1 Preprint: Appears in Proceedings of MLearn 2012 Tablets with Restricted Mobility: Investigating User Acceptance in a South African Mathematics Mobile Learning Project Thanél Voigt Department of Informatics University of Pretoria South Africa voigtthanel@yahoo.com Machdel Matthee Department of Informatics University of Pretoria South Africa machdel.matthee@up.ac.za ABSTRACT The use of mobile technologies to facilitate learning has emerged as an area of its own and referred to as mobile learning. Ericsson initiated a project called „Connect to Learn‟ (C2L), where a mobile learning solution focused on introducing creativity and interactivity into the classrooms of South Africa using various mobile technologies and applications, was developed. Ericsson has employed this solution in various schools in and around Johannesburg, South Africa. This research study focuses on investigating the user acceptance (teachers and learners) of utilizing tablets (MobiPads) in the learning of mathematics in classrooms participating in the C2L project. The tablets are not owned by the learners and are not used by learners in an informal environment outside of school boundaries. The tablets therefore have restricted mobility and the study contributes by exploring user acceptance of semi-mobile learning. It is shown that learners values the mobility feature of the devices, even though it is limited. However, what proves to be essential for acceptance of mobile mathematics learning is the content, its relevance to real-life situations, providing capability to explore and the mapping of the content to the curriculum. Keywords mobile learning, mobile learning, Android mobile tablets, MobiPad, user acceptance, mathematics education, restricted mobility. INTRODUCTION We are living in a new era of technology enabled personal mobility, which inevitably affects our education systems and offer the opportunities to design teaching and learning differently. Outside of schools, information and communication technologies (ICT) such as mobile devices are changing the way students find information, how they learn and even how they are entertained. This resulted in a new era of learning and teaching being realized that moves away from the static classroom structure of “chalk and talk, as well as desk and texts” (Roschelle, Pea, Hoadley, Gor din & Means, 2000:76) and moves towards dynamic learner-centric environments that facilitate more personalized, contextualised and collaborative learning (Liu, Han & Li, 2010). In Africa, when comparing the amount of users of fixed lines with users of mobile phones, Lange (2010) reports that in early 2010 mobile users constituted more than 90% of all African telephone subscribers. This fact together with the apparent ease with which South Africans adopt mobile technology suggests a wide range of possibilities for development in South Africa using mobile technology, including mobile learning. Education in South Africa faces many challenges of which inadequately trained teachers is but one (Matthee and Liebenberg. 2007:156). The result is inter alia, poor performance in science and maths, those subjects on which a thriving economy depends. In the 2003 TIMSS (Trends in International Maths and Science Study) tests South Africa had come last, even behind African countries such as Ghana and other developing nations whose expenditure on education is far less than that of South Africa (Mail and Guardian, 2010). 1 South Africa pulled out from the 2007 TIMSS test. Given these challenges, the government as well as private companies are trying to address the problems facing education, and specifically mathematics and science education, in South Africa. The case reported in this paper is part of such an initiative where Ericsson together with other partners started a mobile learning project, the so called Connect to Learn project. The next section gives more detail on the project. CONNECT TO LEARN PROJECT In September 2010 Ericsson launched the Connect to Learn (C2L) project with the goal to “implement ICT to connect classrooms and improve access to quality educational resources for learners and teachers around the world, even those in