by David Risher

Here’s a tough issue people ask us: Is Worldreader accidentally practicing a new form of cultural imperialism?

Well. It’s a fair question, and comes up as you watch the video and see Richard talk about downloading The Bible. (Richard isn’t the only one, by the way: in our earlier trial in Barcelona we observed one student reading The Bible right next to another looking at El Pais‘s coverage of Real Madrid football. Different people, different religions.) It is an issue we need to be sensitive to, and as we pre-loaded the books we were quite aware that the authors of Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know probably didn’t really have every child in mind.  (We included Folks Tales From Ghana as well, and the students liked both.)

But seeing what happens in the class, we believe our efforts could have the opposite effect. As we’ve mentioned, many schools in the developing world do have access to at least a few books… but which books? Often they’re those that donors either have too many of (remainder or second-hand books), or books with an agenda. We were struck by the presence of The History of the State of Utah in the sixth-grade classroom; our friend Ricky Schroder guesses it got there thank to the efforts of Mormon missionaries. But no matter: the point is that after all of the hassles of distribution of books, what often arrives are not quite the right ones.

E-readers are different. They’re just as hard (or likely harder) to distribute as physical books… a shipping container can ship 25,000 books or 25,000 e-readers. But once in people’s hands, they provide access to hundreds of thousands of books today, and millions in the future. And if we do our job right, those books will be the world’s literature– not only internationally recognized books, but also books from local publishers which will then be available to all.

In Ayenyah, it was wonderful to see students finish a book and then realize they could get another, right then… not just whatever someone had placed on the shelf, or whatever book might or might not arrive in six months, but another book they really wanted at that moment. In this case, it was a second Curious George book… but in the future, it could be any book at all.

Here are two videos from our first e-reader trial in Ghana. You’ll hear from the students, the sixth-grade teacher Phillip, Earnest the Headmaster, and “tech guy” Richard, plus see the windmill that powers the Internet connection and the solar cell that recharges the Kindles.

Enjoy! And thanks, Elizabeth, for the major-league production and editing work!

by Colin McElwee

 

I was at the big football game in Accra on Sunday afternoon.  The Hearts of Oak from the capital were playing the All Stars from Wa in the north of Ghana, at the recently constructed state of the art national stadium.

I asked my neighbour why, in such an impressive setting with a wonderful modern scoreboard, did they not use that same scoreboard for something more than the clock. He explained that it would not be worth it as the majority of people in the stadium would not understand much of the information displayed. I gathered that some would even feel uncomfortable or threatened by the written form.

After 10 days in Ghana, I have engaged in many intense, lengthy and verbose conversations with others. I would often assume that the other person were literate. So without a second thought, I would ask them to read a phrase, consult a map or point out something on a menu. They hesitated. Embarrassed, they struggled to explain to me more or less what they thought I wanted to hear.

I am learning that many people who can express themselves verbally with a fair amount of subtlety are not literate.

Mobile phones sales in Africa are exploding and some of the biggest companies on the continent are phone operators. Whilst this is a social phenomenon that will benefit society at large, it will not compensate for the lack of capacity to “connect” in written form.

In fact, people are becoming more aware of their need to read and write in order to supplement their verbal communication with their newly found and developing network of mobile contacts. The use of SMS (text messages), which are cheaper than voice calls, are one example.

To be literate is to be “connected” in many more critical dimensions than simply the verbal. For a country with the potential of Ghana, these connections matter. Literacy matters.

Hearts of Oak had an equalizing goal disallowed in the 94th minute and lost 1 -2 to the All Stars with the game ending in chaos. Scoreboard confirmation of the result would have been welcome!

Today we were going to write about our new realization of (and debate over) the importance of text-to-speech for kids whose parents can’t read, but that can wait for another day.  Instead, a few pictures will do the talking.

Click on the pictures to read more.

by David Risher

On our third day of e-reader classroom trials here in Ayenyah, Ghana, we arrived at school to find that about one-third of the Kindles were down to very little remaining battery life— some had the little exclamation mark next to the battery indicator, while others had the dreaded “Critical Battery” message on the screen.

One of the great features of e-readers is that their batteries typically last for a week or more between charges.  The Kindles had been used heavily over the previous 24 hours (we saw several groups of adults and kids circled around, looking at the books and the technology), but we couldn’t believe that kind of use would have drained the batteries that much.

