Google, UNESCO and the Literacy Project

At the Frankfurt Book FairWhere Google isn’t the most popular outfit. Google has announced a new service bringing together some of its services as a tool-kit to promote literacy.

Excellent endeavour, although I was puzzled by the linguistic bias (English and German predominate) – why not Spanish, Hindi and Mandarin? And I’m not sure what is novel here, and what is just a wrapper for other services.

According to one commentary:

Google has asked literacy groups around the world to upload video segments explaining and demonstrating their successful teaching programs. Among the first few hundred to be posted is a same-language subtitle projectFor an academic analysis of SLS, see Reading Out of the “Idiot Box”: Same-Language Subtitling on Television in India. from India that uses Bollywood films to teach reading.

A nonprofit group in New York called 826NYC is helping a group of six-to-nine-year-olds make a video tutorial for Google, while a set of older kids is filming a claymation short.