A highlight of the 1st Annual Innovation in Education Summit, held at DUT on 8-11 November 2013 was the SONLIG digital library intranet device (built on a powerful little lunchbox-size Raspberry Pi computer) that pupils in schools without Internet access can access via their phones. The SONLIG device does not need Internet access. It is pre-loaded with a vast library of open source materials from the Internet including Wikipedia, World Health Organisation materials, Project Gutenberg books and Khan Academy videos. Each device can deliver up to 40 phone connections – just right for a class of pupils who have phones, but who may have no school library, no Internet and sometimes no electricity. This great piece of appropriate technology is set to revive a remarkable mobile-learning project started in 2011 by Dr Sylvia Zulu and her colleague Odette Swift from the Department of Language Practice. Based at Ilanga Secondary School, and using donated smartphones, DUT student facilitators were trained in using mobile-learning techniques to provide support for matriculants at Ilanga. The results were excellent and had a positive impact on the school’s matric results. The downside was similar to that afflicting other projects that relied on cell phones to deliver audio visual material- unreasonably high cell phone data bundle costs. By incorporating the SONLIG technology in their high school partnership and collaboration project (developing learning applications and content) Dr Zulu’s M-Ubuntu project can now build on its past successes unimpeded by limited Internet access.
