An Exploratory Study of The Social Context for Cellphone-Based Learning Games in Rural India.

Universal education is only a dream in most developing countries. While public education has made great strides in countries like India, it still falls far short of quality education for everyone. Furthermore, many children are unable to attend school regularly because of work obligations to their families. Mobile phones have tremendous penetration even in poor villages, and show great potential to improve education. But to do so for working children, cell-phone learning must happen outside the classroom. Adoption and use of learning applications must be spontaneous by the children, and supported by their parents. There must be appropriate times and places for learning, which mesh with children's routines. Designing such informal learning applications requires deep understanding of the contextual forces in the children's environments. This paper summarizes the results of two phases of fieldwork aimed to chart the contextual forces that would influence technology use by children in rural villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]