How SMS Text Messages Improve the Reading Outcomes in Papua New Guinea

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The aim of the SMS Story research project was to determine if daily mobile phone text message stories and lesson plans would improve children’s reading in Papua New Guinea (PNG) elementary schools. The research was a controlled trial in which half of the teachers received text messages for twenty weeks and half did not.

The stories and lesson plans were designed to introduce children to reading English and followed an underlying phonics and key word based methodology. Teachers in the trial received a cartoon poster explaining how to use the daily text messages and received a total of 100 text message stories and 100 related text message lessons for two academic terms. They did not receive any in-service training.

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Baseline Start Point

Research was conducted in rural elementary schools in two provinces, Madang and Simbu, and has involved a baseline reading assessment, mid-point lesson and classroom observations and an end-point reading assessment. At baseline, there was no statistically significant difference between the active and control groups, with respect to school characteristics and children’s reading assessment results.

The baseline results showed that many children had limited or no reading (for example, half of the children could not read any high frequency English words). At the time of enrollment, all participating schools had very few reading books, if any, available in the classroom.

Experiment Results

On average, across both sets of schools, children’s reading did improve over the two terms with children at SMS Story schools improving significantly more. Random visits to active schools during the intervention period showed that most teachers were actively engaging with the content sent to them as text messages. This demonstrated that the SMS technology (using FrontlineSMS delivered over the Digicel mobile network) was effective in reaching teachers.

There was a large change in the reported use of teaching strategies promoted by SMS Story lesson plans and poster (for example, 42 teachers in active schools (n=51) against 12 teachers in control schools (n=51) reported “reading stories to the children every day”).

At the end-point reading assessment, there was a statistically significant difference between the results of the control and active groups, with the active group performing better than the control group across four of the five reading skills tested. This improvement is seen in both grade 1 and grade 2 and with girls and boys.

Children who did not receive the SMS Story were approximately twice as likely to be unable to read a single word of three sub – tests (decodable words, sight words and oral reading). In other words the intervention almost halved the number of children who could not read anything compared with the control schools.

Therefore, the text messages to teachers improved students’ reading ability in decoding, fluency, reading familiar high frequency words and reading phonetically correct nonsense words. The research did not find a statistically significant improvement in reading comprehension and generally children showed low reading comprehension skills in both grades and little progression between grade 1 and 2.

Other Results

The trial also found a strong negative impact on students’ reading caused by the absence of the classroom teacher to attend provincial trainer-directed training. Unsurprisingly the students of these teachers performed poorly on the final reading assessment. Importantly SMS Story does not require a teacher to be absent from a class for training.

Recommendations

As a control led trial, this intervention has a rigorous research base. The results demonstrate that appropriate use of mobile phone technology can have a positive impact upon educational outcomes in resource-constrained settings.

In PNG, it is recommended that the methodology of sending daily text messages to teachers be pursued further. In other countries, it is recommended that trials be undertaken as controlled trials so that statistically significant data can be generated.

SMS Story was funded by the Australian Government, through a research grant from the Economic and Public Sector Program. The project was designed and managed by Voluntary Services Overseas, in partnership with the Department of Education.

People with Disabilities Realize Their Dreams with Digital Divide Data in Cambodia

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When Treng Kuy Chheng looks back at her past, she wonders what she would be doing, had she not met Digital Divide Data (DDD), a non-profit organization whose goal is to empower Cambodia’s youth through digital training and employment.

Being Disabled in Cambodia

Chheng was born into poverty, and to make things worse she had polio when she was two. She survived but her illness left her with physical impairment and bleak prospects for the future.

Being disabled in Cambodia is often perceived as a tragedy and, among the estimated 700,000 Cambodians who are afflicted with disabilities, it is true that the majority do not fully enjoy their fundamental rights, and they often do not have equal opportunities for education or employment.

Chheng was rather lucky as her parents did not treat her differently from her siblings. In the morning she would sell vegetables at the family’s food stall; and in the afternoon she would go to school. However hard it may have been, it made Chheng believe in herself and her abilities. And the more the neighbors would stigmatize, pity or even discourage her, the more determined she was to succeed in life and not be a burden to her relatives.

This determination gave her the strength to look for employment after she graduated from high school. At the time, the economy was beginning to recover slowly, and landing the first job was very hard for everyone. For a disabled girl like Chheng, it was even more difficult, and, while she was searching for a professional opportunity, she experienced stigma, rejection, and discrimination. Before she started losing hope, she had the chance to meet with Digital Divide Data, which had been co-founded two years earlier by Jeremy Hockenstein.

Impact Sourcing

In 2000, this young American traveled to Cambodia as a tourist. During his stay, he was not only struck by the level of poverty in the country; he was also impressed by the eagerness of the youth to learn and struggle to build up a better life. They would take computer and English lessons but in the end there was no job for them and they kept being trapped in an endless cycle of poverty.

