เรียนจาก ⭕️ ถึง กข a learning aid

I have been mulling over a possible solution for Education System. I recall a good initiative project One Tablet Per Child (OTPC) 10 years ago. (The project failed and Thailand lost not only many billions Baht, but also the opportunities to develop children's education and software programmers. All due to short-sightedness and self-interest of a few.).

I recall my call for the Royal Institute Thai-Thai Dictionary to be made available on tablets, phones and computers also 10 years ago (See *NB 5). This was somewhat successful with the Royal Society BE 2554 app. But to-date the number of downloads is just over 500K, out of some 70M population and 13M students (as at 2020), the usage is low. But there are a good number of 'Thai Dictionary' apps available now. Most of these have much friendly interface. This shows that more attention to proper use of Thai language is on the rise.

*NB 1. 
Another world class project of 10 years ago - One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) had also failed. Experts say this project failed because much effort was put into cutting the cost of hardware down to USD100. Then it was an incredible feat. But the result was a digital device that was crippled from production lines. Much more effort from software developers was needed to make it work. (Thailand's OTPC hardware was under similar cost pressure. Effort to equip the tablets was a later thought. App competition was abandoned. The hardware was deemed non-reusable.)

*NB 2. 
Today (2023) the hardware are much smaller and 100 ways more useful. Nearly everyone from age 3 to over 70 owns a phone and/or a tablet. There are more digital devices than the world (8 billion) population and new or advanced models are being produced. This means excess hardware are abundantly available. Only software effort is needed to provide useful digital educational tools for children. There is also abundance of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that may be tailored to work on the excess but very powerful hardware.

Why project กข?
A private study (with progress made public, see the "เรียนจาก ⭕️..." series of posts on Gotoknow) lead me to characterize children as amazing intelligent learning beings. Their learning skills are hindered by systems that purpose to serve them. Many teachers and educators are trying to change the situation. But so far they are local and piecewise which create equality issues. The early childhood support - by laws under local governments, is seemingly more rorted than improving children learning condition. With COVID-19 restrictions and family income slumps, children are  firstly and greatly impacted. Issues of Equality and Access to learning facilities become our focus, our urgency, and reason to come into existence.

We cannot ignore investment for the future, lest we want no future.

Why free? and FOSS?

There is a saying that the greatest gift is a gift of knowledge. We give as a way of merit and useful life. We cannot take any material thing with us. We can only live on in memory. And so on reasons. But it is a great way to reach 'Equality' for learning. FOSS allows it to double the learning loops. Anyone can improve the 'Quality' of gifts and give for oneself. FOSS can help to grow givers and givings and to develop receivers into givers and givings. Let us live a happy world.

*NB 3. 
Project กข (from old เรียนกอขอ or เรียนก้อข้อ meaning study or learn) aims to provide equality as well as diversity for learning children. HTML (with CSS and Javascript) on 'browsers' (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari,...) has been chosen for the ability to work across the range of hardware devices, time and places. Though, there are differences in capabilities of different browsers, there is a single (international) standard set of features all browsers strive to comply. The project is set to observe 'copyright' (intellectual property) vigorously. All codes, images, audios and videos == all must have public access granted ==.

Digital Learning Aid กข

Ten (10) years is a long time in life and in learning. Digitization has increased more than 10-folds. Dependency on digital information and digital tools has also increased --thanks to mobile phones. Development of digital infrastructure has gone through many 'generations'. Digital media and devices are now facts and necessities of life. The current situation offer a much better chance of success (than OTPC and OLPC). But considerable work on software and learning activities are still needed. A few more years is needed to collect and to develop 'learning activities'. A fair amount of money is also needed to cover the costs outside 'voluntary work'. We need your help and support even to get this project off its incubating nest.

อ่าน กข screen showing coloring aid and reading aid

 

I ask you now if you can go to  https://sr12zar.github.io/KoKho/  (all devices with Internet connection - smart TVs too) to try out a few learning activities and let me know what you think. (I apologize for my English. My Thai typing takes forever and a day on English only keyboard and 11 inch screen.) Perhaps you can help make them Thai. You can download the source code .zip file from  https://github.com/sr12zar/KoKho – it's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)--, decompress/deflat/extract to a folder KoKho on your device. Then you can try it 'offline' (without Internet connection): 

- on computers: go to the folder and open index.html with a browser of your choice

- on phones and tablets: open a browser of your choice, enter into the address line
   file:// 
 and navigate through internal [storage], Downloads, to Kokho folder and index.html (You will need to zoom in to read the display of folder and content.) This is needed only for the very first time. The browser will remember this navigated address, so next time you only need to type file:// (or even just 'f' and then select from the list of urls your browser suggests.

*NB 4. 

for Google Chrome browser (on Android phones and tablets) enter
   file://sdcard
even when you don't have any sdcard inserted.

So how about it?
Will you join project กข?
- help in calling for more support? Share this post and link
- help in testing and developing more content and learning activities?
- help in other ways you can?

We can bring about a better learning outcome for our children. The prize and award of better society outweigh our discomfort.

*NB 5. a previous journey
พจนานุกรม ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน พ.ศ. 2554 https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/603991  25/03/2016
ชวนราชบัณฑิตขึ้นแท็บเล็ตสอนเด็ก(อีก) https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/56130  10/02/2014
พจนานุกรมไทย อีกครั้ง https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/555500  6/12/2013
พจนานุกรมไทย ราชบัณฑิตยสถาน ฉบับแท็บเล็ต  http://www.gotoknow.org/posts/548182  13/09/2013 
พจนานุกรมภาษาไทย ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๒ https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/567628 
คำไทย ยอดนิยม https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/554655 
แท็บเล็ต ป๑ ๑ปีแล้ว(ยังไม่)ไปถึงไหน http://www.gotoknow.org/posts/536499  20/05/2013 
ตัวอย่าง พจนานุกรมไทย สำหรับแท็บเล็ต ป.๑/ม.๑ https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/534284  29/04/2013 
(ร่าง)จดหมาย ชวนราชบัณฑิต ขึ้นแท็บเล็ตสอนเด็ก ฟรี  http://www.gotoknow.org/posts/533640   23/04/2013 
อยากชวนราชบัณฑิต ๆ ขึ้นแทบเลต สอนเด็ก http://www.gotoknow.org/posts/533209  18/04/2013 

*NB 6.
I have converted a พจนานุกรมพุทธศาสตร์ ฉบับประมวลศัพท์ authored by พระพรหมคุณาภรณ์ (ป.อ. ปยุตฺโต) วัดญาณเวศกวัน [Phra Brahmabunabhorn (P. A. Payutto) Wat Nyanavesakavan Thailand] to Stardict format (for use offline on Linux, MacOS and Windows, Android tablets and phones) and have a permission to distribute it. You can have a copy free. See
อนุโมทนา http://www.gotoknow.org/posts/554487 

*NB 7. Family Nest: Royal Society app for early access (childhood?) is available on Play store, apparently with western flavored characters and clothing. It's on my list to try, among others including several on Ubuntu Education and Sugar (suite of software for OLPC), for possible links into กข (KoKho).