The school has several ways to generate power— a windmill and a small set of solar cells that feed a set of 12-volt car batteries. So we were hopeful about being able to recharge the Kindles. But class was starting in about an hour, and the kids were going to need to use their e-readers. Meanwhile, we didn’t know how long it’d take to recharge the devices, nor how many Kindles we could plug in at any given time. We also needed to figure out what had happened to drain the battery life so quickly so that we might be able to prevent something like this from happening again.

After a bit of detective work, we learned that on those low-battery Kindles, the wireless GSM radio had been turned on. In the US or Europe, this isn’t a big deal, and constant connectivity is part of what makes the device so useful.  But Ghana doesn’t have wireless Kindle coverage. So, like cell phones, Kindles appear to work much harder when they can’t find a signal they recognize, as is the case here.  Consequently, the battery drains much more quickly.

[By the way, it’s worth pointing out that the reason the Kindle doesn’t recognize the mobile phone network here isn’t technical; it’s contractual. Many families in the community have a mobile phone; in fact, like so many U.S. schools, there is a “no cell phones in the class” policy. While we don’t know for sure, we assume that mobile operators here are simply charging more than Amazon is willing to pay for data transfer. We'll discuss wireless e-reader networks in another post.]

At this point, we had 45 minutes before class was due to start. We rushed to the powered area of one of the school’s buildings, hooked up a power strip to four Kindles (we have a full bag of cables and adapters), and by the time class started we’d brought them back to 60% power!

Along the way, we also discovered why the batteries had drained so quickly.  You can tell the Kindle to turn its wireless radio off, which we had done.  The problem comes when you have students browsing through menus and selecting options, as kids are prone to do— and which we encouraged, since a wonderful thing about e-readers is that you really can’t do much to damage them. But this means many of them inadvertently turned on the radio signal; trying to browse the Kindle store is an example.   This is now another item in the list of issues that we track.

Then we marched back into class and delivered the devices back to the students, who had been a bit anxious that they’d not see them again.  Later, we spoke with Richard, the local IT guy who will be responsible for the Kindles when we leave, and we showed him how to top off the devices and informed him how to train the students not to activate the radios. We were pleased that the Kindle’s modest power requirements fell well within what the school’s solar cell could supply. After a hectic third day in Ayenyah, we had worked our way through a number of teething issues and successfully come up with solutions to the problems that emerged. All was well, and we had learned a lot.

by Colin McElwee

Today we started in earnest the first ever trials of e-readers in schools in Africa, and it is already clear that the acutely economically poor and humble children here in Ayenyah, are as ready to absorb this new technology as the kids we have worked with in Europe.  And the reason is they are increasingly well prepared by their surroundings.

For example the village where we are working has Internet access together with solar and wind power facilities. Their connection is quite speedy, all things considered: a book takes 45 seconds to download.  A book in 45 seconds is about 1000 times faster than the 5-year-book renewal cycle that schools are on now… not to mention the inevitable shipping delays that cause problems.

In addition, more widely, more fundamentally and much to the surprise of many in the developed world, mobile phone use is soaring in sub Saharan Africa, with cell phone subscriptions increasing by 60% every year between 1994 and 2005.

The mass use of mobiles is paving the way for a new generation of Africans who understand keyboards, wireless, and messaging and all that is related. Sometimes their own first awareness of the importance of literacy is through their habitual communication by SMS (text messages).  Mobile phone use is spreading very fast and has few limits.

The ceremonially dressed Chief (sorry no photos were allowed) who gave us kind permission to enter the tribal village to carry out the trials, had to reach into his top left breast pocket of his tunic several times during our summit meeting to fend off pesky callers at inopportune moments. Times are changing!

This all of course bodes well for the use of e readers, which rely on 3G mobile connections. We don’t know where this will all lead (and let’s make it clear: no one does) only that we are in Africa in a moment of immense social, behavioral and infrastructural change thanks in large part to the spread and adoption of technology. We already are starting to see with our own eyes the evolving world changing opportunities for the future.

The Ides of March are a day when you may ponder whether you should have taken more heed of those soothsaying fortunetellers who see doom and negativity written for the future. Certain Roman leaders wished they had believed a little more in the their description of problem to come. However there is obviously a moment to believe in the doubters and know when to ignore them.

