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Ask Literacy Bridge Founder About Charity, Education, and the "Talking Book"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the doing-what-you-believe-in dept.

Literacy Bridge is a public charity working towards the goal of creating tools for knowledge sharing and literacy learning. More specifically, they have been working on producing a $5 "talking book" device that can both help improve literacy and provide a steady flow of important information while the education is taking place. Unlike many in the "wouldn't-it-be-nice" category, Literacy Bridge already has working silicon, shaped plastic, and actual presence in their target country, Ghana. Literacy Bridge has no paid employees, but several who volunteer their time to make this idea a reality. Cliff Schmidt, founder and executive director of Literacy Bridge, would like to answer any questions you have about the charity, the mission, or the technology. Prior to Literacy Bridge, 'Cliff ran a successful open source software consulting business for clients throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North America, specializing in intellectual property issues, nonprofit governance, privacy policies, and community development. He also served many nonprofit organizations, such as The Apache Software Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, the OpenSEA Alliance, and the Free Software Foundation' in addition to working as a industry standards rep for Microsoft. Click through to see the Google TechTalk given by Cliff earlier this year. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply — so ask all the questions you'd like, but please confine yourself to one per post.

4 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Still dependent on technology. by AltGrendel · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What are you doing to prevent over dependence of the users on the talking book. Human nature being what it is, there will be a percentage of users that will probably simply let the Talking Book read to them without bothering to actually read because it's simpler than making the effort to learn to read.

    Do you have plans to prevent this and encourage actual literacy instead of pseudo-literacy?

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  2. Education in Ghana; the Liberian Refugee Camps by pagewalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At the UNHCR camp in Ghana, the last I heard, tuition for a year in grades 3-8 was about $10/term.

    So my question is, given the choice between a term of schooling for one child and two Talking Books (or half a term and one Talking Book), if you had only ten dollars to spend on your children's education, which would you get and why?

    --
    Thousands are enslaved every day. A River of In
  3. Literacy by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Based on the comments here so far, I have this question: how do you overcome the perception that you're harming literacy by providing speaking machines rather than "forcing" people to learn to read?

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  4. Intended use / Actual use by martinw89 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of my greatest concerns is that devices like these will be used as propaganda spewers rather than learning tools. How do you plan or protect for that circumstance? Was it a concern when you actually put these devices in their intended use? Now that they're out of your immediate reach, is there anything you can do to prevent their use for propaganda?