Catalyzing the Ecosystem Around Mobile Learning for Development

1. Catalyzing the Ecosystem Around Mobile Learning for Development Matthew Kam Assistant Professor Carnegie Mellon University Human-Computer Interaction Institute December 9, 2010 (USAID)

2. Outline • Human Development Lab @ Carnegie Mellon • Lessons from MILLEE • Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies • mLearning: A Platform for Educational Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid. Report by GSMA Development Fund, November 2010. (Foreword by Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan) • Hands-on demo

3. Human Development Lab @ CMU • Research how people learn under “developing regions” conditions • Differences due to exposure to print, formal schooling, etc. • Educational games on low-cost devices, literacy andsecond language learning, women’s empowerment • Multidisciplinary research group • Computer science • Human-computer interaction • Reading literacy • Second language acquisition • Speech and language technologies • Videogame design

4. International Collaborators Sesame Workshop Chinese Academy of Sciences • Current and previous funders: • MacArthur Foundation • Microsoft • National Science Foundation • Nokia • Qualcomm • Verizon ASSET India Foundation Byrraju Foundation Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of ICT IIIT Hyderabad Naandi Foundation Suraksha University of Nairobi

5. Selected Media Appearances • Cell Phone: The Ring Heard Around the World.In Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary, aired on April 3 and June 5, 2008.http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/cellphones/india.html • India’s Cell Phone Tutors.In ABC News, aired on June 16, 2009.http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7854956 • Angrezi, the Phoney Way. In Times of India, December 5, 2009. • In Rural India, Learning English via Cellphone. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 21, 2009.

6. Opportunities (GSMA Report) • Learning on the go • Complementary • Inclusive * % of total time spent at a particular location

7. Semester-Length Pilots [in IEEE/ACM ICTD 2009, ACM CHI 2010 – Best Paper Honorable Mention] • Spring 2008 • Classroom pilot • Post-test improvements on spelling (p = 0.007, σ = 3.3) • Spring 2009 • Out-of-school pilot • On average, participants covered 46 new words over 16 weeks without adult supervision

8. Lesson #1 • The educational model is part of the last-mile

9. Instructional Design Methodology [in ACM CHI 2007] • Combined theory and practice • Theory: applied latest education research on second language acquisition and reading literacy acquisition • Practice: reviewed >35 commercial language learning applications • Avoid reinventing the wheel by reusing best practices in existing applications as starting point to inform instructional design

10. Lesson #2 • Formative testing becomes even more crucial when designing for new cultural contexts • More than 3 rounds per design

11. Videogame Design Methodology[in ACM CHI 2009 – Best Paper Honorable Mention] • Initial game designs non-intuitive to rural children • Initial game designs contained Western biases, did not match rural children’s understanding about games • Studied 28 traditional Indian village games • Analyzed how these 28 games differed from contemporary Western videogames • Took these differences into account in subsequent game designs versus

12. Analysis: Differences in Games • Identified 37 non-trivial differences • Difficulty based on sub-goals • Resource management • Skill acquisition • Score keeping • Rituals associated with space • Inter-team interactions

13. Sample Screenshots

14. Lesson 3 • Intervention design is equally, if not more, important than intervention evaluation

15. Bridge Curriculum • Average rural child lags three years behind urban, middle-class counterpart • Bridge curriculum aims to address this gap • Targets literacy competencies that are prerequisites for advanced literacy skills, based on Chall’s stages of reading development (1983) • Differs from commercial software for early literacy • Has to consider foundational skills e.g. “concept of print” that children with good access to schools already have • MILLEE content is based on this bridge curriculum

16. Competencies in Bridge Curriculum • Currently target these early literacy skills (Chall, 1984) • Phonological + orthographic awareness • Oral vocabulary knowledge • Phonetic decoding • Word identification (including fluency) • Spelling • Lexical inferencing • Morphological awareness • Sentence-level reading comprehension • 65% of core bridge curriculum is applicable to any community worldwide, 35% needs local adaptation 100 lesson plans for 100 school days (i.e. one entire academic year) *competencies in red have been completed, competencies in black are those we are fund-raising to complete

17. Lesson #4 • mLearning is still about curriculum development and content development, not just application development

18. Challenges (GSMA Report) • “The educationists, academics and researchers have a greater understanding on what mLearning methods are most effective, but not necessarily the experience to transform them into sustainable or commercial projects” • Economic sustainability • Role of different parties in ecosystem • Scalability vs. locally relevant content • Evidence for learning benefits • Compare with traditional methods, but have to take curriculum into account • What are the educational models?

19. Demo MILLEE ESL Literacy Mobile Games Phonological awareness (specifically, auditory discrimination) Orthographic awareness (specifically, letter-sound correspondence) Oral vocabulary knowledge Word reading and identification fluency

20. Needs and Problem Statement • Fluency in “power language”e.g. English • Public schools in developingregions (e.g. India) are not succeeding • 101 million primary school-age children do not attend school • 36 million in South-Asia • 39 million in Sub-Saharan Africa

21. Solution Overview • Cellphones can make education more accessible through out-of-school environments • User can learn anytime, anywhere without disrupting work • Game-like exercises for enjoyable learning experience

22. Project Timeline • 10 rounds of fieldwork, >12 months total in India • Human-centered design process with 100 children Needs assessment (village + slums)‏ Exploratory study (village)‏ Exploratory study (slums)‏ Feasibility study (slums)‏ Feasibility study (village)‏ Classroom study Out-of-school study More iterations + testing Controlled study 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

23. Improving Gender Equality • 70% of 130 million out-of-school youth are girls (United Nations Foundation) • 5-stage model of women empowerment • Based on 15-week field research in India • Interviewed 47 staff from non-government organizations (each NGO impacts ~500 poor women) • Interviewed 35 low-income rural and urban slums women • Obtained stakeholder input on 7 proof-of-concept prototypes

24. Scaling Up in India and Beyond • Develop commercial-quality literacy learning games for widespread deployment • Partnership development with • Cellphone manufacturers • Wireless carriers • Third-party content developers • Education service providers , including government • Non-government organizations