Official Google Blog: The Literacy Project
In India, a country saddled with one-third of the world’s literacy problem, there are nearly 300 million people who are illiterate and 400 million who have only a rudimentary knowledge of the alphabet. That’s 700 million people who cannot read even a newspaper headline.As I wrote in December, PlanetRead employs Same Language Subtitling (SLS) to give subconscious reading practice for 30 minutes a week to more than 200 million early-literates in India, operating via 10 TV programmes in 10 languages. We’re hoping to take this project internationally, as well as collaborate with literacy organizations in other parts of the world. That’s why we’re so excited about The Literacy Project -— the initiative announced today by Google, the Frankfurt Book Fair literacy campaign (Litcam), and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. (There’s also a German version of the Google page.)
The project enables people to find everything — from videos, books and scholarly articles about literacy to reading groups and literacy-related blogs. PlanetRead is one of the many organisations that is contributing. We’ve uploaded our subtitled videos (take a look!) and are sharing our own literacy research. And the site’s map of world literacy organisations also make it easier for us to connect with partner agencies who want to make literacy a way of life for everyone on this planet.
The idea that others around the world will be able to see what we’re doing —- and in turn, that we’ll be able to see what other people are doing and saying about literacy -— is thrilling, and at the very heart of PlanetRead’s mission to make its projects available to everyone. With each new person that we reach, we come one step closer to solving this truly global problem.
Saying millions can’t read in India doesn’t take in effect that similar issues are in America. There are High School graduates that can’t read, and some college graduates. It’s sad when one of the most basic forms of communication is unavailable to large percentages of the population.
I’m sure you’ll hear no arguments from anyone on the importance or reading. that’s why in pre-school and kindergarten teahers attempt to get the kids reading early. Not everyone will want to spend their days reading books, but the ability too should be nutured… and used occasionally. I’m in an abnormal percentage of the population that reads vorcaciously… in other words I’m not the greatest speaker for something like this. But the percentage of people who read the news, in print or online, and occasional books is large…. but should be larger.
What can you do to help? Every local library has a Literacy program, a program in which ANYONE can help a person learn how to read. There are also the above meantioned programs, which ease the mind into the idea of reading.
Tags: Books, Interesting, News, OpEd, Reading
Hello,
Movies with subtitles for education
I edit, digitally, movies and animations taken from the public domain. I make them into reading programs
to help people with reading difficulties to learn from movies. Basically I colorize the actor that
speaks and put the caption as a comic balloon close to him/her. Then I use a karaoke-style highlight
to match the pronounced word with the text in the caption.
My burn program enhances the scenes by brightening and focusing them better. I burn them into
HDTV format which allows more space on the left and right of each frame so I am able to put more
captioning on the pictures.
I always think that simple ideas can change the world: this one seems to me one of those. It seems
to me so simple that I could not believe it was not implemented before. In short the idea is to use
karaoke subtitling on popular movies and song and make this available as mass-media content.
In this way, illiterate people can start associating the pronunciation of words with the written form.
Please go to the following site http://www.litwc.com/2006/10/0.....y-project/ to
see what Google is doing to encourage this type of program. Also please research Same Language
Subtitling.
I can make these programs in many languages. I don’t need to know the language. All I need to know is
where a word begins and where it ends. A printed dialogue of the movie is necessary so I can make the
captions/subtitles. Whatever language the actors are speaking I slow down their talking and yet maintain the
the quality of their speech. The viewer in any country can then read the captions/subtitles at a more
leisurely pace.
If you wish to use one of your company’s movies for a demonstration please send me one of the movies
of which you have the copyright or is in the public domain. Please also send your permission to change
it digitally. If you placed by yourself the movie into the public domain please send me information
that verifies that it has been done.
Sincerely, Philip Wagner
philip5147@aol.com
7601 Arthurs Road, Fort Pierce, Florida
Well… um it’s nice that you do this, but you linked back to this post. And as far as I know you didn’t post this huge missive anywhere else… so um, good luck with that.