iccha: multimedia strategies for refugee language acquisition

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Multimedia Strategies for Promoting EnglishLanguage Acquisition among Bhutanese Refugees

iccha

BXA CAPSTONE PROJECTCARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITYSPRING 2011

ADVISORSJOHN ZIMMERMAN, HCI INSTITUTE

M. STEPHANIE MURRAY, BXA PROGRAMS

MELISSA ACOSTA

2iccha MELISSA ACOSTA | CARNEGIE MELLON U. | BXA CAPSTONE PROJECT

Executive Summary...........................3

The Context.......................................4

Background Research.......................7

Brick & Mortar Observations............9

Competitive Analysis......................9

Directed Storytelling.....................10

Model Creation............................12

Personas....................................15

Design Implications......................17

Design Process................................18

Brainstorming.............................19

User Testing................................20

Test Insights...............................21

The Impact.................................23

....................25

The iccha system............................26

Concept Overview.......................27

Use Cases..................................30

iccha Project Website.....................33

Retrospective & Future Work..........37

Table of Contents


How can we help refugees obtain vital English language skills?

Executive Summary

Refugees arrive in the United States with very little money or re-sources. Furthermore, they are fearful of doing the wrong thing because they lack cultural knowledge and language skills. How-ever, refugees bring with them a great motivation to succeed in building stable lives for their families. They are able to draw upon their considerable survival skills in making their transition to the US community. They may have experienced trauma relat-ed events in their country, the country of first asylum, or during the resettlement process in the United States. They may have problems, mental health difficulties, and lots of questions. Refu-gees may have lived in the United States for many years or they may be newcomers. Whatever their background, refugees have the common need to speak, read, and write in English to achieve self-sufficiency and become contributing members in their new community.

Resettlement programs have a limited capacity to help refugees. They rely on the generosity of volunteers, nonprofit organizations and donors to aid refugees. Currently, resettlement programs address the refugees’ basic and most immediate needs upon arrival, such as housing, job search, brief cultural orientation, school enrollment and medical needs. Refugees are expected to become self-sufficient within the first year of their arrival in the United States.

As part of my Backelor of Humanities and Arts degree at Carn-egie Mellon University, I developed iccha to address some of these problems. This project, which was my Senior Capstone Project, required skills acquired from my interdisciplinary major in Industrial Design and Global Systems Management, as well

as my additional major in Human-Computer Interaction.

I collaborated with Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment (FORGE) at CMU, a student organization dedicated to helping refugees acquire English and cultural skills in Pittsburgh, PA. During the semester, I interviewed student-tutors from F.O.R.G.E., ESL teachers from the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council (GPLC), a resettlement caseworker at Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS), and a student from the FORGE chapter at the University of Pittsburgh. Using data de-rived from the interviews, I conceptualized strategies and tools that leverage the knowledge of volunteer tutors and allow refu-gees to gain communication skills outside the tutoring sessions.

The iccha project explores multimedia strategies that enable refugees to gain essential English communication skills. The system consists of a web interface which allows tutors to rapidly create content and a music player, specifically the iPod Touch, so refugees can practice the lessons with their tutors and as well as on their own during the week.

The end-goal is to enable language learners to: (a) move through lessons at their own pace, (b) manage their learning environ-ment, as the products can be used at home or on their daily commute, (c) and encourage language learners to request learn-ing modules that address their particular needs.


the context


Refugees in the United States

The Context

The United States has the 8th largest refugee population in the world. Each year, thousands of refugees arrive in the United States bringing with them a range of experiences and back-grounds. Some refugees face particular challenges upon arrival and need additional support. The communities receiving them also need to be well prepared to adjust and respond to the spe-cific and unique needs of the newcomers.

In 2007, the annual number of refugees admitted into the United States increased from 70,000 to 80,000 people.1 From 2005-2008, 3,595 refugees were resettled in Pennsylvania.2

1 Batalova, Jeanne, “Spotlight on Refugees and Asylees in the United States.” Migration POlicy Institute. July 2009. 3 May 2011. <http://www.migrationinformation.org/usfocus/display.>cfm?ID=734>

2 “Refugees in America.” The Wall Street Journal. 3 May 2011. <http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/info-Refugee-sort.html>

I became interested in the refugees through my experiences at FORGE as a member and volunteer tutor. I have been a member of FORGE for the past 3 years servicing as Art Director and then President, so I am familiar with the needs of the students and refugees. FORGE collaborates with Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS), which is a resettlement agency that helps refu-gees in Pittsburgh, providing housing, job, and English-learning support. FORGE volunteers (including myself) each adopt one refugee family. Tutors visit the family’s home once a week to pro-vide help with English and general help associated with adapting into a new country and culture.