In the case of worldreader.org, had we believed all of those who implied it was impossible to bring emerging first world technology to the poorest parts of the third world, we would possibly still be sitting in front of a PowerPoint presentation and nothing more.

Et tu Brute?

by Mike Sundermeyer

It’s hot and sticky, but we have had a wonderful and amazing first day in the classroom with the e-readers today.  Before entering the classroom, we met with the headmaster, teacher, OrphanAid crew, OrphanAid kids, all the staff and teachers of the school, and lots more.  We also did a morning session where we observed the class in session, which was great because we had a better sense of how to approach things when we did go in.

Turns out the 6th grade class is really a “class 6″, where the kids range in age from 11 to 14 and where the reading level seems to span from about 1st grade to 4th grade.  Most of these kids are from one of two villages or are orphans, and so many of them have only started reading in the last several years, despite their age.  Regardless, they are super enthusiastic about learning.

Before leaving home, we had put 6 books on the Kindles we brought down: Folktales from Ghana (short stories), The Magic Flyswatter (short stories from Africa), Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know (30 classic children’s stories like Princess and the Pea, requested by the school), Curious George, Magic Treehouse, and Africa Nations Cup sports news and scores.  By far the favorite, and the one that seemed most appropriate to their reading level, was Curious George, so we are going to try to get more later this week.

Also, you’ll be happy to know we found a great local champion, Richard, who is new to the village and running the community center.  He has a degree in IT, is responsible for the solar power and Internet installations, and was quick to learn and understand the Kindle.  When we’re not around, he’ll help the kids charge their Kindles and load them with new books, and we will probably leave a number of Kindles with him when we go so he can start a sort of “lending library.”

We’re back in the class tomorrow for more training and observation, then inventory interviews with the headmaster and local champion.  We’ve taken lots of pictures and videos and notes, almost too much to process right now, but it has been a really rich learning environment for us already.

by Mike Sundermeyer

To say that we have been welcomed with open arms by the village and by the OrphanAid Africa school here in Ayenyah Ghana would be a huge understatement.  There is an innate curiosity here about the outside world, and an eagerness to try new things.

Which is exactly what we encountered when we met today with the headmaster of the school and the grade 6 teacher whose classroom we will be working in for the next two weeks.  After we explained the Worldreader mission and handed them  Kindles, they both expressed their enthusiasm and very quickly learned to navigate and read.

There were several questions about which books were available,  like The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Pea (which they call The Princess ON the Pea).   Oral storytelling is strong here, and they seem to have a natural affinity for morality tales, including many stories by Hans Christian Anderson and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.  The only question we could not answer to their satisfaction was whether their school textbooks could be put on the Kindle, which at the moment is not feasible, but is a definite possibility in the future.

The really delightful surprise of the afternoon, however, was a dance performance put on by the children of the school.  With a dozen boys very expertly playing the talking drums and djembes, and a chorus of girls singing and clapping, several troupes of girls and boys dressed in bright colorful costumes careened around for more than an hour of very athletic, joyful dancing. We sat in four chairs out in the middle of the play-yard, with kids hanging from each arm, completely entranced.

And as you can see, we had some help from our little photographer friends, who took some of these pictures.  The dancers even pulled us out of our chairs and made us dance, but those pictures have been stricken from the record due to potential embarrassment to the Worldreader organization!

We were all moved by the warmth of their welcome, and the honor of being included in this very special event.  This afternoon was a vivid reminder of the beauty and richness of this culture, and has given us an even greater feeling of responsibility to respect their ways while we learn from them and work to find new ways to spark imagination and learning in the kids and families through reading.

by David Risher

Hello from Ayenyah, Ghana! Today Worldreader took a huge step forward, setting in motion the first true field-test of e-readers in the developing world. It was remarkable in almost too many ways to write, from the 22-hours it took us to get from Barcelona to Accra, Ghana, to the asking permission of the village Chief to work with the local school (and presenting the Witch Doctor with a ceremonial bottle of Schnapps), to the torrential rains that started at 5pm and ended promptly 120 minutes later, to the incredible generosity of the people we’ve met.

So what did we learn? As background: we spent the day with 20 students from age six to twenty-six, teaching them about e-readers and then letting them loose on a bunch of pre-loaded Kindles. In a way, we simply wanted to see how these children were going to react to this very new technology. We came away more convinced than ever that e-readers will change the face of reading in the developing world.

