The term as below Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) has been adopted worldwide. In practice, approaches to ERT have been contextual with diverse lecturer and student experiences owing to complex assemblages of sociomaterial practices. Approaches to ERT as mobile learning by necessity are understudied. The 'pivot' to ERT was particularly challenging for those in resource-constrained environments. Lecturers not only had to redesign face-to-face courses for ERT but were designing for mobile learning based on their own resource constraints and that of their students. For many, this highlighted broader concerns for equity and social justice. The authors share case studies of two lecturers at Rhodes University, arguing that a sociomaterial perspective can assist researchers and practitioners to better understand contextual approaches to ERT. The article demonstrates concerns when designing mobile learning experiences and how lecturers' design journeys are entangled with the material, social and political.