Some interesting thoughts here. A couple of months ago the NY Times had
a feature on voice e-mail (v-mail) entitled "The Talking E-Mail Blues."
Search their site <http://www.nytimes.com> or read part of it at
<http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/a12n-forum/msg00034.html>
with add'l comment re v-mail in the African context.
The various potential audio + image + text uses of ICT are really only
beginning to be explored. Perhaps societies with stronger "oral
traditions" will find different combinations than those of us from the
North would come up with...
Audio and text don't have to be an either/or choice in some
applications. Same language subtitling ("SLS"; rather like closed
captioning) could be added to video + audio web presentations, perhaps
as an option to be activated by a toggle key or click. SLS is used some
in film & TV in India as a literacy tool. I've heard suggestions of
using it with music videos of African artists for similar uses, or use
by students studying those languages. Such could be done via the web
also.
Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
"Pat Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This discussion line has taken a really interesting turn, moving towards
> the use of speech. Even though literacy rates are rising, writing and
> using keyboards and other input devices is still a barrier for maybe
> half the worlds population.
>
> I am not sure that Cliff had this in mind, but Vickram has a wonderful
> idea here for voice e-mail, not that difficult stuff of phoning somebody
> and leaving a 'voice-mail' message if they are not there, but the real
> thing, voice messages 'posted' through the Net.
>
> But how about going further than this, and having voice only web-sites,
> with technology available to help people who cannot read and write to
> compose their own websites and through that share their knowledge with
> others?
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