Some of the reasons are exactly what we expected: asking people here to imagine holding 1500 books in the hands makes them grin— it’s so far beyond what they or frankly anybody is used to. Simply having access to this material is really quite a profound change for many of these children. The content they liked ranged from Magic Tree House books to (not surprisingly) some custom content we created on Ghanaian football… like anyone, they wanted to read what they enjoyed.

The Kindle’s built-in dictionary was a big hit, and the text-to-speech functionality was very, very popular. But in a way, the more interesting conclusions we have about the technology itself (which of course will improve quickly and on many dimensions) was that part of its appeal is that it’s simply different from a book. These children have seen books lying around forever, though mostly the books have been inadequate for their needs or in poor shape. But e-readers— perhaps because they feel a bit like cell phones, which everyone in the developing world understands— somehow ignite a new level of interest in kids here. Of course, new technology always has an appeal (as long as it works well), so we’re seeing some of that. But we think there’s something a bit more profound going on… that there’s the possibility that at least for people in these communities, reading certain kinds of material, e-readers might awaken a new interest in reading.

As you look at these, know these these kids are every bit as clever, curious, and enthusiastic as any you’ve ever met. What they haven’t had is access to the range of ideas that e-readers can help bring. We hope we can help.

by Zev Lowe

Over the last two days, the Worldreader team has gathered in an empty classroom at ESADE Business School to prepare our e-readers for classroom trials in Ghana. In less than a week, we will begin working with the teachers and students of the OrphanAid District School in Ayenyah. David, Colin and Mike are leaving for Accra this Friday, March 12. They will have 18 Kindles in tow, thanks to the kind folks at Amazon.

But it wouldn’t do to just show up with brand-new e-readers fresh out of the box. We had to register them and load them up with some starter content. In our earlier classroom trials in Barcelona, the students in David Pover’s 12th grade classroom read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which was a free book. But our Ghana trials will involve younger children, with about a 4th grade English language reading level. Our search for free and/or open-source age-appropriate content didn’t yield much. While our long-term is to encourage the use of local content, in the interest of getting on the ground as soon as possible we paid for content off Amazon’s Kindle store.

We decided that we would start with four books and a magazine. As soon as we get to Ghana, we will confer with the teacher and modify our selection of content as necessary, but it seemed important to show up with something so we could demonstrate the potential of the e-reader to contain a veritable library in one slim package. Also, Ghana doesn’t yet have wireless Kindle coverage, so we thought it best to download some content while we can do it conveniently.

We underestimated the complexity of the Kindle ecosystem. In pricing their e-books, Amazon has had to balance publisher demands to control rights to their books on a market-to-market basis, the cost of wireless delivery worldwide, and the need to keep things relatively simple for the average customer. The result? Customers can register an unlimited number of Kindles to one account, but each time you purchase a book license, it is usually valid for only 6 devices.

It was great that we could register all 18 Kindles to one account, and we were prepared to buy 3 copies of each book. But we encountered some problems along the way. The system kept track of how many downloads we made of a single book (good), but didn’t make it easy to buy more than one copy of a book (bad for us), and occasionally seemed to get a little jumbled about whether we’d downloaded 5 or 6 books, particularly if we did some wirelessly and others over the internet (confused yet?).

Furthermore, the market-by-market pricing posed an interesting question: Should we use a U.S. or Spanish credit card? If we used a U.S. credit card, then the books would be cheaper. But because we are physically in Spain, we would have to pay when wirelessly downloading content. Of course we could just use a Spanish credit card, but then we’d have less content to choose from — for example, we found out that Curious George Plants A Tree wouldn’t be available to us then.

	U.S. credit card	Spanish credit card
Content availability	Extensive	Limited
Book price	Cheaper	More expensive
Surcharge per wireless download (outside U.S.)	$1.99	Free (included)

Based on the various obstacles and minor setbacks we ran into while setting up all 18 Kindles, we’ve drawn up best practices that will scale for future, larger trials. The real learning will come in Ghana, but we’re amazed at how much we’ve learned before even leaving home.

The Kindle is making inroads among college students in the United States. It’ll be great to see how kids in Ghana will react to having the device in their classrooms. What will they think about the books we’ve chosen? Will they use them more in class or for leisure reading? How will their teachers react? We look forward to learning and adapting, and keeping all of you posted.