom teachers to create or tailor mobile content
• Promote the creation of local educational content in local
languages for mobile access
• Advocate for standards that make mobile
hardware, software, and content accessible to diverse
student populations, including students with disabilities

27. Ensure gender equality for mobile students
• Ameliorate existing gender gaps by encouraging women
and girls to use mobile phones for learning.
Specifically, government officials should identify obstacles
preventing women and girls from using mobile devices and
propose solutions to overcome these obstacles
• Promote mobile technology as a tool that creates
educational opportunities for women and girls as well as
men and boys
• Identify culturally relevant and acceptable ways of
normalizing mobile phone ownership for women and girls
• Be responsive to the particular needs of all people –
women and men, girls and boys

28. Expand and improve connectivity options while
ensuring equity
• Support the provision of robust and affordable
mobile networks within and across
communities, especially in educational
institutions such as schools, universities, and
libraries
• Consider providing full or partial subsidies for
access to mobile data and broadband services
(“m-rate”)

29. Develop strategies to provide devices for
students who cannot afford them
• 3 common approaches 1) governments or other
institutions provide devices directly; 2) BYOD; or 3)
governments and institutions share provisioning
responsibilities with students
• Ensure equal access for all students and teachers to
mobile technology and participation in mobile learning
• When possible, allow students to “own” their mobile
devices
• Encourage government departments and educational
institutions to negotiate with vendors and leverage the
purchasing power of large numbers of students

30. Use mobile technology to improve
communication and education management
• Promote the “system strengthening” uses of
mobile technologies
• Encourage schools and individual educators to
communicate with students and parents via
mobile devices
• Extend the reach and effectiveness of EMIS by
integrating support for mobile
access/technologies

31. Promote the safe, responsible, and healthy use
of mobile technologies
• Promote responsible use of mobile devices by teaching
digital citizenship
• When possible, adopt RUPs instead of AUPs
• When practical and within reason, take obvious steps
to safeguard online behaviour by blocking access to
inappropriate material and communication
• Articulate strategies to balance online interaction with
offline interaction (to avoid too much “screen time”)
• Stay abreast of research surrounding potential health
risks associated with mobile technology

32. Raise awareness of mobile learning through
advocacy, leadership, and dialogue
• Negative social attitudes  major barrier
• Highlight and model how mobile technology can
improve teaching, learning, and administration
• Share research findings and evaluations of mobile
learning programs
• Encourage dialogue among key stakeholders –
including principals, teachers, learners, parents and
community-based organisations – about mobile
learning
• Provide a coherent vision of how technology, including
mobile technologies, will further learning goals

33. Seeking Your Feedback and
Input on v2.1.
Draft Guidelines:
www.tinyurl.com/unescopolicyguidelines
Please send ideas and suggestions before 15
September 2012 to Steven Vosloo:
se.vosloo@unesco.org

34. UNESCO Mobile
Learning Week 2013
UNESCO Headquarters
Paris, France
18-22 February 2013
www.tinyurl.com/mlw2013