Computer Aided Learning for the World

Software	None
Covers	HCI, psychology, AI
Skills Required	Interest in HCI, interest in AI, ideally interest in teaching
Challenge	Conceptual ??? Technical ?? Programming

Brief Description

Computer Aided Learning - programs that teach or enable users to practise skills and test their own knowledge - ought to offer enormous opportunities to people in remote and relatively poor parts of the world, now that computers are becoming much cheaper, and quite old second-hand machines offer computing power and memory capacity barely dreamt of twenty years ago. However the actual use of CAL is a pale shadow of its potential, in rich western countries as well as in poor ones. Why? What can be done about it? Why will doing something about it be hard?

Your challenge in this project is to investigate the potential for the widespread deployment of CAL technology, and the political, economic, social and psychological barriers to success. How feasible are CAL systems that meet real users' requirements, and their real educational needs? What attitudes among politicians, educational administrators, teachers, parents and learners influence what can be done? Are the brute facts of economics the real limiting factor, and how might they be altered?

Variants

This project might be best focused tightly on CAL systems for one type of knowledge: obvious candidates are mathematics, programming and foreign languages; another might be basic medical knowledge.

This project might be best focused on the needs and particular conditions of a country or a region, not necessarily a poor one, though a comparative approach would be valuable as far as it's feasible. Places where teachers are relatively inaccessible for geographic or economic reasons might be particularly interesting.

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