Literacy Bridge
After using Talking Books for six months, farmers in the village of Ving-Ving, Ghana, decided to share their thoughts on the impact it has had on their lives. None of these farmers speak English, but one of our volunteers typed up a direct translation for us (thanks, Irenious!).
Here is a quote from one of our users:
My name is Bampuo Kaming-nyelle. I am a farmer who lives here in Ving-Ving. If you check, those of us who live here depend mainly on farming. We don’t take schooling as much as we are farming. Back in the days we used to clear large amounts of land but we didn’t harvest much compared to nowadays since the agriculture department came out and is teaching us about farming. For instance we used to not plant groundnuts (peanuts) in lanes and didn’t fertilize with manure. Now the agriculture people record lessons with the “literacy talk book” so we can listen and learn about the new methods of farming. They taught us that we can plant peanuts in lanes and apply manure after weeding. About maize they taught us that we can sow two seeds in one hole, the holes in lanes, and we can apply manure after successful germination. Millet is major crop that we plant a lot, and the agriculture personnel taught us that they will not grow well if they are overcrowded. On the part of animal rearing, we were just rearing them without knowing what is best for their growth. They taught us that, if the animals are sick, we should report to the personnel and they will come and examine the sick animals; and that we should separate the sick animals from healthy ones. I think that since we were not applying fertilizer to our crops (because we couldn’t afford it), the agric personnel told us that we can come to their office and they will loan us fertilizer to apply to the crops. I think that this device is bringing information to those of us in the villages about farming and it is helping us a lot in what we do.
We learned many things during these weeks. For instance, we underestimated the interest that students, teachers, and headmasters had in creating student recordings. We also learned how important it is to ensure teachers get plenty of time using the devices before introducing them in the classrooms.
We originally thought a “title audio track” would be helpful for finding the right recordings, but we found it complicated the processes for recording and browsing. We also learned that having the user confirm their recording after first playback did more harm than good.