From my experience and other students’ experiences in working with refugee families, I have observed that refugees have many challenges settling in Pittsburgh. They face linguistic, cultural, and economic problems that we take for granted. Many of JFCS caseworkers and FORGE volunteers want to help them. How-ever, it is often difficult to communicate to each other what the refugees want to learn/need advice on and how we can over-come the linguistic barrier to provide the help they need.

The stakeholder diagram organizes the individuals and organi-zations involved in refugee resettlement against two axis: Level of Interest and Level of Power, that is the amount of possible impact in the process of integrating refugees.

Tutors and Refugees


The Context

My focus is to create educational tools that FORGE tutors can use to aid adult refugees in gaining basic communication skills to adjust to life in America. These tools will also provide refugees op-portunities to enforce what they learned outside of the tutors’ visits.

The iccha project explores strategies that enable refugees to gain essential English communication skills and leverages the knowl-edge of volunteer tutors and community members.

The Focus *Empowerment


research


Research Overview

Research

To learn more about the problem and locate design opportunities, I used a variety of research methods from the field of Human-Computer Interaction. My objective was to learn more about the refugee resettlement process and the experiences of volunteer tu-tors. This section offers an overview of each method and my rea-son for selecting its use. The following sections provides a more detailed explanation of each method and its derived results.

Brick-and-Mortar ObservationsI explored how tutors and refugees currently experience English language acquisition. Then I identify alternative ways, in digital and nondigital forms, that can both benefit and diminish this “re-al-world” experience.

Competitive Analysis I conducted a competitive analysis to review similar education and language learning systems/tools offered by other institu-tions and organizations. This analysis served as helpful a point of reference as I found inspiring product/system features.

Directed StorytellingDirected storytelling is an exploratory research method in which a researcher asks a participant to lead them through stories which are related to the design objectives. This method was ap-propriate because I was able to gain insight into experiences that would be hard to observe directly. In this phase, I asked a caseworker, student-tutors, and two ESL teachers to share sto-ries about their experiences working with the refugee families.

Model Creation Based on these stories, I created a flow model and cultural mod-el. The cultural model represents the different norms, influences,

and pressures that individuals have on one another. I chose to depict this model because there are different levels of influence that exist between refugees, tutors and caseworkers. The flow model represents the coordination, communication, interaction, roles, and responsibilities of individuals.

PersonasFrom the directed storytelling, I realized that there are three main users: refugees, tutors and community members [non-tutors]. I used personas to serve as user archetypes to guide the design process. These personas serve as a synthesis from the directed storytelling and work observations, resulting in a representation of an individual that embody the characteristics of the target user population.


Brick-and-Mortar Observations

Research

Through my tutoring experience and feedback from other tutors, I looked at how tutors currently find ways to educate the refugee. Tutors generally use objects in the refugee’s house to convey the meaning of the lessons. Furthermore, tutors use flash cards, printed out pictures, childrens books for adult refugees as alter-native methods to conveying the lesson. Finally tutors refer to ESL books for ways to teach English grammer. For documen-tation, tutors record what happened during the session and to record the refugee’s progress.

However, these materials are unsustainable in the tutoring pro-cess. Materials are easily lost and difficult to transfer to other tutors (aka they would have to remake the materials).

Next, I conducted a competitive analysis based on existing tools for language learning.

Many of the existing tools are geared towards literacy or assume that the language learner had previous schooling. All the tools are dependent on the teacher for preparation and organization. However, as the ESL teachers pointed out, refugee literacy and pre-literacy is a new field and not many materials target this pop-ulation. One of the few materials, “Making it Real: Teaching Pre-Literate Adult Refugee Students” by Alysan Croydon, provided a list of survival competencies for speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It gave useful strategies to engage the refugee. However, it is depends on the tutor to frequently interact with the refugee.

