A Braille Writing Tutor to Combat Illiteracy in Developing Communities

Title: A Braille Writing Tutor to Combat Illiteracy in Developing Communities
Speaker: Nidhi Kalra, Tom Lauwers
Date/Time/Location: Tuesday, November 7th, 2006, 11am, NSH 3305
Abstract:
We present the Braille Writing Tutor project, an initiative sponsored by TechBridgeWorld to combat the high rates of illiteracy among the blind in developing communities using an intelligent tutoring system. Developed in collaboration withe Mathru Educational Trust for the Blind in Bangalore, India, the tutor uses a novel input device to capture students' activity on a slate and stylus and uses a range of scaffolding techniques and Artificial Intelligence to teach writing skills to both beginner and advanced students. We conducted our first field study from August to September 2006 at the Mathru School to evaluate its feasibility and impact in a real educational setting. The tutor was met with great enthusiasm by both the teachers and the students and has already demonstrated a concrete impact on the students' writing abilities. Our study also highlights a number of important areas for future research and development which we invite the community to explore and investigate with us.

For more information and videos:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~nidhi/brailletutor.html

Speaker Bio:
Nidhi Kalra is a fifth year Ph.D. student at the Robotics Institute. She is keenly interested in applying technology to sustainable development and in understanding related public policy issues. Nidhi hopes to start a career in this field after completing her Ph.D. Her thesis area of research is in multirobot coordination and she is advised by Dr. Anthony Stentz. She has an MS in Robotics from the RI and received her BS in computer science from Cornell University in 2002. Nidhi is a native of India.

Tom Lauwers is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Robotics Institute. He has a long-standing interest in educational robotics, as both a participant in programs like FIRST and later as a designer of a robotics course and education technology. He is currently studying curriculum development and evaluation and hopes that his study of the educational sciences will help him design better and more useful educational technologies. Tom received a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BS in Public Policy from CMU.