education

Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies (MILLEE), a non-profit organization uses mobile phone games to improve literacy skills in emerging countries.  Founded in 2004, MILLEE develops human-centred, immersive and enjoyable language learning mobile games which are modelled after the traditional games children play in the community. In India, MILLEE is using mobile games to impart English literacy skills to the poor children attending public schools. Mobile phones have also facilitated out-of-school learning. The organization has confirmed the effectiveness of mobile phones in learning through field projects in India.

Mobile phones provide a cost-effective, easy to use and fun medium for learning. Issues with mobile phones such as small screen, small keyboard and limited amount of storage have not proved to be hindrances for MILLEE. MILLEE is scaling up its English literacy program in India and also expanding to China, Kenya and other emerging countries. The rapid proliferation of mobile phones provides an excellent opportunity for expanding into many countries. India, for example, has more than 600 million mobile phone connections.

The Indian Minister of Human Resource and Development, Mr. Kapil Sibal, released a $35 (Rs. 1500) tablet computer last week. The touch screen device has been designed and developed by experts from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The device was conceived 5 years ago as a response to XO, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation’s laptop, which is currently priced at $199. Is it another feather in the cap of the Indian innovators, who earlier produced a $2,200 car and $16 water purifier?

The device based on the Linux platform comes with a number of applications such as video conferencing application, a multimedia content viewer, Open Office suite and media player. It also sports a USB drive. Keeping in mind the infrastructure challenges of developing countries, a solar panel has been included in the device. The price of $35 includes the cost of manufacturing the device abroad. The cost of the solar panel has, however, not been factored. The government has already decided to provide a discount of 50% to educational institutes, which will make the device as affordable as a basic mobile handset at $18.

This post contributed by Ashley Metz Cummings.

Across the globe, the computers used in underfunded schools share similar characteristics.  Outdated hardware grumbles to a start each morning to serve classrooms crowded with children.  Slow processors and limited storage space confine the possibilities for learning computer skills and using the Internet.  The students in these classrooms have never dreamt of owning their own PCs and cannot fathom the world on the other side of an Internet connection – they have enough on their minds at home.

Yet in many of these places, the speed of the Internet connection is ample for mainstream computing purposes and children are eager and excited to learn.  WiHood, a name originating in the phrase, The World is Your Neighbor, offers a virtual personal PC that overcomes the physical barriers to digital learning by making clever use of cloud computing and modified USB drives.

As an interesting complement to yesterday's Youth Venture presentations, attendants got a unique opportunity to see Ashoka-Lemelson fellow Ramji Raghavan's Mobile Science Lab in action. The Mobile Science Lab is a traveling science classroom that has reached over 700,000 children in India.

Students from a local school joined us and demonstrated Ramji's experiments. I was impressed with the kids' understanding of complicated concepts as well their ability to discuss and think about scientific issues rather than recite a script. The experiments covered a wide range of topics: centripetal force, magnetism, cell structure, astronomy, and much more. Without naming names, I'll say I saw a few people try to crack the kids by asking them hard and/or stupid questions, but nothing would faze them.

Deadline Feb. 1, 2010

Apply for up to $650,000 for "Wireless Projects Demonstrating Promise Of Solving Critical Global Issues and mHealth." The Wireless Innovation Project identifies and rewards the most promising advances in wireless related technologies that can be used to solve critical problems around the globe. Although projects may be global in scope, applicants must be nonprofits, educational institutions or social entrepreneurs based in the United States. Up to $650,000 will be awarded to wireless projects demonstrating exceptional promise to solve a critical global issue in the following fields: education; health; access to communication; the environment; or economic development. Final winners will be announced on April 19, 2010 at the annual Global Philanthropy Forum in Redwood City, California.

Find complete detailed information about eligibility and an application here.

Every year mega companies spend millions of dollars getting a spot in the super bowl commercials. This year Pepsi however decided to use the money for a different purpose—funding innovative project ideas of various levels and sizes!

Yes, you heard it right. They've decided to give money to YOU instead of the Super Bowl. The really cool thing is not only the ideas and projects can span a wide range of topics, but also be at different stages of development. They have grants as small as $5K for individuals looking for inspiration to get an idea off the ground, to those as big as $250K for organizations who can dedicate a lot of time and resources.

More details on how to get started in this video:


So what ya waiting for? Pop over to Pepsi Refresh and start innovating :D

Here's an upcoming event, put on in part by Ashoka and Changemakers:

Ashoka hopes that you can join us on January 24, 2010 for the kick-off of Sci Ed Innovators in New York City.  This event is bringing together a dynamic group of innovative people and organizations to plan an exciting initiative to transform the teaching of science education in the United States.

Carnegie-Mellon Professor, and social entrepreneur, Matthew Kam told AshokaTECH about a great internship opportunity for those of you who are interested in technology applications for development and education.

"We hope that this internship program will enable us to develop local capacity in the learning sciences and human-computer interaction – very new areas that overlap with the traditional engineering curriculum in India and other developing regions – by involving local undergrads in our research projects," says Professor Kam.

Check out the details below or click here for the full details.

This internship program in technology-supported education will draw on broad areas such as mobile learning, educational games, technology-assisted language learning, computer-assisted collaborative learning, intelligent tutors, machine learning, educational data mining, human-computer interaction, as well as speech and language technologies. The goal is to create an international bridge between institutions of higher learning in India and Carnegie Mellon University, which is at the forefront of research both in technology and in the learning sciences in the U.S., and even worldwide.

This post contributed by Sandesh R.S.

Photo By: Flickr/Project H Design www.projecthdesign.org

The other day I was fortunate enough to catch Dan Grossman on his lunch hour, somewhere between his full-time job as an industrial designer and his second full-time job spreading education tools around the world.