Learn Leap Fly: Using Python To Promote Global Literacy with Kjell Wooding

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January 21st, 2018

43 mins 7 secs

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About this Episode

Summary

Learning how to read is one of the most important steps in empowering someone to build a successful future. In developing nations, access to teachers and classrooms is not universally available so the Global Learning XPRIZE serves to incentivize the creation of technology that provides children with the tools necessary to teach themselves literacy. Kjell Wooding helped create Learn Leap Fly in order to participate in the competition and used Python and Kivy to build a platform for children to develop their reading skills in a fun and engaging environment. In this episode he discusses his experience participating in the XPRIZE competition, how he and his team built what is now Kasuku Stories, and how Python and its ecosystem helped make it possible.

Preface

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  • Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Kjell Wooding about Learn Leap Fly, a startup using Python on mobile devices to facilitate global learning

Interview

  • Introductions
  • How did you get introduced to Python?
  • Can you start by describing what Learn Leap Fly does and how the company got started?
  • What was your motivation for using Kivy as the primary technology for your mobile applications as opposed to the platform native toolkits or other multi-platform frameworks?
  • What are some of the pedagogical techniques that you have incorporated into the technological aspects of your mobile application and are there any that you were unable to translate to a purely technical implementation.
  • How do you measure the effectiveness of the work that you are doing?
  • How has the framework of the XPRIZE influenced the way in which you have approached the design and development of your work?
  • What have been some of the biggest challenges that you faced in the process of developing and deploying your submission for the XPRIZE?
  • What are some of the features that you have planned for future releases of your platform?

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The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA