"Wings of a butterfly" - Litcam 2009

The last 2 days saw inspirational exchange between colleagues, from more than 15 countries at the fourth annual LitCam conference at Frankfurt Book Fair. Frankfurt Book Fair has put together a brief video covering this year's conference.

Presentations from India, Nigeria, Ireland, Afghanistan, USA demonstrated various approaches to use media - television, radio, internet - to facilitate learning and teaching reading and writing and to increase public awareness for the issue of Literacy challenges, and awareness amongst adults who might struggle with difficulties in their everyday life.

In his gripping presentation Brij Kothari from Planet Read demonstrated how "a wing of a butterfly can create a storm": his idea of same language subtitling (SLS) of "Bollywood" films is an example how a simple idea can create a massive impact: with subtitling bollywood movies with a "karaoke" text that highlights the words in order of expression, Brij and his team unlock the potential especially of "weak readers" to improve their abilities. Brij presented impressive figures demonstrating the impact of SLS on the general reading behaviour e.g. in terms of the use of newspapers.

Sandra Mbanefo Obiago, film producer and Executive Director at Communication for Change Nigeria presented a wide range of examples from radio soap operas written by young authors to "Nollywood" movies and tv dramas, educational as well as fictional material to address important issues for Nigerian population like like corruption, democracy, AIDS/HIV or women rights.

Tom O' Mara from the Irish National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) presented the comprehensive media approach in the distance learning programme in Ireland including tv series, online learning opportunities, tutor support on telephone and workbooks.

For further information on this years conference edition please refer to www.litcam.org
or join the LitCam network at www.literacy-campaign.org

Frankfurt Book Fair Literacy Campaign "Litcam"

Not long to go until the fourth international conference on literacy and basic education at the worlds largest book fair at Frankfurt, Germany.

On 12 and 13 Ocotber more than hundred experts and delegates from organisations from more than 20 countries will present examples for best practice in literacy, discuss the current state of affairs in basic education, share their knowledge, present new approaches, discuss future strategies and foster new cooperation.

This years workshops focus on media and literacy. Key presentations come from China, Nigeria, India, Ireland and Afghanistan. Find programme here.
An accompanying exhibition provides international organisations like UNESCO or the Irish National Literacy Agency with the opportunity to present themselves and their work.

Interested participants can pre-register for the event via the online community at www.literacy-campaign.org. Please ask for an invitation to this closed user group.

Together with the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), Google and other partners, Avallain acts as sponsor of the Frankfurt Literacy Campaign (LitCam): www.litcam.org.

World Literacy Day 2009

As last year, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) hosted the German national celebration for International Literacy Day (ILD) 8 September in Berlin. This years focus was "Literacy in the Workplace" featuring presentations of Carol Taylor (NIACE, UK), Bertrand Le Grix de la Salle (Vice-President of OPCA FAF Propreté, France, the umbrella organisation of cleaning services in France), Hans Jørgen Hansen (Folk High School South Jutland, Denmark) and Shirin Huber (United Parcel Service, Germany) demonstrating the impact improved basic skills have on the performance and productivity of individuals and companies.

For World Literacy Day and in preparation for the German federal elections in 3 weeks, Avallain's Basic Skills System was used to create several interactive online exercises as part of the comprehensive elearning portal "ich-will-lernen.de" (I want to learn) commissioned by the German Adult Education Association.
The online learning materials provide adult basic skills learners with background information on the general election, the parliamentary system, the process of voting and much more.

Further information (German):
Radio feature at WDR5
Merkur Online
Datensicherheit.de
Op Online

$100 laptops for primary school in Kenya

In the past few weeks we have been "afk" and headed into the field: we went to Kenya to meet with project partners, talk to farmer groups, learning more about their needs and exploring project opportunities for ICT driven learning.

Our first visit brought us to the Gentiana Primary School. We had ten XO, better known as $100 laptops, in our bags. The OLPC foundation provided us with the little green machines so that we could prepare them with software, including learning material from e-Learning for Kids and podcasts from "Learning by Ear", a program by German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

The Learning by Ear program examines the challenges that young Africans face and engages listeners in an informative and entertaining way. The programming is a lively mix of in-depth reports, radio dramas and feature stories that will provide listeners with an opportunity to get the necessary skills to succeed in Africa today. The target audience is girls and boys from 12 to 20 years of age.

In the following days and weeks we accompanied the introduction of the laptops into everyday school practice offering support when troubles occured and evaluating how the laptops were being implemented into the learning process. "When we are able to establish a case of good practice, we hope this example will motivate funding bodies to support the expansion of the use of ICT and the XO in African schools", says Ignatz Heinz.

See pictures of our trip at flickr.com/Avallain

Find out more about our approach to facilitating development by means of education and ICT at www.avallain.com/e4d

Ma te mohio ka ora! elearning for basic skills in New Zealand

One more flag for elearning for basic skills on the world map: after Germany and Ireland, the University of Waikato, New Zealand, comissioned Avallain to develop an online learning portal for literacy and numeracy."We are very happy to have found another partner to share our competence for elearning in basic skills and to widen our experience with this particular area of learning", says Ursula Suter, managing director at Avallain.

Avallain invites organisations and projects to benefit from its conceptual and technical solutions for basic skills, including literacy, numeracy, work skills and most recently financial literacy. "With our existing pool of nearly 60 exercise types, various communication tools and a quick production process we are able to keep projects within reasonable budgets and time limits – and achieve outstanding and appealing results", says Ursula Suter. The New Zealand project is due to launch in January 2010.

43% in New Zealand with poor Literacy

Recent evidence has highlighted the importance of this work. In 2006, New Zealand participated in the international Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey. The results indicated that 1.1 million New Zealanders (43 percent of the adults aged 16–65) have literacy and numeracy skills below those needed to participate fully in a knowledge society (over 80 percent of these people are in work).

Find out more about Literacy and basic education in New Zealand at www.literacyandnumeracyforadults.com

Find out more about our solutions for elearning for
basic skills at www.avallain.com/basicskills.

p.s. For those of you who are not fluent with maori, "Ma te mohio ka ora" means: "Through learning there is life."

UNESCO features Avallain community for Literacy

In its recent newsletter UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) features the online community of Frankfurt Literacy Campaign (LitCam). Together with the UIL, Google and other partners, Avallain acts as sponsor of LitCam. The annual international conference during the worlds largest book fair offers a platform for experts to meet and draws the attention of a wider audience, publishers, politicians and the media towards the importance of Literacy. To support the growing LitCam community, Avallain launched the on-line community enabling former LitCam participants to stay in touch, present their work, share knowledge and experience.
The community is at www.literacy-campaign.org.
Please ask for an invitation to this closed user group.'
Find out more about our activities for basic skills at www.avallain.com/basicskills

E-Learning for Kids on the "100$ laptop"

In cooperation with the global non-profit foundation e-Learning for kids, Avallain E4D makes interactive learning content for kids available on the XO, better known as the 100$ laptop. More than 100 learning units cover a wide range of topics including: math, science, English as a second language and life/health skills.

The content comes on a bootable OS image packed on a flash card (value ca 10$). The conversion of the e-learning for kids content library is a first step, tests at the Gentiana Primary School in Nairobi will launch in Summer 2009 and provide insights for further steps in shaping locally suitable content packages for the OLPC and similar emerging hardware platforms. The OS image also features a bandwidth-friendly remote update solution and supports connectivity for these updates via mobile networks.

It is based on the standard Ubuntu OS, an open source operating system, which is already being provided and championed by a growing community of XO users.

www.e-learningforkids.org
www.gentiananairobi.org