An E-Reader Revolution for Africa?

Geoffrey Fowler & Nicholas Bariyo:

It is time for a vocabulary lesson in Bernard Opio's sixth-form class at the Humble Primary School in Mukono, Uganda. One new word the students have already learned this year is "Kindle."

Mr. Opio instructs them to pull out their Amazon.com Kindle e-reading devices. Within seconds, most of the teenagers have a digital Oxford English Dictionary open on their screens. "It took the kids just a few days to learn how to use them," says Mr. Opio.

The Humble School, which serves needy children in a part of Africa ravaged by poverty and HIV, is on the front lines of an effort to reinvent developing world literacy programs with technology. The premise is that the new economics of digital publishing might make more and better books available in classrooms like Mr. Opio's.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 17, 2012 2:28 AM
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