The result of my thesis project is a Mobile Learning Toolkit that is designed to empower trainers in Africa and other developing contexts to integrate mobile learning into their teaching.

The 98-page toolkit contains 15 mobile learning methods divided into 4 categories that trainers can choose from depending on their needs – whether they’re looking deliver content; assign tasks; gather feedback; or provide support to their training participants.

These methods have been designed to be as inclusive as possible, with most requiring only low end devices (basic mobile phones with voice calling and SMS capability), allowing interactive learning experiences to be delivered right to the Base of the Pyramid.

In addition to the methods, an overview of mobile learning is included in the beginning of the guidebook and a set of practical tools that allow the methods to be immediately put into practice. 

As well as a general guide, the toolkit includes recommendations for customising the methods for the delivery of the “my.coop” training programme currently being launched by the International Labour Organization to teach the principles of managing agricultural cooperatives in developing regions worldwide. The toolkit offers my.coop participants the chance to experience the benefits of mobile learning themselves while also empowering them to use mobile learning methods to reach their own trainees, thus multiplying the impact throughout the entire my.coop training pyramid.

However, the Mobile Learning Toolkit has been designed to have a value not only within the context of this training programme, but for use in the delivery of all kinds of training within any developing context. Anyone can pick up the toolkit and be inspired to use mobile learning.

The toolkit is an open source resource that is available for download below (please view in "Book" mode):

The format of the book is A5 portrait. To make it easier to print by users on the field, another version is included below with A4 spreads ready for printing. The graphic identity of the book aims to be clear and simple, with the goal that it will look good and be easily readable even after being printed in black and white and photocopied several times.

The toolkit is intended as an open source resource that can continue to be improved and added to with the feedback and collaboration of its users. As such, any feedback, comments and ideas are welcome and can be shared by email, Twitter or SMS:

email: mlearningtoolkit@gmail.com
twitter: @mlearntoolkit
SMS: +447946385199

Following my analysis of the user research results I have developed 4 personas representing different target users/beneficiaries of the my.coop training: the coop manager, the field worker, the professor and the director.

Each profile includes the job profile, technology access and training needs of each persona, which I'll now use to inform and inspire the concept generation process.

Above is a summary of the key insights that came out from the research phase, gained from the analysis of the user research results and the customer journey analysis.

Some suprising needs came out - not least of all the unanimous desire from participants to connect and share experiences with other coop stakeholders around the world.

During April and May I've been conducting interviews with potential participants of the My.COOP training by telephone and over Skype. More details of the methodology of this research and the full results are included in the doc above.

It has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the project so far, to speak to some really inspiring people in Africa doing great work. A huge thank you to those who took part, for your time and enthusiasm!

In total I spoke to 9 people in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania from different organisations within the coop sector at different levels of the My.COOP training pyramid.

Some very interesting results came out of this research, inspiring lots of new ideas for the project!

I'm working on a summary of the key insights from this research and persona profiles of the key users, will post them in the next few days!

As mentioned before, the ITC-ILO does a lot of “training of trainers” so that their teachings continue to spread as far as possible and benefit the maximum number of people.

The My.COOP training is no different, and to understand the strategy of delivering this training I made the diagram above. It has a pyramid shape similar to that of the cooperative movement structure, with 4 levels.

At the base, on the first level, there are primary agricultural cooperative societies and other farmers’ organisations that want to become cooperatives. Then on the second level there are secondary cooperative societies, otherwise known as unions. The third level includes national cooperative organisations such as federations; government bodies; cooperative colleges; universities that offer cooperative studies; and NGOs that work with agricultural cooperatives. The top level represents confederations, which operate at national and sometimes at international levels, and international NGOs serving the cooperative movement.

The pyramid shape seems to indicate a hierarchical relationship between the different layers, but this is actually not the case. In reality, a higher organisational layer should be considered to be a service provider to the lower organisational layer. For instance, a cooperative union provides particular services, such as joint marketing, to its member primary cooperatives. The primary cooperatives together decide on the strategy and activities of the cooperative union.

Regarding the target audience of My.COOP we can differentiate users from beneficiaries; users being trainers (mainly from the secondary/tertiary levels) and self learners (mainly from the secondary/primary levels), and beneficiaries: trainees (mainly from the primary level), i.e. cooperative managers. Managers can have a farming activity as well but for the My.COOP training we focus on their manager’s function and not their farmer’s function. In the end, we can assume that if the cooperative is well managed, it will be of benefit to its members/farmers but they are not the target audience of the training package.

Clear?! It's true that it's a bit complicated but I'll soon post the results of my interviews with people working at different levels of the pyramid, in which they told me about their jobs and training needs, which should put it all into context!!

