I’ve always feared that screens work against reading. You know, more time with the iPad and Boom Beach means less time with good books. But a recent story called Mobile Power for Girl Power (gotta love that headline, right?) shows how technology can actually improve literacy in the poorest areas of the world.
Some things you should know
- UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
- In February, UNESCO and UNWomen organized Mobile Learning Week, a venue for education and technology experts to come together to discuss how technology programs can eradicate educational discrepancies between genders in poor countries.
- The Matthew Effect: the theory that wealth endures and poverty repeats itself. In relation to literacy, this mean that those who read well become strong, voracious readers. Less successful readers face huge hurdles in education.
Why does there need to be a Mobile Learning Week? Check out these statistics:
- Two thirds of the world’s illiterate adults and youth are female
- 25% fewer women than men have Internet access in developing countries
- In poor countries, 300 million more men than women own mobile phones, and therefore have more access to technology to assist with education and business
UNESCO ran a program in Pakistan (in a partnership with Nokia) that gave women and girls access to mobile phones and learning apps. Girls who couldn’t read are now avidly reading and exchanging books. The people at Mobile Learning Week used their brilliant minds to come up with more programs like this one.
That makes this Word Nerd very happy. Don’t you love news stories that feature good news?
How have you seen technology used to encourage reading? Please share some more happy news.
And check out my post on Worldreader, a non-profit that gives e readers to people in poor countries.
Thanks for stopping by,
Julia
This is very good news indeed! Thanks for sharing it Julia. I started my career teaching poor children and I know first-hand what it means to a person when they begin to get better at reading.
I’m not one of those who believes screen time to read is a bad thing. They are READING! I also think all of the technology available in which people can communicate with others and research all sorts of things that are of interest is a Really Good Thing. There are times when the gadgets are used too much, but that can be said of everything.
I’m old enough to remember when radio was first popular enough for ordinary families to spend their evenings listening to various shows. There was talk then, as there is now, of how our brains, families, etc. are all going to hell, or some equivalent. Same thing when we all got TVs. I say – Bring on the gadgets! We’ll sort out what’s good for us and discard the bad. Humans are born wanting to learn and explore. Let’s let them.
I love this! So nice to hear good news about female populations having great experiences with increased access to books 🙂 I sometimes hate the idea of screen time and cringe at the amount of tech stuff my kids will be exposed to (example? I’d rather my kindergartner have gym every day instead of technology–they only have gym ONCE a week, during an age when, in my opinion, the kids need exercise more than tech lessons). THAT SAID, my daughter loves reading on the Kindle my mom bought her, and if that’s what it takes for her to fall in love with books, I’m in 🙂
interesting! with so much poo being slung at ereaders, it’s nice to see how they can actually benefit literacy.