Vimprint: Exploring alternative learning through low-end mobiles

Abstract

The Internet today provides a plethora of applications to assist anyone wanting to learn a new subject, language or a concept. Resources available include dictionaries, translation engines, downloadable e-books, tutorials, online courses etc. The rapid proliferation of smart phones has further provided richer visual applications that assist the user in learning on the go. However, all these applications are dependent upon the availability of Internet and/or an expensive computing device such as a smartphone or a computer. This puts them out of reach for a large section of society that consists of underprivileged people (economically or literacy-wise) and who probably need such tools the most. Also, many learning applications are pull-based and depend on the user's motivation to keep coming back for more. We present Vimprint - a system that offers an alternative mode of learning through telephony voice applications over any touchtone phone with a push-based interaction module. We present its design in the context of vocabulary building. Application of Vimprint system in the field is a work-in-progress and we present the results of a preliminary study conducted to assess its effectiveness. © 2013 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.