Pocket School: Exploring mobile technology as a sustainable literacy education option for underserved indigenous children in Latin America

Abstract

Literacy is a human right unequally distributed among the world's population. Despite global efforts to fight illiteracy, high illiteracy rates continue to jeopardize access for many to basic schooling, life-long learning, health, and environment safety. Illiteracy also hinders the economic prosperity of the poorest societies in this digital age. Among the underserved population in Latin America, many of the indigenous children are the poorest of the poor who hardly have access to formal and stable schooling. This paper reviews the literature addressing education inequality issues in Latin America and possible opportunities with mobile learning technology to counter the effects of the education inequality. Also, this paper suggests mobile technology design considerations to meet the particular learning needs of the extremely underserved and underachieving indigenous children in Latin America. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.