Worldreader.org, a non-profit whose motto is “Books for all“, recently completed a pilot project bringing Kindle e-readers to students in Ayenyah, Ghana.
Our working hypotheses are that:
1. E-readers will increase access to books due to lower distribution costs and immediate visibility of millions of books available online.
2. This will result in a larger number and greater variety of books read, and increased excitement and exchange of ideas around these books.
3. The result will be a higher value placed on reading within the classroom, family, and community.
4. The results will be specific and measurable, and will, in the long term, increase literacy and opportunity for those involved.
The key objectives of the trials are:
* To identify motivations of children, teaching professionals, and school districts
* To understand the logistics involved, and potential blockers to the successful adoption of the technology
* To help Worldreader.org make informed decisions on strategy, and set realistic goals, expectations, and metrics
* To capture stories and assets to better understand the experience
Continue Reading »
The University of Wisconsin’s Games, Learning and Society research group have released ARIS (Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling), a tool for making location based educational games, stories, and tours.
Features
- Use GPS location and QR Codes to link to virtual characters, items and media
- Create and Place virtual Items that can be picked up by players, exchanged, used and moved around in a persistent AR world.
- Author virtual characters that talk with your players, giving them information, exchanging items and responding to their choices.
- Design Quests for players to find particular information/items, talk with characters and collect media recordings at particular locations.
While it is currently available only on the iPhone, ARIS provides another excellent opportunity for librarians and libraries to get involved with augmented reality, mobile technology and gaming.
Mockingbird is an online wireframing tool that allows you to easily create an outline of a website or application and share the URL of your design with anyone. The wireframe can also be exported as a PDF or PNG. Should be of interest to any librarian involved in web design!
Last summer game designer Jane McGonigal (who I have spoken about before on this blog) suffered a traumatic brain injury, that was serious enough to have led her to thoughts of suicide. After showing little sign of recovery she responded by turning her life into a game called SuperBetter. Her story serves as a very real example of the transformative nature of play and games. Continue Reading »
An example of trying to engage with the dominant device, the Humane Reader is a new project that helps bring online content to homes with no internet connection, with a unit that could be produced for $20.
Only approximately 20% of the developing world are internet users. The remaining 80% do not have access to online reference sources such as Wikipedia, online libraries of books and information to improve literacy, nor access to a computer to develop technological skills.
The Humane Reader device addresses this gap by providing the equivalent of a 5,000 book library in content at very low cost to households, libraries, and schools. No internet connection is required – the Humane Reader requires only a television set.
Books and text are stored on a simple SD memory Card – the type used by digital cameras – which are relatively low cost (~$4 for 2GB in bulk) and can hold the equivalent of thousands of books. The Humane Reader allows a user to access the contents of the SD Card for display on a common TV set.
Given that the focus is on offering materials to help maintain or improve literacy while showing an awareness of local conditions, it may offer an interesting alternative to the more ambitious but problematic One Laptop Per Child Program.
