Presented at mLearn, Orlando, Florida
30 October 2009

m4Lit
A teen m-novel project in South Africa
(Interim presentation of a project-in-progress)

Steve Vosloo, Shuttleworth Foundation

Agenda

Rationale for m4Lit project

Research design

Kontax, an m-novel

kontax.mobi

Lack of printed books in SA

51% of South African households own no leisure books

Just 6% of households have more than 40 titles on their bookshelves
(PICC, 2006)

Impacts negatively on leisure reading and school performance from pre-school to secondary school

In general: not enough reading and writing

Highly differentiated across class

National Survey into the Reading and Book Reading Behaviour of Adult South Africans (PICC, 2006) http://www.saccd.org.za/objects/sabdc_reading.pdf

The (mobile) time is right

Good infrastructure

Good coverage (better than Silicon valley)

High uptake of phones

Cheap data

MXit: mobile IM service (13m users in SA)

Mobile web access on the rise in the townships
(Donner and Gitau, 2009; Kreutzer, 2009)

Mobile literacies

The rise of txtspk

In SA, popular language and literacies are adapting to mobile use
(Deumert and Masinyana, 2008; Deumert, Klein and Masinyana, 2008)

m-Novels in Japan

Rin, 21, wrote a mobile phone novel, with 400,000 hardcover sales.Photo: The New York Timeshttp://www.theage.com.au/news/world/mobile-phone-novels-ring-up-big-sales-but-critics-fear-forjapanese-literature/2008/01/22/1200764265347.html

Participatory culture:

Don't just consume, but also
create, share and remix content
(Jenkins et al., 2006)

Digital and social media are
enabling this

Not much known about this in SA

In the paper referenced in the slide, as well as in Jenkins' book Convergence Culture he presents the idea of a participatory culture, where people want to create and share information, and not just passively consume it.

Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Image of Henry Jenkins by Joi Ito:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2258124778/sizes/l/. CC-By-2.0

Pew study from 2005: one-half of all teens have created media content, and roughly one third of teens who use the Internet have shared content they produced. That figure is now much higher. The United States is a PC-based web society, so the experience is in rich multimedia

New Literacy Studies

Literacy is seen not only as a technique (the ability to read and write), but as a social practice which always takes place within specific contexts
(cf. Street, 1993; Barton and Hamilton, 1998)

Many SA children encounter computers only in the context of the circumscribed classroom practices associated with school literacy
(Walton, 2007; Prinsloo and Walton, 2008)

Mobile literacy is different

They just don't read

Teens don't read enough

Teens don't write enough

Teens love their cellphones

What can we do with this?

?Lack of printed books in SA

(Mobile) time is right

Mobile literacies

Participatory culture

New Literacy Studies

m4Lit is born

Mobiles for literacy project goals:

To explore whether teens are interested in reading stories on their cellphones

Whether and how they write using their cellphones

Whether cellphones might be used to change their attitudes towards reading and writing

Explore m-novels as a compliment and alternative to printed literature

Research design

Working with Assoc Prof Ana Deumert, Dr Marion Walton (co-authors of paper) and Assoc Prof Mastin Prinsloo (all UCT):

50 teens from Langa and Guguletu (low-income urban townships)

14-16 year olds who own/have daily access to GPRS-enabled mobile phones

Pre-story survey

Technology use observation

Post-story survey

Post-story focus group

Mobisite usage data

Kontax: a teen m-novel

www.kontax.mobi
(GPRS-enabled phones or computer browser)

Aimed at 14-16 year olds

Written in English and isiXhosa (world first)

21 days, 21 chapters

Embedded in a lite social network

Prizes for comments and sequel ideas

WARNING!

Raw data to follow do not quote!

Page views (excl. chapters)

Time per visit

1-10 seconds42,900

10 60 seconds159

1 3 minutes145

3 - 10 minutes173

10 - 30 minutes114

> 30 minutes53

Page views per chapter

Comments by user

Comments per chapter

*What i like*

Kontax is the most exciting thing that i've ever experianced i mean im not holding heavy book anymore its me and my phone

*Gr8 idea*

I think this is the nxt best thng since sliced bread,cnt wait 4 the next chapter.its rly interestn,i cnt stand readn a novel bt this is diffrnt coz its jst lyk facebook

*The best thng*

kontax ths is the best thng that keping the youth connected on their phones doing sumthng very positiv nd very informative tacling the issues that we are dealing with as a youth

*Already kontax biggest fan !*

I must admit that i wake up extra early t0 read the chapters (blushing)i never use to go to the library but with kontax i feel like i have a library on my phone and its great , YAY !

*Obrigado*

Congrats guys dt ws a gr8 story thnx 4 d infortainment i lrnt a lot 4rm u till we mt again. L8r!

(On Song's Wall)

Hey grl...curently im sitn wita br0ken ankl so i fl ur pain...lets gt thr0ugh ths 2gtha;-)

Risks/challenges/questions

Not all teens will like the story

Cost may prohibit access

Teens are already reading and writing when chatting

Potential harm of txtspk on learners not strong in English

FAQ

Read the story later?
Yes, it'll stay up till next year

Cost?
Content is free. Pay for mobile data (USD 1c/chapter)

Project report due date?
December 2009

Licensing?
CC-BY-SA. You can share, remix & sell it

Can I use the mobisite?
Yes, it will be released as open-source in Dec/Jan

What's next?
Maybe a sequel, maybe some curriculum-aligned titles

Thank you

m4Lit: m4lit.wordpress.com

email: steve.vosloo@shuttleworthfoundation.org

blog: innovatingeducation.wordpress.com

slides:slideshare.net/stevevosloo

twitter:twitter.com/stevevosloo

web:vosloo.net

Click to edit the title text format

Click to edit the outline text format

Second Outline Level

Third Outline Level

Fourth Outline Level

Fifth Outline Level

Sixth Outline Level

Seventh Outline Level

Eighth Outline Level

Ninth Outline Level

Main heading application

Sub-heading goes here

This is mock copy, and only indicates the size, type of font and colour

This is mock copy, and only indicates the size, type of font and colour

www.shuttleworthfoundation.org

Views

Choose English4101

Login3752

Register3462

Profile1258

All Chapters1173

Inbox947

FAQs867

Choose isiXhosa797

Galleries639

Competition430

Story Extras429

Logout409

Express Yourself402

Competition Conditions232

Characters199

Page views

11683

2900

3534

4439

5402

6393

7408

8319

9335

10326

11313

12287

13322

14278

15252

16275

17270

18242

19210

20219

21361