Competitive Analysis


Directed Storytelling

Research

During the semester, I interviewed a resettlement caseworker at Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS), volunteer tutors from the FORGE chapter in CMU, two ESL teachers from the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council (GPLC) and a volunteer tutor from the FORGE chapter at the University of Pittsburgh.

My interview with Sarah Altmeyer, a resettlement caseworker at JFCS, provided much insight into the refugee resettlment pro-cess. She is the liasion between FORGE tutors and the refugees where she matches refugee families with the student-tutors. As mentioned earlier, refugees are expected to be self-sufficient within a year. However, they are provided bare necessities and two months rent. For one to three months, JFCS provides cultur-al training, employment services and case management. There-fore, refugees must acquire English skills as soon as possible. However, the deadline of self-sufficiency was created because resettlment agencies do not have the resources and staff to keep aiding the refugees. She also revealed that refugees undergo severe PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and culture shock upon arrival, which sometimes continue for more than a year.

For agencies such as JFCS, volunteer tutors play a key role in refugee resettlement. Sarah emphasizes:

“Volunteers create a cultural bond / bridge. Refugees get an American friend and through the volunteer, refugees get used to American culture. ”

For refugees, volunteer tutors are valuable because they repre-

sent American culture. They provide refugees an opportunity to ask questions and learn about the culture at their own pace and comfort level.

Next, I held a group interview with the tutors at CMU-FORGE. In the interview, there was a total of 12 student-tutors. The re-settlement agency assigns teams of two or three students to a refugee family. They visit the refugee family’s home to provide help with English and general help associated with adapting into a new country and culture. Overall, the tutors visit the family 3-4 times per month. The tutoring program at CMU-FORGE is a year old and assist ten refugee families.

The students provided key insights into their tutoring experi-ences with the refugees. They have the challenge of addressing the unique and varying needs of each refugee. Many expressed that they feel unprepared for the challenge, as the three-hour cultural orientation by JFCS was insufficient for the scope of the program. Students tutor a variety of refugees, often in individual or group sessions and ranging in different age and education levels. For example, in one family, two tutors would assist the young children in the family while the parents cooked. For an-other family, tutors would have to assist two adults with varying educational backgrounds.

There are four mainbreakdowns in the tutor-refugee process: (1) tutoring sessions had little structure or focus, (2) student-tutors had trouble finding suitable content for their session, (3) student-tutors do not have the experience/tools to go beyond teach-ing the alphabet and (4) student-tutors found little improvement

Resettlement Caseworker

FORGE Students


from one session to the next.

The diagram below gives a brief overview of the issues in the resettlement-refugee-tutor process. All three individuals experi-ence communication problems and limited time and resources.

From these breakdowns, I realized that the scope of the educa-tion problem was larger than I expected and I needed the infor-mation from education professionals. So I interviewed two ESL teachers at GPLC to get insights from professionals who have experienced working with refugees in formal classroom settings. They emphasized that refugee literacy and pre-literacy is a new domain, as there has been an influx of refugees with very little education in the past decade.

After I described the tutoring program and its breakdowns, the ESL teachers stopped me and said that it is impossible to teach refugees how to read or write if sessions are held only once a week. Instead, tutors have the most impact on the refugees if they taught them English communication skills. The teachers emphasized that using materials with visuals and sound are most effective. Furthermore, tutors should use content that is relevant to the refugee’s daily life so refugees have a bigger incentive to learn it. Finally, tutors should use as much physical communica-tion as possible to convey the ideas in an effective manner.

The following is summary of insights from the ESL teachers:

1. Focus on communication, not literacy 2. Provide informal assessment of the refugee’s English level 3. Provide small chunks of learning, teaching small ideas in multiple ways 4. Establish a routine, so refugees know what to expect 5. Ensure success in some kind 6. Measure progress after a few months

Research

ESL Teachers

TUTORSLittle TrainingLimited-No experience

AGENCIESSmall Staff

Few translatorsLarge workload

REFUGEESPTSD Issues

Culture ShockLimited English

Juggle work & family

SHARED CONSTRAINTS

Limited TimeTranslation/

CommunicationLimited Resources


Model Creation

Research

After the directed storytelling sessions, I modeled the data from the sessions into two different perspectives: a flow model and cultural model. Each model provided key insights and break-downs in the overall experience.

