The Talking Book

The Talking Book offers a significant literacy tool and information device in one  As an affordable literacy tool, the Talking Book offers children and adults a versatile and interactive tool designed for use with locally-recorded readings of existing and newly created reading books.  As an information system, the Talking Book offers inexpensive distribution to large numbers of people, enabling individuals to determine what information they want and when they want it.

Interactive Digital Audio Device (Talking Book Device)

The audio device will soon cost roughly the same price as a radio. Its affordability will enable full participation by everyone in this information network and will allow children and adults to practice their literacy skills at home.  With the advance in electronics technology and price decline in components, such an affordable device is finally viable.

The device includes the following features:

• Users can store and play multiple audio programs.
• Users can record new audio programs.
  
• Users can copy the audio content to/from the device.
• Users can playback the audio at slow speeds for reading practice of an associated text document.
• Users can audio-hyperlink to another portion of the program for more detail or a related piece of information.
• Users can answer multiple-choice questions, enabling interactive learning.
• The device accepts power from standard, locally available batteries, but also accepts new batteries that can be recharged with solar power.
  

• Children forced to work the farm instead of attending school now have a literacy learning option.
• Children in school and adults in night literacy classes now have the ability to practice outside the classroom.
• Family literacy programs become much more realistic if parents with low literacy skills can hear a book read aloud before they read it to their children.
• Children of illiterate parents can follow a reading of a book or test whether their reading was correct by comparing against the recording.
• Interactive practice exercises make learning fun in ways normally only possible with computers or expensive consumer electronic games.

Content Distribution

At the village-cluster level, content is distributed through two complementary mechanisms:

• Device-to-Device Copy: Any user can easily exchange content with another user by simply connecting the two devices and pressing a copy button. This feature encourages "viral distribution" from one interested person to the next, amplifying distribution at no cost to the larger system.
• Extension Agent Visits: Agriculture extension agents and community health workers carry Talking Books with them to share recordings with people in nearby villages.  Each time they meet someone with another Talking Book, they can easily share the latest recordings with them.  In many cases, these representatives will take recorded feedback from area residents to bring back for the content authors to listen to and learn what is working and what is not.
  

At the national level, content distribution among NGO and government sites scattered throughout the country will leverage existing conventional and ICT infrastructure. For example, small district offices will take advantage of any existing Internet access points or mobile phone networks to transmit and receive batch content updates.

Through the creative use of device features and existing infrastructure, the Talking Book content distribution system will become self-sustaining. Revenue streams from audio advertisements and content distribution fees will support the low cost structure.