At the same time as the user research, I've been carrying out research at the ITC to understand all of the different paths or "customer journeys" that exist for someone who takes part in the My.COOP training. These include face-to-face and distance training options with various levels of interaction with the ITC itself. I have mapped these in the diagram above, identifying the "pain points" as well as ideas and opportunities to integrate mobile technology into this process to add value to the user experience.

User research results to come soon from the telephone interviews and the online questionnaire!

The results of the 'Desk Research' part of the user research are mainly here on the blog already, so the first report I have written is for the 'Expert Interviews' track of the research.

The staff at the ITC/ILO have been a great help for me in understanding the ITC course participants and the African context, as they have a lot of experience both at the Turin centre and travelling in the field, where they have made their own observations over time.

From speaking to them (in particular, Tom Wambeke and Coumba Diop from the ITC and Carlien van Empel from the ILO in Geneva) I was able to form a basic profile of the target users of My.COOP, upon which I was able to formulate the next phases of the user research accordingly.

More details in the doc above and thanks to Tom, Coumba and Carlien for your support!

Understanding real user needs is one of the fundamental goals of the My.COOP Mobile project, in order to develop a service that is truly useful and offers added value.

However, in a user-centred design process ethnographic research would ideally be carried out in the field. In this project we have limited resources for doing that, and so I developed a methodology for the user research that allows us to draw conclusions not only from speaking to the target users of My.COOP but also comparable users, for example African professionals working in other contexts who have a similar lifestyle.

In the above overview you can see the different tracks of the user research that allow us to build a complete picture of the needs of a typical My.COOP user and get inspired for the 'Create' phase. As each track is completed I'll post the results here on the blog!

Mobile My.COOP has its first client already: Nigeria!

Last week the ITC welcomed 2 delegates from Nigeria who are interested in working with the ILO to deliver up-to-date agricultural cooperative training in their country. They reported that the original MATCOM training was very popular there, but it has become very dated, and the users are looking forward to new material. Tom and I met with them to discuss the possibility of integrating mobile phones into the new My.COOP training system, and they loved the idea!

They told us that in Nigeria there is a lack of infrastructure that makes connectivity difficult. On one hand, internet connectivity is a problem, coupled with access to computers and electricity. But another issue is travelling from A to B - when there is a lack of digital connectivity then it often becomes necessary for inhabitants to make long journeys between towns and villages in order to communicate and interact. Especially in rural contexts, this means that people lose a lot of time and money, because in Nigeria villages are often spread very far apart.

However, the mobile phone is very diffused and there is great potential to create new systems around this object that deliver training directly to the users and link them up with other actors in the system, allowing them to experience the more interactive and even social elements of a F2F training experience at a distance.

My.COOP is a training project for regions all over the world, but to pilot the system it makes sense to focus in on one context and prototype how the learning experience can be adapted to the specific needs of that area. The delegates were keen to explore how the standardised My.COOP material could be related to the Nigerian context. Perhaps the mobile elements could become a tool for "customising" the standard printed material in different regions, for example through storytelling of local case studies?

As a large country Nigeria also presents its own specific technical challenges for the pilot and I think this is very healthy for the project. As one of the delegates said, "if you can make it work for Nigeria, you can make it work for any African country!"

The raw content of the 4 modules is almost finished and ready for the ITC to transform into training material. The idea is to pilot this material in the coming months, printed in an A4 black-and-white format, to gain feedback and make any necessary changes before the final books are graphically designed and go to print in late 2011.

Alongside the piloting of the printed material, the m-learning element will be piloted.

But what do we mean when we say m-learning??

The goal is not to replicate the content of the books via mobile phone – of course, this would be impossible.

The goal is to use mobile phone technology to compliment and add value to the training offered by the books and to provide an enhanced learning experience.

In this way, the training can be delivered in a more mobile way that fits in with the participants’ lifestyle. For example, text-based quizzes can determine specific learning needs before training starts, or for evaluation at the end. Or if a participant has a specific question, maybe they could text that to the ILO to get a personal response. Or it could be that participants can call a number to listen to more information about an area that they are especially interested in. To make the learning experience more engaging, this information can be delivered in the form of a story or case study. Mobile phones can also become an integral part of the system in terms of communication and networking with other participants in different regions. And so on...

The next step is to get inspiration from what has already been done in the m-learning field and the tools that can support m-learning. I’ll post the most interesting findings here on the blog.

At the same time, I’ll start to generate ideas for the m-learning services we can offer together with my boss Tom, and we’ll pilot these together with the printed material in the coming months.

Where are we going to do this?? More details coming soon!