Slides and audio from today's talk are now posted on the Change blog<http://change.washington.edu/2010/02/cliff-schmidt-and-trina-gorman-on-literacy-bridge/> . On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa@gmail.com> wrote:
This Thursday at Change, Cliff Schmidt and Trina Gorman will be discussing their work at Literacy Bridge.
In rural Ghana, Literacy Bridge piloted 21 low-cost audio computers (“Talking Books”) to measure the impact of giving farmers access to health and agriculture information. In a village with 90% illiteracy and no access to electricity, farmers using these devices showed a 48% increase in crop production over their peers.
The Talking Book project brings local expertise to rural farmers, similar to Digital Green, but without a moderator and in audio form rather than video. The Talking Books are therefore able to consume less power and run on locally available batteries.
This Thursday, look forward to hearing about the following:
Qualitative feedback. How did farmers respond to the device from a training/usability perspective? How were the devices allocated?
Quantitative harvest results. How did Literacy Bridge arrive at the 48% yield increase? How frequently was guidance adopted?
Future work. Literacy Bridge is experimenting with uploading/downloading messages via mobile phones, the effects of peer recognition on behavior change, and more.
For a two-minute video summary, see http://literacybridge.org. For a video demonstration of the Talking Book, see http://literacybridge.org/talkingbook.html.
What: Cliff Schmidt and Trina Gorman on Literacy Bridge When: Thursday, February 25 at Noon Where: UW, Paul Allen Center, Room 203 _______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
-- Rosalyn Mahashin University of Washington MPA '11 Evans School of Public Affairs Google Voice: (206) 651-5875