In the meanwhile, the world was going global, and international companies started outsourcing low-skilled IT jobs to India. Hockenstein was a business consultant at McKinsey, and it did not take him long to figure out that he could replicate this model in Cambodia and use it to promote employment and empowerment for the disadvantaged youth.

A Study-Work Program

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When she joined Digital Divide Data in 2003, Chheng had hardly seen a computer in her life. She had to learn everything from scratch, but she worked hard and soon she knew how to turn a computer on, enter data and master fast typing. She was also trained in English and soft skills (e.g., team work, self-confidence, management). After six months, she was fully operational and became one of DDD’s data operators.

For four years, she worked six hours a day to transform physical documents into searchable and digitalized archives for publishers, libraries, and companies all around the world. For her work she was paid a fair wage but she was also granted a scholarship to study at Pannasastra University, one of Phnom Penh’s best universities.

A Stepping Stone to a Brighter Future

With 400 employees, Digital Divide Data is today the largest technology employer in Cambodia, and in the past 13 years its impact sourcing model has had a transformative effect on nearly 2,000 underprivileged young adults, 10 percent of them being disabled.

Working at DDD is always a stepping stone to a brighter future. After they complete the program, graduates are either hired by the organization or they move on to other companies, where they earn more than four times Cambodian average salary. With this money, they can support their parents and enable their youngest siblings to get a proper education. In the long run they break the cycle of poverty that has trapped their family for generations.

As for Chheng, she has managed to make all her dreams come true. She wanted to study; she now holds a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and an executive MBA. She wanted to have a job; she started as an accountant at DDD and for the past year she has served as the finance and administration manager of a large electronic company. She wanted to see the world; in 2013, she went to Canada to participate in the Global Change Leaders program.

At 29, this highly successful woman keeps having new dreams! Today she wants to change the public’s attitude towards persons with disabilities and create real job opportunities for them. She believes they have the ability; they just do it in a different way. Just like her.

Daniele Adler is a consultant in communications strategy in Cambodia

Is TV White Space the Ideal Wireless Data Delivery Medium for the Philippines?

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You know all those fuzzy TV channels that don’t seem to be used? Well, in between each channel is even more unused space. Called “TV white space” or TVWS, this unused radio frequency between broadcast TV channels in the very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF) range between 54 MHz and 806 MHz represents an amazing untapped wireless spectrum resource for developing countries.

Marco Zennaro and Ermanno Pietrosemoli of the Abdus Salaam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) have put together a great collection of essays on TV White Spaces with an emphasis on their application in emerging markets. “TV White Spaces — A Pragmatic Approach“, covers both technical and policy issues as well as providing information on real world pilots.

In the Philippines, the Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO) estimates that there are about 24-31 channels (46 percent white space) available in rural areas. The national capital region and Cebu has 24 unused channels (63 percent) and the Mindanao area (Davao) has about 18 (62-80 percent).

In fact, Louis Casambre, Executive Director of DOST-ICTO says that:

“TVWS is an ideal wireless data delivery medium for the Philippines, with its long distance propagation characteristics and the ability of its signals to travel over water and through thick foliage, we are hopeful that this will be the technology to bring connectivity to rural areas and bridge the digital divide”

Philippines leading Asia in TVWS experimentation

Undersecretary Casambre is putting his agency at the forefront of TVWS experimentation. DOST-ICTO and the private company Nityo Infotech are currently testing the technology in the largest pilot deployment in Asia.

100 sites in the province of Bohol will use TVWS technology as a public service to connect people and organizations to education, eHealth, and eGovernment services, and provide the backbone for environmental sensor networks and for Internet access in public places. The $5 million technology investment will deliver up to 6 mbps of data throughput at a maximum range of 10 km.

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TVWS for Health

One of TVWS projects that will be connected is the deployment of RxBox units. RxBox is a DOST-developed telehealth device that enable remote consultations between patients, community health workers, and experts in urban areas.

The device can take a patient’s electrocardiogram or ECG, heart rate, blood, pulse rate and blood oxygenation and supports “teleconsultation” between patients and remote clinical experts. While the RxBox usually works just over SMS in remote areas, in the TVWS pilot, it will be connected via broadband Internet for true real-time telemedicine activities. That’s a broadband innovation we can all be proud of.

How to Ensure Long-Term Sustainability for a Chuuk Computer Lab

Thanks to funding from the Internet Society Community Grant Program as well as from the Information Society Innovation Fund (isif.asia) a computer learning lab has been established at the Chuuk Women’s Council!

Our goal in establishing a computer lab in the Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC) is with the aim of empowering and connecting, with ICT, the women of Chuuk State, in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

The Chuuk Women’s Council is an established umbrella organization for the different women’s organizations across Chuuk State, which promotes women’s leadership, education on health and gender issues, environmental conservation, practical skills-building for employment opportunities, and the preservation of traditional and cultural crafts.

