John Traxler, Professor of Mobile Learning at University of Wolverhampton, visits UKZN 

The School of IS&T, with financial support from the UKZN Teaching & Learning Office, hosted Prof. John Traxler at UKZN on Wednesday 19 October 2011. This opportunity arose on very short notice and was only possible because colleagues at Meraka (CSIR, Pretoria) offered to release him to us, for a day. His involvement there is on a project relating to m-learning and teacher training for the SA Department of Education.

John Traxler is Professor of Mobile Learning, (probably the world’s first). He is a full professor and Director of the Learning Lab at the University of Wolverhampton. While at UKZN, Prof. Traxler gave a seminar entitled "Mobiles and Education in Africa - a Sustainable and Appropriate Ecology". In addition to numerous publications and positions related to mobile learning, he has co-written a guide to mobile learning in developing countries. He is also co-editor of the definitive book, Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Educators and Trainers, with Professor Agnes Kukulska-Hulme. They are working a second book together on contextual mobile learning.

Although pressed for time John was able to fit a lot into his one day with us. He began with a breakfast meeting with some PhD students. This was followed by a meeting, hosted by Prof. Nthabiseng Motsemme of the UKZN Research Office for people interested in funding opportunities and in particular the SIRCA II application (Nov, 2011). Prof. Traxler served as a valuable sounding board for a proposal, as he served on the SIRCA I board. SIRCA II African coordination is based at UKZN, being undertaken by Prof. Julian May and Ms Kathleen Diga (see details).

For more information about this visit, contact Rosemary Quilling.