Handbook of Mobile Learning

51

Teachers as Learners

Concerns and Perceptions About Using Cell Phones in South African Rural Communities

Mpine Makoe

The potential for using mobile technologies in education is enormous in a country of limited access to electricity and telephone networks, poor roads and postal services, and fewer people who have expertise in using computers. The lack of infrastructure for information and communication technologies (ICT) in Africa has lead to the rapid growth of a wireless infrastructure. Over the past 10 years, the number of cell-phone users in Africa has increased at an annual rate of 65 percent—twice the global average (Rao, 2011). By 2010, there were more than 600 million cell-phone subscribers in Africa, second only to Asia (Reed, 2011). ...