My wife is absolutely wonderful about keeping everyone up to date with what we as a family have been doing, and also with keeping you up to date on what she's personally been working on with PBT. I am not. But that doesn't mean I haven't been working! I suppose it's time to update y'all a bit on what exactly it is that I've been doing recently.
Since we aren't yet working with a specific people group, I've been looking into ways that we can help all of our projects on the literacy side of things. Mostly that means taking little ideas that might pan out and exploring them until something happens. With that in mind I have a few separate little projects that I've been rotating through. Because of my interests and general trends in literacy lately, most of these are technology based.
1. Books on Phones - Not very revolutionary for the English speaking crowd, but still a great idea. I've been looking at transferring over some of our shell books from Publisher to epub format so that people can read them on their phones. It's more time consuming than difficult, and currently only works with people who have smart phones in the bush, which is a small, but growing, number. I've also started looking into options for getting them onto feature phones as well. With the huge number of phones out in the bush this would allow people to have access to a large number of texts without having to worry about keeping the paper dry, and would be sustainable (hopefully) since the phones are already there. There still isn't a guarantee they would be used, but I think it's worth a shot!
2. Audio ebooks on Phones - One of the cool features of the Epub3 format of ebook is the ability to put an audio recording in the book so that your device can read to you. As it reads it can highlight the portion being read so that you can read along. For people just starting to read this can be a huge help in developing their ability, and for those who can't read being able to hear what's in the book without having to find someone to read it to them is great! This would need an app capable of dealing with epub3, though, so probably smart phones and computers only for this one.
3. Scripture App Builder - Not really one of my projects per se, but something cool nonetheless. Scripture App Builder is a program designed by SIL to take translated Scripture and package it in an Android app. Other smart people are looking at leveraging this for our translations, but in the future we may also use it to package up literacy materials into an app as well. In the meantime, I'm playing around with this a little to see what it can do.
4. Video Literacy Lessons - Again, probably not the most original of ideas. In fact, it isn't even mine! Another Literacy Specialist working with our branch is interested in making videos similar to ones that she had seen elsewhere, and I got copied on the email. That was enough to set me off figuring out how to make it work for us, and while I don't have a specific lesson plan yet, I'm working on making a short proof of concept video to get us started off! Eventually we may have some of our teachers record lessons in their own language so that people in other villages can benefit from their training! We'll see.
5. Modified Keyboard - This is really just a side project for when I have some down time. I'm trying to figure out how to change the assignments of the numpad number keys so that they can type special characters like ñ, or ɨ without complicated work arounds or changing from the English keyboard. The system we have in place does typically work fine, which is why this is such a low priority, but I think it might be easier for our translators to have a dedicated button for all the letters they need whether they're typing in English, Tok Pisin, or their own vernacular. So. Side project.
Of course each of these projects have their own snags and learning curves which I'll have to work through to get them functioning, especially since I don't have a background in coding, but they eventually may be great resources for our Literacy teachers in the village so it is totally worth it. (side note: If you have experience with any of these things and have words of wisdom to impart, I'd love to hear from you)
My job will look different once we choose an allocation, but for now I'm keeping busy!
Since we aren't yet working with a specific people group, I've been looking into ways that we can help all of our projects on the literacy side of things. Mostly that means taking little ideas that might pan out and exploring them until something happens. With that in mind I have a few separate little projects that I've been rotating through. Because of my interests and general trends in literacy lately, most of these are technology based.
1. Books on Phones - Not very revolutionary for the English speaking crowd, but still a great idea. I've been looking at transferring over some of our shell books from Publisher to epub format so that people can read them on their phones. It's more time consuming than difficult, and currently only works with people who have smart phones in the bush, which is a small, but growing, number. I've also started looking into options for getting them onto feature phones as well. With the huge number of phones out in the bush this would allow people to have access to a large number of texts without having to worry about keeping the paper dry, and would be sustainable (hopefully) since the phones are already there. There still isn't a guarantee they would be used, but I think it's worth a shot!
3. Scripture App Builder - Not really one of my projects per se, but something cool nonetheless. Scripture App Builder is a program designed by SIL to take translated Scripture and package it in an Android app. Other smart people are looking at leveraging this for our translations, but in the future we may also use it to package up literacy materials into an app as well. In the meantime, I'm playing around with this a little to see what it can do.
4. Video Literacy Lessons - Again, probably not the most original of ideas. In fact, it isn't even mine! Another Literacy Specialist working with our branch is interested in making videos similar to ones that she had seen elsewhere, and I got copied on the email. That was enough to set me off figuring out how to make it work for us, and while I don't have a specific lesson plan yet, I'm working on making a short proof of concept video to get us started off! Eventually we may have some of our teachers record lessons in their own language so that people in other villages can benefit from their training! We'll see.5. Modified Keyboard - This is really just a side project for when I have some down time. I'm trying to figure out how to change the assignments of the numpad number keys so that they can type special characters like ñ, or ɨ without complicated work arounds or changing from the English keyboard. The system we have in place does typically work fine, which is why this is such a low priority, but I think it might be easier for our translators to have a dedicated button for all the letters they need whether they're typing in English, Tok Pisin, or their own vernacular. So. Side project.
Of course each of these projects have their own snags and learning curves which I'll have to work through to get them functioning, especially since I don't have a background in coding, but they eventually may be great resources for our Literacy teachers in the village so it is totally worth it. (side note: If you have experience with any of these things and have words of wisdom to impart, I'd love to hear from you)
My job will look different once we choose an allocation, but for now I'm keeping busy!
