Dustin York

The full project website can be found at www.dustinyork.net/sharing.

When approaching the topic of ubiquitous computing as an aid to the process of learning, my partner Zhengxin (Ina) Xi and I came to the realization that sensors and electronic communication tools are already increasingly ubiquitous on a global scale. The challenge was in how to utilize them as powerful tools in the pursuit of learning how to read and write. This can be particularly effective in developing countries, where the population can struggle to keep pace with the rate of technological and economic growth. As the densities of cities swell, rural places are often neglected in terms of the expenditure of educational resources, and cheap, readily accessible technology can step in to fill that gap and help the people that were never given the proper chance to learn empower themselves with self-directed learning.

Setting

This project finds an ideal setting in rural India, by seeking to highlight two existing circumstances. Our research uncovered that of all the world’s illiterate population, 35% are Indian. However, India can also claim to be the world’s fastest-growing telecom market. It is estimated that by 2012, half of the Indian population will own a cell phone.

Tagging the Village

One of the key components to the system is that all the learning material is self-generated. Participants in a local community network have the ability to tag their own picture messages with labels describing them, and then the ability to share them with everybody else. The materials generated are seamlessly reflective of and finds relevance with their everyday lives, and constitutes recurrent prompting from friends and family as means of supportive encouragement.

Making a Game of Community Learning

The resources compiled through Tagging the Village are utilized effectively in the context of community-supported learning. The same tagged picture messages are compiled into a database and turned into a game that encourages participation among every member in the room. Authors of the original tagged image act as mentor to every other learner, and the opportunity is given for supportive participation to lift the confidence and abilities of everyone involved.

Prototype

This prototype demonstrates the essential community function that the game provides. Everyone’s cell phone is sent a picture message of a letter, and it is up to the group to correctly spell out the label given to the image on the screen. A webcam directed at the mobile phone is able to recognize a correct or incorrect answer.

Family Anecdotes as Teaching Material

Going beyond reciting simple one-word descriptions is the advanced feature that records an orated story and converts that into written text upon which the community can attempt to study and parse out the recognizable parts. Direct connections to other community members are provided when a word in the story matches the label given to a tagged picture already present in the database. In this way, social and cultural resources turn into a learning resource upon which many community members have familiarity with and are connected to.

Broader Implications

The natural result of learning resources culled from the everyday lives of the community members is that it becomes an invaluable living archive of the culture and interests of everyone involved. That is in addition to a more learned, more participatory, and more connected local population. The broader result can be that by lifting the veil of ignorance an individual can now consider starting their own business for example, or initiating trade between other neighboring communities. They can then take steps to broaden their own boundaries and realize the possibilities. A positive outcome can ripple outward to help families prosper and help successive generations reach a higher standard.

Possible Next Steps

The further iteration to this project can be in directing the best way for self-learning to find its way in the hands of under-educated women. Research has plainly shown that when women achieve a higher level of education, the entire society benefits. This is because women tend to take what they learn and invest those benefits in family and community, resulting in a better-educated and healthier next generation. However, it is commonly true that women have significantly less access to education than men, making the possibility for m-learning to initiate a movement for self-directed learning among women especially beneficial. We believe the opportunity for social progress has been provided by the information that can pass through cheap and readily accessible technology, it is up to the ingenuity of designers to engineer a system that can take advantage of that opportunity rather than letting it pass by unrealized.

Research

This project finds an ideal setting in rural India, by seeking to highlight two existing circumstances. Our research uncovered that of all the world’s illiterate population, 35% are Indian (http://www.roomtoread.org/Page.aspx?pid=304). And while the nation’s literacy rate has undergone steady growth, it still lingers at about 20% below the global average. However, India can also claim to be the world’s fastest-growing telecom market. It is estimated that by 2012, half of the Indian population will own a cell phone. (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Finance/India-to-have-billion-plus-mobile-users-by-2015-executive/articleshow/5242284.cms)

Basic education is both free and compulsory in India from ages 6-14, however the reality is that the quality of education is widely variant along different geographical and class lines. In fact, only 7% of all Indian students ever achieve a high school level of education. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7267315.stm) However, the benefit of that compulsory education is that it can provide many with a baseline of reading and writing that they can build upon by using this learning system.

This project shares a lot in common with the growing trend of mobile learning, or m-learning as it is called. Research revealed to us that mobile phone companies like Nokia provide a service called Life Tools that text messages trivia to subscribers for things like learning English. The Indian state-owned telecom company BSNL also has a similar program, among others. Many providers see the future of m-learning in developing interactive games, waiting for the day when the common access to that level of technology can allow widespread implementation. Our system leverages the power of community participation rather than the reliance upon dynamic interactive software to bring learning to the far corners in the near future.

Interview with Kristen Aguirre-Ford from Dustin York on Vimeo.

Researched Methods for Teaching Reading and Writing

The other side to the project research was in learning the correct methods in teaching literacy. For that, we interviewed an educator with over twenty years of experience in doing just that, Kristen Aguirre-Ford. Our discussion with her was very fruitful, revealing to us basic tenets of literacy education that informed and drove new directions for this project. We learned from her that at the very root of learning, having support from others is integral in driving an interest in literacy. She also told us that it is important that the student knows why they are learning what they are learning, and to recognize the importance of using methods of auditory, visual and kinesthetic learning in concert to help all students learn in the best manner for them. And one of the most important strategies she taught us was that the student should not be initially limited by the words they know, instead they should be inspired by the imaginations they possess. All of this went into how we formed our strategies in self-directed education.