Breaking out: the turning point in learning using mobile technology

Abstract

Despite considerable research on YouTube as a digital media platform, little research to date has quantified the device-type used to access that online media. Analyzing access-device data for videos on one YouTube video channel—Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO), which produces educational content specifically accessible to low- or non-literate, poor, or geographically isolated learners in less developed areas of the world—the results identify the historical moments between 2015 and 2017 when mobile/smartphones, both globally and by region, crossed a tipping point to surpass all other ICT devices (including desktop PCs, laptops, and other Internet-accessing technologies) as the primary device-type for accessing SAWBO videos. Specifically, data from January 2013 to June 2018 obtained for SAWBO's YouTube channel were sampled to capture and distinguish the access device-type used and then summarized in broad global and regional categories. The tipping point, as the date where the percentage of views from mobile phones was equivalent to the percentage of views from computers, were also calculated globally and by region. Besides documenting this critical global-historical moment, the results also have implications for mass digital-messaging generally and mobile-based public service learning specifically.

Measuring the impact and reach of informal educational videos on YouTube: The case of Scientific Animations Without Borders

“…One of the most promising of these strategies includes delivering locally translated, educational/scientific videos to recipients’ video-enabled cellphones (through sharing via Bluetooth, access to YouTube or other online platforms, and other digital means) ( Bello-Bravo et al., 2019 ). This potential of cell phones—as now the most prevalent and technologically familiar means of Internet access ( Bello-Bravo et al., 2021 ), even in remote locations within otherwise digitally less saturated contexts)—is immense, but still has important limitations across male/female and rural/urban usage gaps ( Bello-Bravo et al., 2017 ; Eubanks, 2012 ; Hafkin, 2000 ). And although these recurrent challenges both require solutions and are already to some extent addressed by the affordances of cell phones themselves for delivering educational messages more broadly than other ICTs ( Bello-Bravo and Pittendrigh, 2018 ), a significant bottleneck occurs when messages must be accessed (in the first place) via the Internet.…”

“…With an estimated 1 billion hours of video watched daily by some 63 million viewers worldwide, YouTube is the leading access point on the Internet for video content ( Migiro, 2018 ). Moreover, since 2011, digital platforms (including YouTube) have passed newspapers and television as a primary source of news ( Pew Research Center, 2008 , 2011 ), while cell phones between 2015 and 2017 surpassed all other digital-access device types (including personal computers) as the most common means for accessing information online ( Bello-Bravo et al., 2021 ).…”

Just participation or just participation? A participatory justice model for more successful theory of change design, implementation, and solution uptake

“… Ribot and Peluso (2003) , in their theory of access, underscore how availability itself does not yet constitute access ; people must also be able to put availability to use. Placing the videos both on the most technologically familiar ICT access device ( Bello-Bravo et al., 2021 ) and in the would-be participants' most comfortably spoken language enabled not only availability, but access. That digital media (i.e., educational animations presented on mobile phones) can offer a design alternative embodying justice recalls McLuhan's (1964) the medium is the message , while also underscoring how including these in designs affords participants an increased use-opportunity, even in a demotivated setting almost optimally antithetical to learning.…”

Program Planning and Animated Videos as Learning Tools in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…While these findings are more general and common in most SAWBO programs, they are not exhaustive. One of the common findings in SAWBO program evaluations involves the economic challenges of owning a device , which is all the more pressing given that cellphones have globally become the primary device for accessing Internet content (Bello-Bravo, Brooks, Lutomia et al, 2021). Since cellphones are used to keep, watch, and share animated videos, maintaining such devices seems challenging for many Africans.…”