E-readers in Kenya blog 9

This week my international education current event is about E-readers kindle being used in Kenya, so children may learn and be encouraged to read. This is supposed to help with the lack of basic textbooks that are provided. Half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have few or no textbooks. The cost of buying and transporting books means they often have to be shared between students in the classroom, hindering learning and slowing development. In the rule areas of Africa are attempting to overcome takes was shortages by using donated e-readers. E-readers come loaded with hundreds of Kenyan textbooks in English and Kiswahili. When electricity shortages occur, they can be chores using small solar power packs and generators. The teacher said “we have seen a lot of positive changes since we started using Kindles. Children are very excited to learn and often reading through their break. It helps them with their spelling and English language skills. Compared to other schools, I have taught at, the children here seem to be ahead.” The school has 150 e-readers for the 200 students.  The Kilgoris project is a not for profit organization that partnered with world reader, which provided e-books to students and sub-Saharan Africa. World reader works with publisher, including Penguin, Random House, and Amazon, as well as African authors and publishers, to ensure local and international books are available and affordable, if not donated for free. It distributed more than 220,000 digital books to children and teachers across for projects and sub-Saharan Africa. Sporadic Internet connectivity in the area needs on a small number of blows can be downloaded at a time; for downloads to all devices, the rigors are taken to Nairobi, where ISBN is more readily available. This project helps serve more than 600 students.  Each has an active local board and leadership team consisting of parents, elders and teachers. By expanding schools, it works with and added preschool and secondary levels, Kilgoris aims to help 1000 students by 2017.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/oct/26/e-readers-kindle-learning-children-kenya