Anuj Tewari

An exploratory study of unsupervised mobile learning in rural India

Cellphones have the potential to improve education for the millions of underprivileged users in the developing world. However, mobile learning in developing countries remains under-studied. In this paper, we argue that cellphones are a perfect vehicle for making educational opportunities accessible to rural children in places and times that are more convenient than formal schooling. We carried out participant observations to identify the opportunities in their everyday lives for mobile learning. We next conducted a 26-week study to investigate the extent to which rural children will voluntarily make use of cellphones to access educational content. Our results show a reasonable level of academic learning and motivation. We also report on the social context around these results. Our goal is to examine the feasibility of mobile learning in out-of-school settings in rural, underdeveloped areas, and to help more researchers learn how to undertake similarly difficult studies around mobile computing in the developing world.

Combating rural child malnutrition through inexpensive mobile phones

Most organizations in the developing world still rely on paper for record keeping, giving rise to many problems in aggregation, storage, transmission and analysis of data. Errors and time delays associated with paper data are particularly problematic in the domain of healthcare. We present a case study of CommCare, a low-cost mobile phone data collection solution deployed to enhance the paper-based record management system of a non-profit organization working in prevention of child malnutrition in rural central India. Through a three-month unsupervised field trial with ten rural health workers we report data management gains in terms of data quality, completeness and timeliness for 836 recorded patient cases, and demonstrate strong preference of the system by health workers. We found that the motivation for use and acceptance of the system was tied to respect and social power in local communities associated with using the device, as well as non-work-related uses of the phone.

SPRING: speech and pronunciation improvement through games, for Hispanic children

Lack of proper English pronunciations is a major problem for immigrant population in developed countries like U.S. This poses various problems, including a barrier to entry into mainstream society. This paper presents a research study that explores the use of speech technologies merged with activity-based and arcade-based games to do pronunciation feedback for Hispanic children within the U.S. A 3-month long study with immigrant population in California was used to investigate and analyze the effectiveness of computer aided pronunciation feedback through games. In addition to quantitative findings that point to statistically significant gains in pronunciation quality, the paper also explores qualitative findings, interaction patterns and challenges faced by the researchers in dealing with this community. It also describes the issues involved in dealing with pronunciation as a competency.

The social complexities of user-centered design in ICTD: Experiences from four schools in India's villages and slums

Low levels of education remain a barrier to economic empowerment in the developing world. In our work on English language learning among underserved communities in India since 2004, we have observed differences between school communities in terms of their access to educational opportunities outside school, access to ICTs including cellphones and digital gaming, enthusiasm for visitors, and the relationships between students. We report on these observations and argue that they call for the greater use of a comparative approach in constructing models of the micro-cultures at various schools, so that user-centered design processes and methods can better account for the unique differences across communities.

Expanding the comics canvas: GPS comics

Seeing thru Walls is the first location-based comic story for the GPS environment. Current digital comics (web comics or online comics) are confined to a computer screen and use the affordances of digital medium in a limited way. Our aim is to produce an environment where we can tie sensory details of the physical environment to comic frames. We are exploring the design problems and new meaning making opportunities that can arise when GPS technology is contextualized in an interactive comics storytelling environment.

An analysis of the dialogic complexities in designing a question/answering based conversational agent for preschoolers

Parents are well aware that pre-school children are incessantly inquisitive, and the high ratio of questions to statements suggests that questions are a primary method utilized by children for language acquisition, cognitive development, and formulating knowledge structures. Question-asking is furthermore a comfortable medium for a child to stay engaged in natural discourse and the activity at hand. To take advantage of the naturalness and learning benefits of question-answer exchanges, there could be intelligent agents that can engage a child in activities while setting children in the mood to ask meaningful, information-seeking questions. There are currently multiple intelligent agents that can interact with older children and adults to promote literacy or teach topics in specific domains. This paper thus focuses on the complexities of designing an intelligent agent for younger children, by collecting and analyzing data and categorizing childrens questions, which are often ill-formed.

GPS comics: seeing thru walls

In the digital era, the comics medium is transported from print to computer screen. Current digital comics (web comics or online comics) are confined to computer screen and use the affordances of digital medium in a limited way. GPS Comics: Seeing thru Walls is a GPS based comics story that expands the comic canvas and explores the idea of location-based comics. In Seeing thru Walls, in order to receive the meaning in a comic frame the player must experience a sensory detail (a smell, sound, breeze or an object) in her surroundings in the physical world. The concept of location-based comics is an unexplored idea and gives artists new meaning making strategies.