Motivation for ‘glish'glish: Designing an interactive
environment for global
language learning• Experiences of rural children and teachers• Training and expertise of teachers• 3rd world library facilities• 500 m Globish speakers vs300 m first language English speakers• Jean Paul’s story• Library skills in a new context• ==>> use cases for ‘glish

Liddy Nevile

Experiences of rural childrenand teachers

Use case 1

Training and expertise ofteachers• Most of the resources are for first-world
kids and draw on their experiences• Most of the resources are, in fact, notreally usable on all devices (notadaptable to teachers’ needs)• Most suitable resources expect users topay to use them

• Akiko-san is a typical teacher. She wants
a story that she can read to her children;that they can listen to when she is busy;
that she can ask them to read; that she
can ask them to illustrate; that she cancombine with their images to downloadon their MP4 players, and that they will
be able to re-tell in their own words.

• Teaching in 3rd world countries is usually
very didactic and reinforces socio-politicalstructures - students are not taught to takeinitiative, they are not encouraged to become
investigative, they are not taught to solve
problems.
• Critical, creative, informed thinkers areneeded everywhere but especially in 3rdworld countries

Use case 2

3rd world library facilities

3rd world library facilities• Amito-san is a Japanese person who
supports a remote rural school that has local
teachers working in it. She knows that theyneed help in the classroom because theirteaching skills are very weak. She has
supplied them with computers, but she doesnot know how to train and support theteachers remotely.

• In the Hanoi University Library, a few years
ago, students sat for days at a large tablewaiting for their turn to read a single book.
• In the Phnom Penh Library today, there is noproper catalogue of the few books, many ofwhich have been donated (discarded) by expatriots returning home, and there is noaccess to global catalogues.

• In the Ulaan Bataar Library, ancientmanuscripts are piled high in open-air
storage facilities and• too few librarians struggle to serve theneeds of too many library visitors

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Use case 3

500 m Globish speakers vs
300 m first language English

500 m Globish speakers vs
300 m first language English• Building libraries and supplying themwith books is an impossibly expensive
exercise for poor countries. Many people
cannot travel to libraries. Sugimoro-san
has re-usable books (cheap computers)
and wants to find suitable texts and also
help with the lack of literacy in suchregions.

• 800 m people share a single language (itsounds very different when they speak!)• ‘globish’ speakers use their hands and faces,
they repeat what they say, they wait…
• There is no formal recognition for a
simplified version of English• Globish might become a de facto standard..

Use case 4Annotation

W3C’s Annotea• Pi-san reads and re-writes classic
Japanese stories in English foradolescent readers. He does not know
which words to use to be sure thestudents have a clear vocabulary list so
he can use it, and add definitions for
extra words he uses.

• Often we’d like to annotate an existing Web
page without touching the original page• Teachers and kids want to make use ofcontent without doing permanent damage(and to stay within electronic environment)• Significantly, teachers and kids often need touse preferred languages to support learning• Uses W3C standards and technologies• Uses RDF metadata framework• User accessible• Create, store, edit and delete annotations• Voice of America operates with 1500
base words and some special extras.
• Publishers of books for language/literacy
learners use limited ‘head words’.
• ESL speakers do not need more than afunctional set of grammar and vocabulary.

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Original……..

Original and annotated resources

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User/Author2

AccessForAll- user-centred approach• Users have a range of needs including somefrom permanent disabilities, some fromdevice or location changes• Resources need to adapt to the user’s
needs, not expect the user to adapt to them• ‘AccessForAll’ metadata strategy - TILE
– ISO/IEC JTC1 2008:N24571– Dublin Core, CEN, AGLS, …..

TILE
E-learning environment that enables learner-centric
transformation of learning content and delivery• Authoring support for transformable content and Metadata• Browser• Learning Object Repository• Learner Preference System3

In summary, a digital library ..
• To provide teachers and kids with– ‘books’ that can be used in many formats– reading/writing activities– speaking and listening opportunities

Social networking- the down-sides• Protection of children– Privacy etc as a moral issue– Privacy as security in a life-safety sense– Filtering of unacceptable content• Engaging but so far not very usefuland offer– discovery support via a catalogue (metadata)– protection by referral(not in catalogue = not available)– community development (taggers, content
developers, forums, and cataloguers)– Web services (local or by referral)– Metadata generation• Solutions?
– Proxy servers– Extend AccessForAll and TILE
– Engage with FLUID

Technical designEducational perspective

Constructivist education• There’s a long list of requirements but so
far no obvious way to realise them.
• I need help!!!!

• ‘Creativity’ is a strong driver in education andvery important for children in authoritative,
under-serviced regions of the world.
• Effective ‘education’ is lifelong and requires
lasting learning practices.
• Epistemologically, this is a ‘constructivist’ erathat calls for ‘constructionist’ education.

• Requires teachers to provide students
with what they need to build effective
knowledge - not necessarily the‘knowledge’ itself.
• In fact, providing the ‘what you need toknow’ often detracts from students’ability to determine and learn in ameaningful and permanent way.

‘glish as a constructionist site

Learning as a ‘side-effect’• Activities to– attract kids
– support kids and teachers– provide constructive stimulus– extend kids’ capabilities within ‘proximalzone’– exemplify active learning and constructionist
teaching

Alan Kay talks about thebenefit to children of
making the toys with which
they later play …

Learning as a ‘side-effect’• The children have built an electronic toy
and now they are playing with it.
• They took photos of themselves, edited
and integrated them into the Scratch
environment, wrote a program to control
their images and now they can play withthem - and share them with the world.
• http://scratch.mit.edu

4Where do these children live?

Motivating and facilitating
learning• The MIT Media Lab’s LLK group is working
on the idea of extending kindergarten - that
period when we learn naturally by safe
exploration• Electronic environments can provide
equivalent opportunities to older people with‘microworlds’• Microworlds do not specify activities so muchas provide context for them - users take what
they can/needRich microworlds• Electronic environments in which one
learns inevitably eg compare a Logo
turtle with the real world:• On the screen FD 100 RT 0 FD 100
results in a neat angle

Rich microworlds

Man’glish

Scratch• Electronic environments in which one
learns inevitably eg compare a Logo
turtle with the real world:• On the road, FD 100 RT 90 FD 100 has
dire consequences - why???

• Take advantage of Japanese experience
with manga as a form of communicationacross domains and ages (andlanguages?)• Support manga authors with grammar
and imagery (using Scratch??)• Microworld (computer science plus…)• Interactive multimedia• Collaborative practices• Internationalisation• Creativity based on systematic thinking• Fun• Literacy…….

But….

Research collaboration…

• We know a lot of things we want to do
And some that are challenges such as:– system design and implementation– sustainability-- content development– privacy-- content evaluation– security-- accessibility– promotion to teachers and kids
lots of research opportunities– and hardware ….

What better than one laptop perchild ?

• Across– ages
– domains– languages and cultures– national borders• Please - if you have or know of interested
students or have an interest yourself - comeand join us!
• See http://glish.org
and finally, to make all this happen ….

5One laptop per teacher!

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