benefits it will have had on their language development or teaching skills are harder to measure

the monitoring and evaluation design does not appear to include a control group, but rather focuses on English language competency of only the participants at the beginning of the year compared with the end.

The excitement surrounding the variety of m-learning projects is well-deserved, but there is clearly much to learn about how far teaching and learning English using the medium can benefit those in developing countries. As Traxler says, "Brilliant and exemplary work is being done on the ground by people using mobiles to deliver and enhance learning to distant and disadvantaged communities. Our problem is more to do with how badly we try to explain it, think about it, reason about it, learn from it, generalise from it and evaluate it."

“We wanted to make a platform that could be used by all kids, teens, and college students and that cuts across demographics,” Okamoto says. “You don’t just have to have iPads or live in a very wealthy school district.”

ach school or class can create a group for themselves called a “cell” that users may access straight from their phone, email, or the Internet. They text to personal screen names, and to prevent cyber-bullying or inappropriate conduct, they cannot see each other’s numbers.

Still, thanks to BYOT, high school is not so bad after all,

“The shy kids don’t like to talk during regular group discussions, but they’re really active on Celly,” he says.

But experts say providing technology is the responsibility of schools, not parents.

“BYOT is pushing costs that should be paid by federal, state, or city governments to the families, like asking them to pay for the amount of bandwidth students need to do their work

Educational consultant Gary Stager agrees, arguing that BYOT just makes have-nots feel worse.  “The rationale for school uniforms, for putting kids in matching plaid polyester, is so poor kids don’t feel bad and aren’t stigmatized in the classroom.  BYOT is another form of stigmatizing kids,” he says.