Barriers to technology accessibility a myth?

I was reading an article recently on the 5 Myths of Mobile Learning. While I somewhat agree with most of what is said, I take issue with the "Accessibility and Cost Myth"

This was perhaps one of the stranger myths I encountered, that personal mobile computing devices are inaccessible because of the inherent cost barriers. Looking around me here in India at the amazing rate of adoption of mobile devices (see Mobile Learning in India) and the availability of mobile networks capable of data that now range contiguously across India (see Networks in Rural India), its obvious cost is hardly a factor in the mobile learning equation. Phones today cost far less than they ever did, do far more and are cheaper to use because network usage charges are dropping consistently. These factors contribute to increased technology availability and subsequent adoption.


I think that it depends on what the meaning of Mobile is, and even then there are accessibility constraints. Not everyone carries around an iPod, or a phone that can play back pre-recorded audio. Not everyone carries a phone with a color screen and not everyone carries a device with them that gives them access to the internet.

While phones can be cheap (free with a subscription, or cheap with prepaid), that doesn't mean that all phones have the same capabilities. For mobile learning I would probably use something like an iPhone, S60, or Android device. Those phones do cost at least $100 and if you factor in a network connection, that would set you back another $30/month at least. Can everyone afford this? I don't think so.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latour: Third Source of Uncertainty - Objects have agency too!

Image
Continuing on my exploration of ANT, and asynchronous and indirect dialogue with Latour - this blog post will cover the third source of uncertainty, which according to Latour, is that Objects have agency too! As with the previous blog posts, I've pulled out quotes from the book that seemed interesting, or that I reacted to in some way, and I am responding to them here. no tie can be said to be durable and made of social stuff (p. 66) This quote seems to continue Latour's assertion that there is no such thing as "social" or "social stuff" and that "social", or the meaning of needs to be negotiated and better understood.  It also continues the thought that social can only be seen from the actions of its actors, the traces they leave behind, and that these bonds are not durable because they need continuous reinforcement. I guess Social is a perishable item. Left to its own devices, a power relationship that mobilizes nothing but social skil
Read more

MOOC participation - open door policy and analytics

The other day I was reading ZML Didaktik on the topic of MOOC participants. In MOOCs, one of the big questions is why are people lurking and not participating? If more than 500 people join a MOOC, why are only 10% contributing with any amount of regularity?  On the same blog, in a previous blog post, I had commented (it was an open stream of thought really) that perhaps there should be an open enrollment period, and then if the system sees that certain participants are bellow a threshold of activity, the system may give them the option to self-identify as a lurker, or un-register from the class. This line of thought went along a view that compared to the traditional classroom; in a traditional classroom students register for the course, they can attend classes for a week and then decide whether or not they want to stay with the course or not. If they do stay with the course they know that there is a certain amount of "lurking" that they can get away with, but they do have
Read more

You've been punk'd! However, that was an educational experience

Image
It's now the end of Teaching Goes Massive: New Skills Required (aka #massiveteaching) on coursera. Well, almost, we still have a couple of days left. I guess that the lesson here is that we were (the "learners") were punk'd† by Paul-Olivier Dehaye of the Univerisity of Zurich. After that last blog post (and subsequent pickup of the post by George Siemens and others) Inside Higher Education and the Chronicle wanted to chat with me about this MOOC experience. I only had time for one of the two before things went to press, so my 15 minutes of fame went to IHE.  Both IHE and the C hronicle have written about the topic, and have received some information from Coursera on the incident.  Others have also written about it (see here , here and here ) It's surprising to me that the University, and Coursera, waited until after this thing was a big issue in order to respond in the class, and clue people into what was happening. On Wednesday (day 3 of Week 3/3 of the
Read more