Less (in Context) is more (Creativity): M-learning as a Short Lived Traveling Idea at the University of Pretoria

Technological innovations in ICTs have unleashed new educational practices worldwide. Mosthigher education institutions nowadays use different kinds of e-learning. In this paper we willshow that constraining local conditions have triggered fast adoption of mobile technology in thedistance education – coined m-learning - by the University of Pretoria. Because many distantstudents in South Africa only have a mobile device instead of a computer at their disposal, theUniversity of Pretoria was prepared to adopt m-learning quite early. While ten years ago mostSouth African distance students only had simple mobile devices, without the possibility to accessinternet, the UP resorted to m-learning, even before the conditions for optimal use of m-learningwere present. This was only possible by transforming the innovative idea of m-learning in a firstexperimental phase to the local South African context. Because the m-learning experiments atthe University of Pretoria consisted of both elements of adoption and transformation, theintroduction of m-learning should be framed a traveling idea. We will also show that the processof adaptation stopped once the local constraints vanished, that is, once more distance studentsobtained smartphones.