The slogan of your contribution at the congress is "just-in-time - already in place" - is this an appropriate title for processes in Africa?


John Traxler: In part, my title was intended as an antidote to the slogan of conventional 'tethered' eLearning - the 'anywhere, anytime' slogan. eLearning may be 'anytime' but it's not 'anywhere'. Learning with mobile and wireless devices is really 'anytime, anywhere'. It's also 'just-in-time' it has the capacity to deliver, support, and enhance learning just when a learner needs it.


As context awareness and location awareness (using, for example, GPS and RFID technologies) become more widely available and tracking and profiling become more powerful, the learning will become more appropriate to where the learner is located, what's in their environment and how their individual learning is progressing. So perhaps my slogan should be 'just-in-time, just-for-me, just-enough'.


The other half of the slogan, 'already-in-place', was intended to highlight the possibility that mobile learning can exploit whatever technologies and devices are already available in any given context, and also that mobile learning can challenge the accepted trajectory of eLearning development that in fact has grown out of a specific Western Europe context. It's not an immutable fact that we have to put large, static, and impersonal computers, institutions, and infrastructure in place for eLearning before we can move on to learning that is personal, portable, and flexible.


Every situation is different. In England, for example, we've adopted different approaches in rural and urban areas and different approaches for formal and informal learning. It all depends on the 'affordances', the specific balance of costs, functionality, infrastructure, pedagogy, needs, and expectations associated with the available educational technologies. In Africa, the same must be true.


In any given situation, we have to look at the affordances of the available technologies. At the risk of generalising, we can say that in many cases in Africa, this balance is dramatically affected by problems with connectivity, mains electricity, and PC availability on the one hand, and on the other hand, by the enormous spread of mobile phones (cell phones), and by the vigour and talent of the mobile phone networks.


Lastly, I guess I ought to say that as our understanding of the possibilities that are enhanced by mobile and wireless device develops, we'll get a better understanding of how to blend these in alongside other technologies used in eLearning (and ODeL too).


Or is another perspective needed for the African working and learning culture?


John Traxler: Another part of the baggage of Western European eLearning and perhaps mobile learning too, is a particular set of pedagogic models and expectations. These currently emphasise a discursive, collaborative, and constructivist approach to learning at the expense of earlier didactic and transmissive models. They account for a specific direction and priority in eLearning technology development in Europe and account for widespread development and take-up of VLE/LMS technologies.


In my recent book with Agnes Kukulska-Hulme - Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Educators and Trainers - we've tried to articulate the various positions taken up by innovators in mobile learning comprehensively, but these reflect work in Europe and the Pacific Rim. In two years, I think and hope we'll have ideas, examples, and contributions from Africa, too.


We can't assume any of these to be true in our work in Africa, and furthermore we need to recognise that the picture is not static either. All around the world, personal mobile and wireless technologies are altering how we relate to each other, how we converse with each other, and the languages we use. They are involved in new forms of commerce, new forms of expression, new forms of knowledge, and new forms of crime. They are creating new forms of disadvantage. We need to know how this manifests in the various communities, groups, areas, and cultures across Africa if we are to exploit mobile technologies for education and training.


The technologies themselves are also moving quickly, and we need to keep thinking about the possibilities for African mobile learning that are opened up by each new technology. Podcasting is one emerging possibility, so, too, is VoIP.


What is the main advantage of mobile technology for eLearning in Africa? And how do you imagine the African mobile future?


John Traxler: Work with mobile and wireless devices is only just beginning and as with most parts of the world, exciting and innovative work with children and with adults is hampered by the difficulties of sustainability, embedding, and resourcing. Also in common with other parts of the world, there are problems of moving from innovation to institution.