Nokia in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology has launched MoMaths, to help grade 10 to 12 students in South Africa better understand mathematics.
The service accessible via a data enabled mobile phone gives access to over 10 000 exercises and allows students to collaborate with others, compare achievements and get guidance on forward. Teachers can use the service to better understand their students competence and areas they need to improve.
“We launched the Nokia Mobile Mathematics pilot in 2009 after a request by the then Deputy President of South Africa on how we could better use mobile technology to speed up learning,” says Gerard Brandjes, Vice President, Nokia South and East Africa.
“With more than five years of listening, learning and adapting the service, we are now ready to make it available broadly.”
Without having to download an any app, the service works on any phone and pc as is fully browser-based. It requires students or teachers to sign-up then pick their area of interest, say finance, trigonometry, calculus and statistics plus several examples on site and background information.
Nokia will be working with Cell C and MTN to zero rate the data for MoMaths so as students don’t have to pay for the service.
First launched as a pilot service in 2009 in Gauteng, the North West and the Western Cape provinces the service now has reached 150 schools with around 14 000 students actively using the service. Several others accessing it over mobile social network Mxit.
Nokia Life is a similar service that the firm has launched across the world.