SA company in world first in mobile education

The complete syllabus for South African NCS mathematics grades 10, 11 & 12 and NCS science grades 11 & 12, including CAPS-aligned mathematics content for grades 10 & 11; 183 hours' of preloaded content.

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A South African company has launched a game-changing tablet that comes preloaded with the country's maths and science curriculum for grades 10, 11 and 12, negating the need for often-expensive broadband access.

Future Mobile Technology has launched the netsurfer SCHOLAR, a seven-inch, dual-SIM-card, dual-purpose Android tablet containing 183 hours' of preloaded maths and science educational content, with The Foschini Group.

"It's a first in mobile education," says joint FMT CEO, Graham Davies. "Embedding a country's national science and maths curriculum into the tablet, so users aren't reliant on an Internet connection (often a problem in South Africa, especially in remote areas), is a world first. Now lessons, experiments and discussions are just a click away."

South Africa's maths and science education ranks near the bottom of a World Economic Forum study, and lack of access to information technology is hampering the country's competitiveness.

FMT worked with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Unit in the Eastern Cape to develop the application. The university provided the content, while FMT developed the menu-driven content management application and provided the skills to commercialise the offering.

Grades 11 & 12 science experiments demonstrated in a laboratory. Newton's second law of motion.

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"Innovation is driven by need," says joint CEO, Tracy Andersson. "In this case, South Africa needs to enhance its maths and science education. This preloaded app helps schools (many without science labs, for example), students and teachers develop their skills in these vitally important education sectors, even when they don't have access to the Internet."

The Foschini Group - with its spread of retail outlets from Foschini, Exact!, Markham's, jewellery stores (Mat and May, Sterns, Matrix, ASJ) and sports stores (Total Sports & Sport Scene) to its hi-tech stores and mobile online store (www.tfgmobile.co.za) - will carry the netsurfer SCHOLAR in more than 250 shops nationally.

The netsurfer SCHOLAR uses FMT's proprietary software, the Android Content Management System for Education and Enterprise (ACMEE). Its applications can be used in the public and private sectors, and can be customised to suit those companies' requirements, whether it's a rural health clinic in Limpopo or a JSE-listed company needing easily navigated training modules for staff.

The netsurfer SCHOLAR, says Davies, is flexible and technology driven. "Even if there are changes to the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), upgrades will be available on our Web site," he says. "The HDMI port allows for viewing information on a television or projector, making it easy to use for groups of students and teachers."

Audiovisual maths lessons - Trignomic Equation.

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The video-based material and simple interface ensures that a lack of computer skills will not have a negative impact on the value and usefulness of the resource.

It features term-by-term video lessons, experiments, workbooks, solutions and past exam papers taught by highly qualified mathematics and science professors and teachers. Students can pause, rewind and watch video lessons as many times as they wish. In addition, the content can be bookmarked and highlighted, and footnotes can be added to PDFs.

"It's taken over a year-and-a-half to develop the system, and pilot it," says Andersson. "Our goal as a proudly South African technology company is to bridge the digital divide and close that gap. This application is designed to improve our maths and science education for everybody, not just the privileged few. We don't just sell technology; we try to help educate people on how to use it."

The high-spec, embedded 3G tablet with 16GB built-in storage space costs R2 999 all-in.

Content includes:

The FMT App has 183 hours' of viewing that has 100 hours' of classroom maths videos; 60 hours' of science instruction videos; 15 hours' of past exam papers; five hours' of informative science experiments and three hours' instruction video on using the Casio calculator.