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

My final master thesis on Mobile Learning for Africa, presenting every phase of the project, from the initial research to the final design work.

Please view in "Book" mode.

I made this video as an introduction to my master thesis project, Mobile Learning for Africa.

Thanks to Chao Shangguan for the help with Flash!

Printed copies of my master thesis and the resulting product - the Mobile Learning Toolkit, a guidebook for trainers in developing contexts who wish to incorporate mobile learning into their training activity.

After a long journey I graduated on the 20th of July 2011 and I am now the proud owner of a masters degree in Product Service System Design!

My thesis project was very well received firstly by my professors at Politecnico di Milano on the 20th of July and then on the 26th of July at the ITC-ILO when I presented my work to my colleagues there. Almost every department of the ITC-ILO was represented at a 2-hour lunch session on mobile learning and I was delighted by the positive response given by all that attended.

A big thank you to all that contributed to this collaborative project and to those who supported me throughout the project - I couldn't have done it without you!!

I'm now proud to present the final results in the posts that follow - an introductory video on the mobile revolution in Africa, my master thesis, and a mobile learning toolkit for use in developing contexts.

As you can see, now that the conclusions of the 'understand' phase have been made, it's time to start designing!

Various ideas have already been generated along the way, so I'm currently bringing these together as well as generating as many new ideas as possible.

At the same time I'm working with my colleagues to develop a mobile learning prototype that will be tested during the my.coop training pilot, due to take place in Nigeria in June.

I'll post the progress on here as much as possible and if anyone has any feedback or ideas, please do share them!

The My.COOP users will also be ITC users, and whether their training takes place face-to-face in Turin or on the field; at a distance; or as part of a blended training experience; they should experience "the Turin learning approach" that the ITC always strives for.

So it also makes sense to carry out research with current ITC users and to understand their experience and needs.

On 17th March 2011 I had the great opportunity to attend the evaluation session of an interesting blended course ran by the Gender unit, called 'Capacity Building of Women for Gender Mainstreaming in Economic Development of Policies', which had 28 participants from West (Francophone) Africa.

As well as observing the formal evaluation session I was able to conduct my own interview with a group of 5 participants, you can read the results in the doc above.

Thanks to Paul, Azara, Haby, Adam and Telou for volunteering to speak to me and for sharing your insights!

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!

Now the 'define' stage is complete and the 'understand' phase is underway! And the 'create' and 'prototype' phases will be coming soon...

That's because these phases are not exactly linear, as shown in the diagram. Instead they will take place in an iterative process. For example, at the same time as I'm profiling the users and researching current m-learning state of the art, ideas and concepts for a mobile My.COOP will surely come out. So these will be developed concurrently with the ongoing research, and even prototyped and tested as early on as possible. This is of course the best way to evaluate ideas and go on to improve them!

After analysing the 3 options for my project at the ITC, we've decided to go for the MATCOM project, which I'm very excited about!

A meeting was recently held in Amsterdam with the officials involved to advance the project. They decided that an updated MATCOM programme needs a new name, and so My.COOP is born.

As 2012 will be the UN's International Year of Cooperatives, My.COOP will be supported by the entire United Nations System, which is very exciting.

In the end it seemed that this option is just too good an opportunity to miss, the others could be done at any time, but the time for this one is right now!