The flow model defined the roles of people and objects in the refugee acculturation experience. There were significant break-downs in communication, knowledge and accessibility.

JFCS has a small staff devoted to refugee resettlement and relies on a large number of volunteers from organizations like FORGE, who do not necessarily know much about the process and the needs of the refugees. However due to limited time and resources, JFCS caseworkers cannot devote sufficient time to train the volunteers, outside of the cultural/ESL orientation. In a similar manner, caseworkers have to assist many refugees who are currently resettled in the United States and prepare for ref-ugees who will arrive. Hence, the caseworkers cannot provide sufficient support for refugees.

There is also a disconnect between tutors and adult refugees. Adult refugees and tutors depend on the children to translate in order to communicate. Furthermore, tutors test the adult refu-gees and find little progress. They find that the adult refugees forgot the lesson or never touched the materials that tutors had given them.

The cultural model explores how influences and expectations play a role during a tutoring sessions. I discovered that there was a significant breakdown between student tutors and refu-gee adults.

Refugee adults who do not know a lot of English feel more shy in conveying that they want to learn. Instead they stand in the periphery of the room while tutors help the children do school work.

In the same respect, tutors are unequipped to teach the adults, especially preliterate adults. They do not know how to begin teaching English and instead feel more comfortable in plan-ning activities for the children. Tutors have trouble enticing adult learners to participate in the group activities.

Furthermore, there is a breakdown between tutors and FORGE nontutors. Nontutors want to help refugees in some way but cannot commit significant amounts of time to visit the family themselves. There is an opportunity here for non-tutors to help the tutors prepare lesson content.

Flow Model

Cultural Model


Research


Personas

Research

From the data, I realized that there are two main users: refugees, and tutors. By using the characteristics of each type of user, I created one persona for each category. As the directed storytell-ing and model data suggested, refugees want to gain language skills to have a better life in the United State. They need tools to allow them the flexibility to practice where ever they go. Similar-ly, tutors and community members want to aid refugees. How-ever, they have limited time, knowledge and resources. They need guidance to improve how they can better aid the refugees, despite the constraints. Based on these two types of users, I created the following personas:

The Mobile Refugee


The Volunteer Tutor

Research


Design Implications

Research

To maintain consistency in my designs, I boiled down my re-search findings into a set of design implications.

Adult refugees vary widely in age and education levels. Young adults, between the ages of 20 to 30, have gone to school in ref-ugee camps and gained basic knowledge of written and verbal English. In contrast, older adults either never learned English or did not receive much instruction. The system must allow tutors to make content that targets each refugee’s education needs.

Refugees have limited opportunity to take ESL courses. Their jobs and long commute provide little time for English classes. The system should allow refugees access to the lessons, wheth-er they are at home, on the bus, or at work.

Volunteer tutors are not sure how to prepare content for their tutoring sessions. The system should be able to leverage tutors knowledge and allow tutors to rapidly create lessons. Tutors will use this content to guide their tutoring sessions and test refu-gees the following session.

Volunteers tutors have limited time and must coordinate with their partners. The system should allow tutors to rapidly create content and share the content with others. Volunteers can man-

age their content but also make their own “lessons” based on what other tutors have created.

The system should allow volunteers to reflect on their tutoring session and assess the effectiveness and impact of their les-son. They should be able to share this with other volunteers to receive feedback/further suggestions.

The system should be able to grow and support the refugee-tutor system. As volunteers and refugees come and go, the sys-tem should continue to be able to pass on information to new volunteers and continue to adapt to the needs of individual refu-gees.

Target content to each refugee’s needs Sharing and assessment

A flexible system for the mobile refugee

Empower the volunteer tutor

Efficiency is key

Create a sustainable system


design process


Initial Brainstorming

Design Process

Keeping in mind the set of design implications, I brainstormed ideas that can meet the needs of refugees and tutors. From audio postcards via cell phone and email, to digital albums, websites, and mp3s, I looked into various ways tutors can rapidly create content and teach refugees in a visual manner. Furthermore, I wanted to find solutions that can be immedi-ately used, with the possibility that FORGE can continue the

project. I decided to continue with the idea of using an mp3 as a tool for refugees to learn communication skills and for tutors to use to leverage their own knowledge to effectively teach the refugees. After narrowing my ideas, I went on to explore the mp3 idea and how it can be used in a sustain-able, tutor-refugee system.


