Technology director turns cellphones into classrooms

Getting a university degree remains a huge challenge for many South African students, especially those who don't have money to spend on textbooks and laptops. So students have become creative about closing the tech gap with the help of cellphones, writes Jennifer Howard for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Research by Laura Czerniewicz, founding director of the Centre for Educational Technology at the University of Cape Town and head of the Open UCT Initiative, which makes Cape Town research and teaching and learning resources openly available online, shows that students use phone cameras to take pictures of blackboard notes and textbook pages. They record and share lectures, often without the lecturer's knowing. "It's been a case of necessity and opportunity," she says. Instead of looking at such behaviour as a disruptive use of technology, she argues, institutions need to embrace it.
Full report on The Chronicle site