Given the existing strengths of the center and the breadth of the programs already on offer, we believe that the technology of this computer lab will serve to complement and enable this organization that is already extremely successful in its non-technical endeavors.

In planning the computer lab, we looked at five key ways to assure long-term sustainability:

  1. Computer Hardware (Rugged, Portable, Low Energy Usage, Good Performance & a Webcam)
  2. Software (Office Software, Typing Aid, Basic ICT Skill Modules, & Virus Protection)
  3. Internet Access (WiFi, Bandwidth)
  4. Training (Basic ICT, Email, Web Searching, Office Software)
  5. Support and Maintenance (Shares, Onsite, Software/Hardware Repair & Remote Troubleshooting)

With our solution requirements and guidelines, a plan was developed and agreed upon with project partners. The support for this computer lab was linked to the PISCES project that during 2012 deployed solar powered wireless connectivity to Chuuk. Building on the connectivity and the capacity built during the PISCES project, the ISIF Asia program has supported 2 consecutive grants to iSolutions to connect schools and improve the solar powered infrastructure available.

It is our hope and intent that this computer lab at the Council’s facility, accompanied by trainings in how to make use of the technology and the Internet, will greatly enhance the existing CWC offerings and will empower Chuuk’s women to use ICT’s communications and information capabilities to enhance their own quality of life and improve their own communities.

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The CWC has an existing room within their facilities designated to serve as the computer lab: where the sewing classes currently take place!

Thanks to the mobility of the laptops comprising the lab, they will be able to utilize the room as a sewing room in the mornings, and as a computer lab in the afternoons, with the added bonus that the sewing machine bases can very conveniently serve as “desks” for the laptops.

Alternatively, the laptops can easily be brought to any room within the CWC to be used for training, education, or any ICT skill based needs that will help the staff accomplish their tasks.

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We started on-the-ground in Chuuk by preparing the laptops at iSolutions, a small company co-founded and directed by project partner TR Mori, pioneering community Internet access through the only cyber-café and computer repair center in Chuuk.

Many of the iSolutions staff helped out with standardizing the programs (listed below) loaded on the laptops, password-protecting them, and installing Reboot Restore RX on each of them for virus protection/removal upon reboot.

We selected Intel Classmate Laptops for the lab, because they are quite energy efficient (important on any small island!), have a speedy processor and long battery life, and are wrapped in a ruggedized and durable housing—not an insignificant point, given that they will be moved each day to create the computer lab/return to a sewing room.

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The programs/features installed included:

  • Windows 7 OS
  • Web Browsers (Chrome and Internet Explorer)
  • Office Suite Software (Open Office)
  • Communications Software (Skype)
  • Rapid Typing
  • Multi Media (webcam software and a multimedia video player)
  • PDF viewer
  • GCF Learn Free
  • MicSem Videos

Once the laptops were ready, we headed over to the CWC for a meeting with the staff, to talk with them and inquire what they had in mind for the computer lab. They were all quite interested in the technology, and were eager to improve their own computer skills.

We asked them what they hoped to be able to do with the computers, as well as spoke about the possibilities for the women who live in more remote locations to be able to use the technology. They expressed that because of the strong person-to-person networks they already have in place, any local chapter of the CWC, from one of the Lagoon Islands for example, could request a training session to take place. They believed this would prove very popular.

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In the meantime, we got started on helping them develop their own computer skills that afternoon. They eagerly jumped in, using the Rapid Typing program, listening to music, using the video camera, and trying out Open Office.

We returned the next day, set up the lab, connected the laptops to the Internet, and held our first training session in the brand new CWC computer lab. Since our “students” had already used the laptops the day before, they were not timid to try anything.

Since we had Internet connectivity today, we surfed to the web, and the two women who didn’t yet have email addresses were already attempting to use Facebook (where they soon discovered they’d need to obtain email addresses in short order)! We tried out the Rapid Typing program again, and then it was time for some multi-media: We watched some videos from MicSem and GCF Free Learn—which proved to be very popular and entertaining.

When I said goodbye to them, they all called out goodbye back, but they hardly even looked up as our team left, they were so engrossed in using the laptops, and certainly not ready to stop after a few hours! That was fantastic.

We are working on editing a video that we made about this experience, so watch for the video to be posted. We also anticipate a return visit in November of this year and to reporting back on how and for what the learning lab is being used.

In the meantime, we also looking forward to hearing more about developments at the CWC’s computer lab in real time; how the staff are using the laptops/lab, when the training sessions for community members will start, and even more exciting developments I couldn’t possibly predict!

Written by Dr. Laura Hosman, assistant professor at Illinois Institute of Technology. Read her blog here.