I am working with the Government of Mongolia to develop and deploy a Mongolian version of the International Children's Digital Library. I have travelled there twice. First, to set up a public ICDL server in Ullan Baatar, and then to set up some local servers in rural schools. Now we are working with the One Laptop Per Child project to provide access to the ICDL in their pilot schools in Mongolia. The following essays describes my work in Mongolia.
No Hotel, Tent: The International Children’s Digital Library Goes to Mongolia - June, 2006
I am sitting in a room with 35 people. We are launching the Mongolia READ project – Rural Education and Development, funded by a grant from the World Bank. The room is in a camp of 10 “gers” (similar to “yurts” found in other countries) an hour drive from Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. The story of how I got here started several years ago...
No Road, Drive: The ICDL Goes to the Mongolian Countryside - Nov, 2007
In June 2006, I brought the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) to Mongolia by installing a server in the capital that offers www.read.mn, a Mongolian version of the ICDL. This time, in November 2007, I traveled to Mongolia with graduate student Sheri Massey to bring the ICDL to the Mongolian countryside. To understand why we would do such a strange sounding thing, we must first take a quick peek at Mongolian education and children’s books...