We had a fascinating webinar yesterday presented by Dr Tutaleni Asino on the ‘ Adoption and diffusion of technology in Afrikan countries’. A recording of the webinar is available on the e/merge Africa YouTube channel.

Tutaleni drew our attention to the misalignment between what Afrikan leaders claim and what’s happening on the ground regarding technology in education. He noted innovations in other sectors such as m-banking and asks ‘Why m-banking spread but not mobile learning?’ Kafui contributed that in Ghana there are policies against mobile phone uses in high schools while at the same time, national ICT policy claims that we are training students to become internationally competitive students.

After introducing us to some of his work using the model developed by Rogers, Tutaleni asked ‘Do we need our own Afrikan based theories of diffusion and innovation of technology?’ He also asked if there are perhaps other theories being used to explain what’s happening around technology in education in Afrika and notes that at the moment the dominant narrative is about pumping in more devices. While rejecting or accepting an innovation is a decision, diffusion is a longer process. Rita notes that perhaps we need to look very carefully at those points where the technology provides ‘relative advantage’ and observes current lack of evidence in local research which may support the use of various technologies in learning and teaching.

What is the process by which technology gets adopted in Afrikan contexts and what theories do we have at our disposal to explain this?

The session sparked some interesting ideas and applications – let’s continue the conversation:)