MOBILE TECHNOLOGY AFFECTING TEACHING AND LEARNING IN RURAL SCHOOLS

The purpose of this paper is to provide monitoring and evaluation results of how teaching and learning were affected in 24 rural schools in 7 provinces of South Africa after a three-year mobile technology implementation project. Teachers face many challenges in rural schools as access to the Internet, electricity, basic amenities and training to use technology in the classroom are often not attained. Large classes and unsupportive principals can also influence the sustainable use of mobile technology in these schools. Two theories of change (implementation success and improved quality of teaching and learning) were applied through an End-line survey to determine how the Information Communication Technology for Education (ICT4E) project, affected teaching and learning in the selected rural schools. Funded by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in South Africa, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Pretoria campus was mandated to implement the project. The implementation involved providing mobile tablets to all teachers, and schools, training the teachers through a university accredited Teaching Professional Development (TPD) course, training 48 ICT Technicians to support teachers and doing a baseline and end-line survey. At the end of the project, 184 teachers successfully completed the TPD training and 6895 learners were affected. The methodology that was applied is a sequential explanatory mixed-method approach where data was collected using firstly a survey, followed by one-to-one interviews. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (quantitative data) as well as coding through Nvivo (qualitative data). The main results indicated that 97% of the teachers will continue to use mobile technology for teaching rather than traditional teaching. The teachers also indicated that for them the most outstanding benefit of the TPD was to learn new teaching strategies. Teachers reported an 80% improvement in school attendance and that learners were much more involved and eager to learn when using mobile tablets in the schools. Teachers continued to develop their own communities of practice to share lesson plans and ideas in specific subjects (Mathematics and Science). The project, therefore, had a very positive affect on teaching and learning and was statistically proven to be a success.