Literacy

-- Literacy --

Dave and I are big supporters of literacy. Over the last 10 years we have had 

the honor of participating in our local literacy organization through book donations

(more than 100 books per year) - some of which came from taking on book 

review projects (which I no longer do), media copies of books we received for 

some of the radio how guests, and books we receive from friends or family 

members who are well aware of our voracious appetite for reading. We've also 

had the pleasure of having a variety of literacy and world of writing  related 

discussions on this blog and on our radio show over the last 4 years or so. This 
passion is one of the reasons behind our book Purple Snowflake Marketing - How
to Make Your Book Stand Out in a Crowd. This is our small way of participating 
in this important aspect of a conscious society. 

Anyway, one of those radio show guests we've featured in the past is going to be 

our guest on the blog today as well. He's here to share information on what the organization has been doing since the Conscious Discussions Talk Radio Show 

interview that aired on Feb 25/'09: Literacy Bridge Organization

To find other writing and literacy related interviews simply scroll through the 

archives available at: www.brummet.ca

Cliff Schmidt, Literacy Bridge’s executive director, has experience as a grassroots
lobbyist for organizations working to end global poverty, such as CARE and  

RESULTS. He was also a former industry standards representative for Microsoft, 

the open source programs manager for BEA Systems, a nuclear engineer, and a 
submarine officer for the US Navy. Whew! This is one fella with a lot of experience!

:)

* Find information about the Literacy Bridge Organization at:  http://www.literacybridge.org 

 

Literacy Bridge’s Talking Book Project

By Cliff Schmidt

Illiteracy and access to knowledge are two of the key problems that inhibit 

socio-economic development in developing countries. Rural people lack the 

vital information they need to improve their lives, and because most are illiterate,

they cannot benefit from many traditional educational methods (such as reading 

text on how to increase local food production). Furthermore, lack of electricity 

and poor roads isolate these regions and further complicate development efforts.

Literacy Bridge is addressing this problem through our low-cost audio computer 

— the Talking Book. We designed the Talking Book to address the short and 

long-term needs of those we serve: it gets vital knowledge into remote 

communities immediately. Talking Books enable rapid device-to-device content

distribution within and between individuals and communities. Simply plug one 

Talking Book into another Talking Book (or a computer) via built-in USB to 

transfer lessons. Content is distributed freely.

Literacy Bridge has been field-testing our Talking Books in Ghana since 

January 2009 with two primary groups: subsistence farmers who lack information 

necessary to maximize crop production, and children and illiterate adults who 

need help improving their reading skills. These two groups make up the majority 

of people living in rural communities across Ghana, and include well over 1 billion
people globally.

The results so far have been staggering: farmers use Talking Books to produce 

up to four times their typical crop yields per acre of land, and children are actively

engaged in literacy learning, using Talking Books to play back lessons at various 

speeds, skip ahead or backwards within and between lessons, define key

vocabulary words and engage in multiple-choice style question-and-answer 

sessions and other interactive activities.

Recent Technical Developments

Literacy Bridge is making several technical developments to the Talking Book,

including the implementation of a powerful content management application, 

designed to help manage audio content across multiple topics and languages. 

The audio content management application will empower local organizations to

easily distribute audio content to the Talking Books.

When used in the field, Talking Books gather different statistics such as how 

lessons are used, and how helpful the lessons are (i.e. user ratings). This

provides important feedback for anyone who wants to create effective new 

audio lessons. Literacy Bridge’s audio content management system fetches 

these statistics whenever a Talking Book is connected to a computer, and with

unique device IDs, it can determine on which particular Talking Book an audio 

file was recorded. This allows aggregation of numbers from different devices to
generate meaningful statistics.

Literacy Bridge’s content management application also enables users to import 

audio files from different formats and arrange them in a hierarchical category 
taxonomy for easy navigation. Powerful search capabilities are included, and the 
application recognizes when a Talking Book is connected to a computer. The 

content management application supports seamless export of content to the 
Talking Book, with automatic audio format conversion.

Your Opportunity to Make a Difference

Currently Literacy Bridge employs staff in Ghana, and we have hundreds of 

volunteers, advisors, and advocates globally who support our work with their 

time and donations. We work closely with rural residents, development 

organizations, and government officials – each of whom influences decisions for 

the Talking Book design as well as how it is implemented in rural contexts. Your 
donations provide children and adults in our target communities with access to

the information necessary to make a long-term, sustained impact in their quality

of life.

 * Thank you Cliff, for this wonderful article :)