Designing Education Tech Tools for Underserved Children

Please check out the Blog for our class related to this research: http://spring2011mobilelearningunderserved.blogspot.com/

And you can see my professor's projects, Pocketschool and the homework management system.

Early Data

I'm going through some of the background section of the data collected for the colleges, here are (partial) results for two colleges, coded as I 1 and W 1 to keep them confidential.

The questions in the chart are:

1) Distance between the student's house and Pune (the nearest major city of over 3MM people).
2) Financial Background. Parent’s income source.
Farmers earn about 2500INR/month, government workers can earn triple that, private jobs
(rural areas) like mechanic or laborer about the same income as farmers, sometimes less.
3) Educational background of the family.
Has anyone in the family completed (up to) high school graduation?

One surprise: Many of the parents are farmers, but they are also high school graduates!

This was very unexpected; I will dig around more for possible explanations. From 2005-2008, I worked in Andhra Pradesh among rural immigrants who came to work in the city of Hyderabad. The group with whom I worked with most were day laborers, they were the grown sons and daughters of farmers. Some of them finished 5th standard, and I met two who finished 7th standard. No one had a high school diploma. Is Maharastra really that different from A.P.? Or am I wrong about A.P. and more farmers have high school diplomas.

Data Processing

So far, the early results from the surveys taked in India show the rural college students value (in terms of rupees per month) potential job skills training and listing services as much as they value their mobile. These student spend about 50 - 100 rs per month on their mobiles, and are willing to spend that much on a job listing/ skills training service. This finding MAY CHANGE as I get through more of the data in the set.

New 10 lb Baby

The 950+ surveys (holy moley) are done! They are a beautiful set of surveys! Just the right size for a "new baby," can't wait to take care of the baby for the next few months!

Great Day

We had a fantastic run yesterday, true interaction with all the administrators of the colleges, we all connected well. They were so cooperative, they gave me ALL their students to survey. We ran out of photocopies of the survey! (rookie mistake) One very sharp vice principal requested we do a control and experimental group at his school over the next few months. I am traveling with two sharp guys from the NGO, they know how to take my questions and ideas and make them better, turn them into fantastic stuff. Am spending the night out tonight to make better time tomorrow, we'll stay at a youth hostel with our intended audience, the rural youth of India.

Heading Out

All the survey questions I wanted are now ready to go, translated into Marathi... we're heading out to three rural college in a few minutes to deliver the survey. Fingers crossed this goes well!

Cat Rodeo

The first day on the ground is always a bit of a cat rodeo. The conversations people working in the field hold with researchers before they land tend to reveal a lot, except there is still some vital information left covered (kind of like bikinis).

I'm wondering how many researchers have to change most everything at the 11th hour. Probably more than I could guest. Fortunately, I'm not worried. Things really do tend to turn out the way they are supposed to. I'm just very happy to be here and happy to be part of something that may really help people. www.smsone.in for more on my partner NGO, and eduvarta.blogspot.com for more information on the new project.

Spring Break

This spring break, I am headed to India to conduct a survey on job search training delivered via SMS text!

Survey questions are on this google doc (stripped of any identifying information). I am looking forward to spring break (in March)!

This work will will build towards my idea to pilot a service in Mexico that delivers vocational training for public servants (front-line people like police, teachers, land bureaucrats).