[A12n-forum] Re: Audio e-mail (NYTimes.com Article: "The Talking E-MailBlues")

["pam.mclean" <pam.mclean@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don has been providing food for thought with reference to alternatives to
written content - various video and audio options. At the OOCD Info Centre
in Ago-Are David and I are still playing with ideas and experimenting
regarding the needs of the community and preferred methods of communication.

People in Ago-Are are longing for email. This is including illiterate
people. They are already accustomed to use an intermediary when they want to
send a written message by hand or by post.

Regarding information content other than one to one message exchange, the
idea of using computers to find information is still very new to people.
Most local people seem to think only of email and word-processing when they
think of computers.

At the Info Centre David and I feel that if we want to offer information,
then video is likely to be the most appropriate medium initially. People are
fairly comfortable with the idea of TV for receiving new information -
though very few have TVs of their own. A TV and video player is the next bit
of equipment we will try to buy.

Don raises the point that searching audio files is much harder than
searching email files. Similarly the fast forward button is much more useful
as a way of searching for the bit you need on a video player than it is on
an audio cassette player. Given what people are comfortable with, and
convergent technologies, and the present lack of computers in Oke-Ogun,
David and I have been starting to turn our attention to explore the benefits
of information transferred to video tape, even if the video production has
to be quick and very simple, with unsophisticated production and editing and
quite a lot of simple titles and talking heads. We did some exploratory work
together when I was in Ago-Are recently, but  I don't know when we'll next
be able to push that forward in practice, as I'm back in England now,
'working at the day job', and David has his hands full with other priorities
at the Info Centre. I'd like to do a few simple experimental videos, some
dual language, some Yoruba, some English (to share with our Hausa speaking
partners who could then play around with their own dual language/Hausa
version if the wanted to).

In our minds we are not just thinking of linear video, but of the more
interactive ways digital video can be accessed - however for local
practicalities linear video seems more appropriate for now.

Pam



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