User Testing

Design Process

I went on to test the validity of the concept, with the help of FORGE student tutors. There are six tutors in total, including my-self, using the iccha concept with the refugees. Tutors informed me the content they would like in the playlists and I created the files using GarageBand, iTunes, and Photoshop. Two refugees were given an iPod Touch and another family received an iPod Nano. Each iPod contained playlists of audio and visual feed-back. During the sessions, student tutors brought their laptops to the refugee’s homes to update the iPods with new content. Then they went over the lesson with the refugees while using the iPod. Tutors then evaluate the refugees during the lesson by testing the refugees on the content.

Each tutoring session was 1-1.5 hours. The study was conduct-ed over a six-week period. In that period, there was a range of 4 to 6 sessions for each family, with a total number of 12 playlists. After each session, I asked volunteer tutors follow-up questions to assess their experience with the family and to explore the ef-fectiveness of the concept.

1. Find out if adult refugees would use the iPod during the week as a learning tool2. Discover if tutors find this to be a useful tool 3. Asses ways to adapt audio/visual content that make it more conducive to learning

Setup

Test Goals

A tutor describes the terms used in the playlist to an el-derly refugee.


User Test Insights

Design Process

From my interactions with the refugees and the experiences of other tutors , I summarized my findings into five insights:

We found that older adult refugees struggled to use the iPod Touch and Nano. Tutors initially did not walk them through how to use the iPod but used the iPod for them. Later, tutors gave them a brief tutorial on how to use the iPod but the refugees would forget in between sessions and would simply ask their children or friends to navigate through the iPod for them. How-ever, we found that young refugee adults and children are tech-nologically savvy. The young adults either knew how to use it before or learned quickly.

Despite the learning curve, refugees use the iPod even if they need help to use it. Tutors test the refugee’s knowledge the fol-lowing visit by showing them the album pictures again and ask-ing them what the pictures represent. Furthermore, the tutors update the iPods using their computer, thereby collecting play count data. I used the iTunes Super Analyzer to extract statistics from the playlists and convey the refugee’s listening habits in a graphical form.

It was easier for tutors to strategically plan their lessons using these multimedia tools. They spend less time looking for avail-

Learning curve on using the iPod

Adult refugees practice the playlists

Less how-to, more what-to

One refugee’s listening habits on a driving playlist, during a one week period. Generated with iTunes Super Analyzer


Design Process

available books and resources on how to teach refugees. In-stead, the iPod provided a flexible guideline for the tutors to follow and tutors feel they can focus on content that would be more useful to the refugee’s life.

Playlists and audio files can be used for learning, when planned strategically. The playlists themselves went through a series of it-erations. We initially began with numbers and the alphabet. Then we explored effective ways to teach more complex concepts, such as targeting simple phrases to learn different emotions. On page 34, I outline a series of best practices on how to effectively create content geared for language learning.

Finally, we found that the iPod Touch’s larger screen size than the iPod Nano was more effective during the tutoring sessions. Refugees can see the images, e.g. the album covers, more clearly on the iPod Touch which has a 3.5” diagonal screen size. The 1.5” diagonal screen size of the 2nd generation and older iPod Nano is too small to convey the images, especially images that rely on facial expressions and body gestures.

Learnability of audio & playlists

Less How-To, more What-To A playlist that teaches the process of greeting some-one. The images were taken with a camera, recordings were made with Garage-Band and the audio files were compiled using iTunes.

Screen size matters


Design Process

In the end, the multimedia concept made a significant impact on the refugees and the tutors. In the past, tutors focused on the children of refugees because they were at a loss as to how to teach older, less literate adults. Furthermore, the adult refugees were shy and afraid to ask or did not know how to ask them to teach them. With iccha, adult refugees are encouraged to learn and empowered to request what they want to learn.

As one tutor, Kimby, put it:

“!e fact with the we did something with the parents shows them that they are a valued part of the tutoring sessions. It changed the dynamic, I feel like I’m helping the whole family, not just the kids.”

After describing her success with teaching the adults refugees simple commands, Emily, another tutor, explains:

“For her, the fact that I said “open to the door” and she understood what I was saying was a huge deal, she didn’t need to say it to someone else for us to realize that she made progress.”

