When I taught in China, I remember during the first week asking about the library. My Chinese colleagues were a little confused to why I was so eager to go explore it. Some of my students didn’t know where it was, or hadn’t even been before.
When I was finally able to go, I entered a big building full of books, with a very few people wandering around, for school with thousands of students. I was not able to read the Chinese books, so I immediately went to English section. I found some books, but they were either really difficult to read, low interest or out-dated books.
My Canadian colleagues and I and immediately began to try to find English books, so our students would have more access to English literature. It turned out to be a difficult task in our city. So when we returned back to Canada we went shopping to bring back books. However, we could only bring a certain amount, the school district was worried about customs. We struggled to find good books for our students in English, this was often a topic of discussion and not once did we think of encouraging our students to use their mobile devices as a tool for literacy. Every student in my class had one.
Here are some of the
projects and research that I found during my search
I found this one project in India, called the “VisionLibrary.” The library is geared toward adults and professionals in the vision and
medical field. The project teaches professionals how to share information and access research/information online in order to continue learning and serve the needs of patients with vision impairments in their own communities.
One thing that really struck me and the main reason I wanted
to post this video was one participant who mentions in the video,
“At first I thought libraries
were all about books, but here we learnt the importance of internet in a library”
I feel this is such a powerful statement and really
encompasses a common stereotype of libraries, as well as the potential of
libraries.
This library was created by 'Dr
Robert Ouko', who won award for setting up this library with e readers in Kenya, Africa.
Previously, the library was understaffed and had limited books. He introduced
e-readers preloaded with textbooks and over 400 African/international titles.
The goal was to provide access to digital books at school, and a free lunch for motivation.
The result of this project is truly inspiring.
The project has also begun to teach teachers how to use the
e readers in their own teaching in the classroom.
With the e readers and access to a variety of titles,
the school is now able to host read a thons and reading promotional days.
Without access to books, we are unable to provide some of those important events that encourage and promote reading. Such as, reading
campaigns.
Additionally, the e reader's have saved the school a lot of money!
More access and Less cost
I found this one article, which summarizes a
study done in 7 developing countries with 5,000 people participating in the
survey. The study was conducted by Unesco partnered with Worldreader
'Mobile reading revolution' takes off in developing
world”
Here are a few key points from the article:
- People in developing countries read more when they read on mobile devices and say they enjoy reading more.
- people in developing countries also commonly read books and stories to children more often when they have a mobile devices
- Data from the UN shows of seven billion people on earth, more than six billion now have access to a working mobile phone.
- Mobile devices are huge tool of empowerment for women
- 77% of mobile readers in developing countries are male ...But......
- Women spend an average of 207 minutes per month reading on their mobile phones, compared to men who spend about 33 minutes.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman is 23% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man, with the gap widening in the case of data-enabled phones.
A good start to this blog post with some excellent links to inspiring projects in developing nations around the world. The impacts of these programs and their inspiration for you were very well communicated. A little more time proof-reading and formatting this post would help a lot, as you had a few minor grammar and spelling mistakes, as well as some weird formatting for your bulleted lists. Overall, a good attempt at exploring this week's topic.
ReplyDeleteThe one bullet which really stood out to me in your list at the end was the one that read "People read more when they read on mobile devices, they enjoy reading more,and people commonly read books and stories to children from mobile devices." I suppose it's the skeptic in me, or perhaps my role as devil's advocate, but I think of what you mentioned first in your post: the quality of reading material available in print in other countries (particularly developing countries) is not great. Given the choice, I would gladly read The Hunger Games on my phone rather than an aging copy of Hard Times, likely missing pages. Having said that though, I would choose a book over a device any day of the week. So I don't necessarily think that bullet is complete as it seems to imply the superiority of devices over books. In countries where books (good ones) are scarce, yes, devices are the way to go, but in my case, I have access to quality novels and I'm not ready to give it them up just yet.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing :)
Thanks for your comments. Yes, I understand what your saying about the statement "enjoying reading more on mobile devices. "
ReplyDeleteI suppose I wasn't clear enough about the point I wrote down, the statements were from a study of 5,000 people in developing countries only. So, there access to quality novels are more limited than ours, I am guessing that why they enjoy reading more on mobile devices. The study didn't survey anyone from a developed country.
Sorry for the confusion.
I am bit old school too, I still like having a book in hand.
Interestingly, I was at a reading conference in the morning, and we were talking about guided reading and how to teach reading to younger/ emergent readers. One of the things we talked about was having multiple copies of good simple books, not the photocopied home reading ones, but colourful real books. The presenter was saying how it is more engaging for kids to learn to read with real books, opposed to the black and white or simple readers.
I also changed the wording of the point above, so the information is more clear! Thanks again for the great comment
ReplyDeleteHi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteDid your article show any comparisons between physical books and mobile devices? I just wonder if it's easy to say that more people are choosing mobile devices if that's all that is available to read. Personally, I would always choose a physical book to read over a mobile device, but if all I have available to me is my phone-- then phone it is! it is also interesting that the women are less likely to have mobile devices. I wonder why that is? It also make me wonder how the article drew the conclusion that mobile devices are a "huge empowerment tool" for women... Things that make you go hmm?
Thanks for sharing,
Sheila