m4it is a South African project that has been on-going since its launch in August 2009. The project was established to explore the viability of using mobile phones to support reading and writing by the youth in South Africa.  Many South African townships are considered "book poor" in that they do not have the funds to purchase reading materials. However, many areas have inexpensive and adequate access to the web via a mobile network. Therefore, the founders proposed that if mobile phones proved to be a legitimate alternative and complement to printed literature, then their potential for increasing youth literacy practices of reading and writing in South Africa would be significant.

The m4lt project had three main goals:

·         To explore whether teens are interested in reading stories on

         their mobile phones.

·         To see whether and how they write using their mobile phones

·         To better understand mobile literacy.

Within the first year of the project, the m4lit team found that most of the participants' reading and writing took place on the mobile phone. Significant peer to peer learning also emerged, and students were quite interested in the m-novels (mobile novels).

Click here to visit the m4lit blog and to learn more about this interesting and innovative project.