“It was the "rst time I ever verbally communicated to the mom and she understood it: Tara, go turn on the lights.”

Kimby described one session where she tested the refugee’s knowledge on commands. Kimby and her partner, Emily, had introduced the commands playlist in the last session. So she

Less How-To, more What-To

A playlist that conveys simple commands such as “Be Quiet” and “Turn off the light.”

The Impact


Design Process

asked the refugees to command Emily using the phrases in the playlists. The whole family and the tutors were laughing as the father commanded Emily to “open the window” or “close the door.” For Kimby, it was a vital moment in her relationship with the family.

“Everyone was laughing about it, enjoying it. !ey felt powerful that they were able to tell Emily what they want-ed her to do.” -Kimby

Before iccha, my partner and I tutored one refugee family for three months. We scoured the Internet and libraries for appropri-

ate ESL materials, but found that the refugees would forget what we taught them in the last session. With iccha, we saw vast improvement in the refugees’ pronounciation and understand-ing of the words and phrases. We worked with several refugee adults who had different interests and English levels and created playlists with themes in driving playlists, emotions and locations to cater to their interests.

Although initially created to target an individual refu-gee, the refugees shared the playlists with other family members and friends, creating a collaborative learn-ing environment.

Less How-To, more What-To

A young adult refugee us-ing an old iPod Touch. He is learning driving signs in prep-aration for his permit test.


Design Process

Since the multimedia concept is making progress in helpings refugees and has made considerable impact in leveraging the tutor’s abilities, I decided to explore how a web interface can facilitate content preparation and make the tutoring-refugee system more sustainable in the long-term.

Through wireframes, I explored how volunteers can manage their content but also make their own “lesson” based on what other tutors have created. The system allows tutors to reflect on

their tutoring session and assess the effectiveness and impact of their lesson. They can share this with other volunteers to re-ceive feedback/further suggestions.

The web interface will be rich in data and should be able to grow and support the refugee-tutor system. As volunteers and refu-gees come and go, the system should continue to be able to pass on information to new volunteers and continue to adapt to the needs of individual refugees.

Wireframes exploring how-to-create the playlists

Listening and viewing a playlist

Create a Playlist

Name Arms

Add a Track

DetailsAdd aTrack+

Take Photo

Add a Photo Create a Photo Upload a photo Paste URL

Accessing camera


the iccha system


The Concept: iccha

The iccha system

iccha explores multimedia strategies that enable refugees gain essential English communication skills. In honor of the Bhuta-nese refugees I’ve worked with, I borrowed the Nepali term “ic-cha” to name the system. “Iccha” means a desire, a wish, a will.

The system consists of a web interface that allows tutors to rapidly create content and a music player, specifically the iPod Touch, so refugees can practice the lessons with their tutors and practice the lessons during the week.

Tutors prepare and create content in the form of audio files. Each playlist contains a theme or general lesson that the tutors want to teach. Each audio file is accompanies by a unique album cov-er, which conveys the meaning behind the audio. They can also share this content on the web interface, so other tutors can use it for their own lessons.

Refugees or tutors can access the playslists on the refugee’s computers so they can update the iPod’s on location, instead of

Web InterfaceDigital Component

Creating, Sharing & Viewing

iPod / mp3Physical Component

Portable, Sharing & Viewing(Possible donation/fundraiser project)


The iccha system

having the tutors carry around their laptops. Refugees can ac-cess the interface anytime to practice the playlists or even view the playlists together with other family members.

Below is the navigational flow for the iccha web interface. It explores how the system can aid tutors rapidly create content by connecting to the computer’s microphone and crowdsourc-

ing through other tutor’s lesson contents. The following page provides an overview of the system. Next I developed three use cases: (1) Creating the track, (2) Creating a Playlist and (3) Down-loading the playlist.


Volunteer Tutors

The iccha system

Iccha is a clear strategy that can be taught and maintained. Tutors can use the ipod as a way to guide their tutor-ing sessions and think of creative ways to explain the content. They can make content that targets each refugee’s edu-cation needs.

Refugees can use the ipod to gain com-munication skills and cultural knowledge to adjust to life in America. They can practice at their own pace and in their de-sired environment. Furthermore, refuges can request specific lessons from tutors.

