MILLEE: Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies

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Speaker
Matthew Kam

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

Literacy levels in most poor countries remain shockingly low and formal education is making little progress. MILLEE improves literacy through language learning games on cellphones—the “PCs of the developing world”—which are a perfect vehicle for new kinds of out-of-school language learning. Games bring children into rich, immersive environments where they can acquire and use language naturally, while encouraging them to transfer their language skills outside the game. The MILLEE project focuses on developing scalable, localizable design principles and tools for language learning. The challenges are (i) to integrate sound learning principles, (ii) to provide concrete design patterns that integrate entertainment and learning, and (iii) to understand cultural and learning differences in children in developing regions. I will describe a framework called PACE which addresses these challenges and seven rounds of fieldwork that contributed to its development. I will also describe a tool to expedite audio-only learning (Pimsleur Generator), a very important niche for developing regions. I will discuss our most recent work which patterns learning games after local children’s traditional village games and the benefits this approach offers. Finally, I will discuss the complex adoption ecology in developing regions, and how MILLEE preserves learning principles while supporting rich localization and customization at multiple stages in the adoption hierarchy.