MILLEE:Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in

Emerging Economies

Matthew KamDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, and

Berkeley Institute of DesignUniversity of California, Berkeley

English as 2nd Language in India

One of two highest learning priorities identified by rural and urban parents

• Gateway to entry-level, non-subsistence jobs

• Prerequisite for the professions• Prerequisite for the professions

• Taught as mandated state curriculum

90% of local Web content in English

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“Power Language” Fluency

Similar need for appropriate “power language” in Africa, Asia and Latin America Africa, Asia and Latin America (Clegg, Ogange & Rodseth 2003; Faust & Nagar 2001; Kapadia 2005)

“Power language” opens the door to further g g peducation, “New Economy” jobs, higher incomes, social prestige, etc.

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Schools Fail in Second Languages

In India, govt rural schools have poor outcomes(Azim Premji Foundation 2004, Pratham 2007)

• >26% of children cannot read English alphabet after 1 year

25% teacher absenteeism rate• >25% teacher absenteeism rate

• >43% of children do not attend school regularly

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Our Envisioned Solution

Mobile games can make ESL learning

• More engaging

• More effective

• Expand reach

Programmable cellphones are increasingly available Programmable cellphones are increasingly available in developing regions

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Adoption Ecology

“One size fits all” approach is not scalableapproach is not scalable

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Contributions

Tools for micro-localization designs

• PACE framework for modular design and reuse

• Design patterns for language learning

• Game design elements from traditional village games

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Project Summary (2004-09) 8 rounds of field studies, totaling 7½ months in India

Human centered design processHuman-centered design process

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

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Best Practices in L2 Pedagogy

Avoid reinventing the wheel

Reviewed sample of >35 applications

Sample has a balance b/w listening, reading speaking and writing skills

Distilled >50 design patterns (Alexander 1977)

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E-Learning Games [in ACM CHI 2007b]

Realized PACE framework with 10 mobile games, designed w/ game principles (Malone 1981) g g p p

•Letter-sound correspondences

Listening comprehension•Listening comprehension

•Word recognition

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Iterative Design and Testing [in ACM CHI 2007b, ACM DIS 2008, IEEE/ACM ICTD 2007]

Field-tested 10 games with three communities in North and South India

1. Urban slums school

2 Private village school2. Private village school

3. Government village school

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Results: Gameplay Enjoyment [in ACM DIS 2008, DiGRA 2007]

Players enjoyed showing off game achievements

Repeated gameplay

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Weaknesses of Earlier Games

Most games fail to match the understanding or expectations that rural children have about gamesp g

•What are characteristics of traditional village games?

•How do village games differ from Western videogames?

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Traditional Village Games

Example: Tree-Tree

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Differences in Games

How are traditional Indian village games different from existing Western videogames?from existing Western videogames?

Compared design grammar against 296 game design patterns documented in Bjork and Holopainen 2005patterns documented in Bjork and Holopainen 2005

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Recent Work

Longitudinal pilot deployment •Spring 2008Spring 2008

•Three times per week

•After-school program at private village school•After-school program at private village school

•Expand to 20 sites after Summer 2009

Long-term curriculum development

~18 hours of ESL i t ti i S i g 2008instruction in Spring 2008

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Post-Test Gains

Quantitative study with 27 participants(ages 9-14; grades 2-9)(ages 9 14; grades 2 9)

Demonstrated improvements on spelling skills Demonstrated improvements on spelling skills (p = 0.007)

5 2 o t of 18 (29%) on pre test and• 5.2 out of 18 (29%) on pre-test, and

• 8.4 out of 18 (47%) on post-test

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Ongoing Work (Summer 2008 and onwards)

Scenarios for informal learning• Incentives for out-of-school learning? Incentives for out of school learning?

• How much will children play ESL learning games?

• How to encourage collaborative play?• How to encourage collaborative play?

• Learning outcomes?

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Out-of-School Learning: Initial Findings

Out-of-school learning scenarios heavily influenced by caste and gender dynamicsy g y

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Scaling Up in India: Next Steps (2009)

Out-of-school pilots• Spring 2008 semesterSpring 2008 semester

• 30 students in one village

• Long-term access to cellphones• Long term access to cellphones

Randomized controlled experimentp• Fall 2009 semester

• 800 students in 20 rural schools

• Potential for scaling up to 300 schools

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Expansion to United States (Fall 2008 and onwards)

Target Hispanic children and adults in migrant farming communitiesfarming communities

Influenced Edioma’s shift into ESL learning games ll hon cellphones

• Funded MILLEE

• Invited PI to advisory board

Recent Verizon grant

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Sustainability: Adoption Plan for India

Broader ecosystem comprising wireless carriers and third-party implementersp y p• Tata Indicom

• Byrraju Foundation y j

Hand-off design tools to 3rd-party content developers • Azim Premji Foundation

• Pratham

• Regional Institute of English

• Sesame Workshop India22

Technology Transfer

Tools for micro-localized designs• PACE framework for modular design and reuseg

• Design patterns for language learning

• Game design elements from traditional village gamesGame design elements from traditional village games

Workshopsp• Instructional design

• Game designg

• Monitoring and evaluation

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Summary

Partnerships can take place at multiple levels

NGONGOs• Regulatory approvals

• Philosophy about learning assessment

Local team membersLocal team members• Undergraduate students

• Curriculum developerCurriculum developer

End-user community and stakeholders

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Acknowledgements

Thesis committee• Computer Science – Eric Brewer, John Canny• Education – Glynda Hull

Team • Berkeley – Ruth Alexander, Lauren Bailey, Deepti Chittamuru, Jane Chiu,

Varun Devanathan, Asya Grigorieva, Dimas Guardado, Christopher Hom, Anjali Koppal, Maksim Lirov, Aaron McKee, David Nguyen, Anand Raghavan, Divya Ramachandran, Priyanka Reddy, Vijay Rudraraju, Monish Subherwal, Anuj Tewari, Jingtao Wang

• DA-IICT and IIT (India) – Aishvarya Agarwal, Anuj Kumar, Siddhartha Lal, Akhil M thAkhil Mathur

• Pilot team (India) – Mehnaaz Abidi, Aman Anand, Siddharth Bhagwani, Jatin Chaudhary, Shirley Jain, Neelima Purwar, Gautam Singh, Kavish Sinha

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Advocates• Jerome Feldman, Alastair Iles, Thomas Kalil, Annie Yeh

Acknowledgements

Collaborators in India• Sesame Workshop India – Sashwati Banerjeep j

• Suraksha - Rahul Chatterjee, Pratim Kumar, Shalini Mathur, Urvashi Sahni

• Mysore Literacy Trust - Babu Mathew, Soundara Rajan, M.L. Ramanarasimha

Funders• Big Ideas @ Berkeley - Serious Games competitiong y p

• Edioma

• Intel - Undergrad research program

M A h F d i Di i l M di & L i d• MacArthur Foundation - Digital Media & Learning award

• Microsoft - Digital Inclusion award

• National Science Foundation - Grant No. 0326582

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• Qualcomm - Wireless Reach award

• Verizon

For More Details

Matthew KamAssistant Professor (wef January 2009)( y )Human-Computer Interaction InstituteSchool of Computer ScienceC i M ll U i it USACarnegie Mellon University, USAEmail: mattkam@cs.cmu.edu

h h b k l d k llDissertation homepage: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~mattkam/millee

Dissertation work featured in TV documentary on novel cellphone li ti i th d l i ldapplications in the developing world

Cellphone: The Ring Heard Around the World.Produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, aired on public TV in Canada on April 3 and June 5, 2008

Viewable online: http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/cellphones/video.html27