Community members have the opportu-nity for deeper involvement and under-standing, even if they cannot tutor the refugees directly. They can create playl-ists from mannerisms to learning how-to-use the metro, giving tutors more content for their lessons.

The Mobile Refugee A digital dialogue


1: Creating a Track

The iccha system

Tutors can use the iccha interface to create individual audio tracks. They can add track details such as the name and adds tags to each track. Next they can add a photo in three different ways: (1) upload a photo from their computer, (2) paste a URL of the image, or (3) take a photo from their webcam.

Finally, tutors can record the audio online. The system access-es the computer’s microphone through Flash player. The audio would be created initially in .wav as that is the only format that flash uses. Then the iccha system converts it into an .mp3 and changes the ID3 tags, which are metadata that includes informa-tion about audio tracks.

0:05

Adding Photos as an Album Cover Recording Audio Online


2: Creating a Playlist

The iccha system

Tutors can search through the iccha system to find lessons re-lated to their target content. These lessons would be generated by other tutors and community members. Tutors can view and listen to the playlists as well as read the comments section, so they are better informed about the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson. Next, tutors can add individual audio files or the entire playlist to a new or existing lesson. This allows tutors to rapidly customize their lesson content.

Search for existing playlists generated by other community members

Health View existing playlists

Adding the playlist or track to your lesson

Visit the Doctor

Describing symptoms and useful phrases and questions

health x symptoms x


The iccha system

Tutors can download the playlist easily into the refugee’s iPod. The iccha interface has a download feature and gives the option of downloading one track or the entire list. When it downloads the playlist, it downloads all audio files in .mp3 form (with the im-ages and track descriptions a part of the metadata), along with an .xml file. The .xml is a format that defines the playlist and its contents.

Tutors can simply add all the audio files into iTunes. Then, they can go to File > Library > Import Playlist... and select the down-loaded .xml file. iTunes organizes the audio files from the tutor or refugee’s music library and compiles them into one playlist.

Adding the playlist into iTunes

3: Downloading a Playlist


the iccha website


The iccha website

The iccha interface that I described in the last section is a con-cept and perhaps in the future it will become a reality. However, I am a designer and cannot develop the web application myself. Instead, I created the iccha website to provide current FORGE tutors information on the iccha concept and how they can apply these strategies in their tutoring sessions. The website provides a list of best practices [right] for developing audio and playlist content to effectively teach English communication skills.

Home Page of the Website

/iccha.html + FORGE dropbox

Best Practices


The iccha website

Next, I found Actionscript code that allows tutors to record audio and immediately download them onto their computer. The audio would be created in a .wav format. The website provides a de-tailed description on how tutors can convert the file to .mp3, add album artwork and compile the files using iTunes.

The website is currently located in : http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/org/FORGE/iccha.html

Lastly, I created a dropbox system so FORGE members can store their playlists and share them with each other. .rtf files are available to describe the iccha strategy and refer members to see the website for more information.

Home Page of the Website File Sharing System


retrospectives and future work


Retrospectives and Future Work

The iccha project starts to address the initial problem of en-abling refugees to learn English. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in this domain. For my user tests, I had a small sample set of a very large population of refugees. In the future, there could be more tests done with a larger group of refugees and in a larger variety of refugees, beyond the Bhutanese popu-lation. Furthermore, I would have liked to explore different iPods to see what is the minimum-sized screen required for the iccha concept to still be effective.

The project was a rewarding experience and provided insights into how we can appropriate existing technological tools to ad-dress societal challenges. It represents a compromise between a traditional design project and immediately-implementable so-

lution. The project deviated from a traditional design project, where I would develop a concept but never implement it. In this case, iccha interface is a design concept, where I conceptual-ized how a web interface can facilitate rapid lesson creation and harness crowdsourcing.

However, FORGE is using the iccha strategy on the ground and want to continue using it as an education tool. Hence, the ic-cha website and dropbox file-sharing system was created as a practical and ready solution. It is less efficient than the web interface, but it still empowers refugees and volunteer tutors to take action. FORGE can also use the findings and materials from the iccha project in their fundraising and donation campaigns to collect old iPods that can be distributed to the refugees.

A refugee helping an older refugee use the iPod and understand the lesson.

iccha: multimedia strategies for refugee language acquisition

Documents