Multilingual Education and India

At the recent International Mother Tongue Language Day, the use of technology was emphasised. Bloom Library and Storyweaver are two pieces of simple software which come to the rescue of educators, parents, and students who want to create books in their own language. It is good to note that, rather than competing with each other, they complement each other and host each other's books and resources on their websites. As many of you are already aware, there are two very useful online book-creation tools that are making enjoyable reading material available for children in many different languages. They are Storyweaver  from Pratham Books and Bloom Library   by SIL International. Both of these online libraries not only offer books in many languages but also allow one to create one’s own books and download them for future use. They also have a variety of  image libraries which can be used by someone creating a resource. 

  Kalika Bali’s talk on TED.com There is a lot of technology involved in producing educational materials. However, most language technology is focusing on majority languages while the minority languages stay behind. In a recent TED talk, a language technology enthusiast working with Microsoft, Kalika Bali, is talking about how this gap can be bridged.

Good to note that more easy-to-read small books on COVID-19 are becoming available in local languages. I noticed one in Gadaba language, spoken in Orissa/India, with local photos and with input from a doctor living in the area. Other available materials were translated via Bloom from international booklets. Good! Still we have a long way to go to get the information out! Regards, Karsten

Grassroot level research is rare. Dr Cynthia Groff lived for months with girls in a hostel in the Kumaun area of Uttarakhand (North India) and researched how the local language is used in different settings. Her PhD research has now resulted in a book: The Ecology of Language in Multilingual India: Voices of Women and Educators in the Himalayan Foothills .

A Book in Every Hand Last month Pratham Books, a UNICEF founded NGO, released more than 800 books in 27 languages on the StoryWeaver India website. Anyone can add, translate or read books there.   The Indian Express reports in the article A book in every hand: Pratham Books wants to make reading fun and accessible for children that a week after releasing the website  https://storyweaver.org.in/ there were 800+ books and 20,000 reads. Currently the teller is on nearly 35000 reads and the site has over 900 stories in 27 languages. Till now the languages listed are mainly state or foreign languages, but it is likely possible to translate to or write in any langauge. Worth trying! There are some differences and similarities with the software BLOOM that recently won the Enabling Writers competition (see Blog Post from last June ). Bloom can be used off line and is focussed on creating books for paper publishing while Story Weaver is particularly good at web publicatio...

Software to build a Community Library   Just making a reading method for children in minortity language communities is not enough. They need books to read, many books! BLOOM software was recently selected as one of the three finalists in an " All Children Reading" software contest . Bloom is a low-tech piece of sofware that helps with making books in any language. The website states: "Bloom dramatically lowers the bar, so that many more people can get involved in building a large collection of local language books. Bloom was designed with new computer users in mind, and it has special features to guide them in simple book making, so people need far less training than alternatives such as Word, Publisher, or In Design." I have heard from several people that BLOOM can handle non-Roman Scripts, but more than that, I learned that their helpdesk is very responsive when you happen to encounter a problem. Bloom has started a Bloom library in which you ca...