Brazilian Kids Learn English by Video Chatting With Elderly Americans

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/perfect-match-brazilian-kids-learn-english-video-chatting-lonely-elderly-americans-157523

by felipelalli • 12 years ago

176 30 12 years ago

joshmn• 12 years ago

Okay totally unrelated to the open-source stuff BUT.

That brought tears to my eyes. It was such a joy to see the expressions on the faces of both the Brazilian and the hip elderly person on the other side.

Bookmarked under "Things that will make you smile"

robmcm• 12 years ago

Someone could knock up an app using web RTC. A perfect opportunity for some hacker out there. Some hacker that reads HN.

The trick is avoiding it becoming the next chat roulette :/

alagu• 12 years ago

Honestly, I don't think building tech here is the hard part. It is finding the right audience (Elderly people & Kids who want to learn English)

karangoeluw• 12 years ago

That does what exactly? Video chatting?

avargas2• 12 years ago

no, pair you with someone to chat. Elderly people tend to be lonely, so they are a nice target. And students learning that language. This is genius.

ghayes• 12 years ago

Not sure about open source, but I would suggest checking out Verbling [0].

[0] https://www.verbling.com/

mahmud• 12 years ago

Why do you think that is a technical problem?

JTxt4• 12 years ago

Well, look for 'open source chatroulette clones' like https://code.google.com/p/camrumble/

jqm• 12 years ago

I vote this idea of the month and feel it should be greatly expanded upon.

If there were an organized platform where people could chat with speakers from all over the world in order to learn their language and culture it would be a fantastic thing.

glassdoor• 12 years ago

Is the name of the app pervert by any chance?

joshu• 12 years ago

http://www.ted.com/participate/ted-prize/prize-winning-wishe...

Someone else came up with the idea. "School in the cloud"

fuzzythinker• 12 years ago

Related, but I see them as being really different application and goals. "School in the cloud" is aimed at poor and remote places where kids can benefit from real time learning interactions (while the "teachers" do not seem to get much materialistic benefits).

This on the other hand, is geared toward helping anyone who wants to learn a new foreign language and connecting them to ones who do speak that language and they benefit from having someone who is willing to talk to them. So the goals, and users/usage are very different, aside from one is aim towards one to many, and the other more one on one.

JTxt4• 12 years ago

(EDIT: original title asked if there was something like this as open source.)

Nice. It's basicly a well managed chatroulette clone.

(EDIT: not quite, it also needs to record.)

Or try "web video conference server open source"

https://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/

http://bigbluebutton.org (can record too)

Greggman mentioned WEBrtc, that would probably be cleaner/simpler, but it's p2p right, so the server can't record? perhaps try https://www.webrtc-experiment.com/RecordRTC/ ?

mkesper• 12 years ago

In addition, the video session gets captured and evaluated afterwards.

JTxt4• 12 years ago

Good point, added bigbluebutton.org

pshin45• 12 years ago

As someone in another comment already pointed out, YC previously funded a company called "Verbling" (https://www.verbling.com) in their Summer 2011 batch whose original selling point was to provide an instant, one-click 1:1 pairing of language learners with native speakers via videochat.

I'm not sure how well that concept caught on though... And if you check out their website, they seem to have pivoted to a more traditional "livestreamed language classes" model.

greggman• 12 years ago

What part do you want to be open source? The software that runs the matchup? I think most browsers support WebRTC so that problem is mostly solved. People can use Facetime or Google+ Hangouts for free. So all that's needed is a way to meet people. I suppose pretty much any live chat for pr0n software would do the job as well.

I know there are other companies doing this. My friend is learning English through http://langrich.com which connects students of any age in Japan to people in cheap labor countries that speak English like the Philipeans for example.

felipelalli2• 12 years ago

No. Basically I want a site / service that can connects specifically elderly people with people trying to learn English. Actually don't have to be open source, neither free. I expressed bad myself, sorry.

JTxt4• 12 years ago

Oh, then it's much more of a management problem.

There's plenty of technical solutions already, you may just want a little glue with good ux design, fast internet, and good support staff, especially for the elderly.

In this example, someone setup a relationship between a retirement home and an English learning school. Outside of that, it would probably turn into a chatroulete.

efficientarch• 12 years ago

The title change of this submission means that many early comments now make no sense. Original title was something like "Ask HN: Is anything like this available as open source"

robobro• 12 years ago

Thanks, wouldn't have caught it otherwise.

To whoever changed it: why didn't you just make a second thread?

zvrba• 12 years ago

News like this just make my day better. It's much more rewarding to read about technology being used for tangible benefit to the people involved instead of for getting rich.

oska• 12 years ago

This isn't news, it's an ad for a language school. It's being displayed on a website devoted to showcasing advertising and all of the advertising production details are listed below the video.

So it's not underhand at all but it's also not an objective display of this program. It's an ad, designed to give you warm fuzzies and, if you're in the target demographic, consider signing up as a fee-paying student at the school featured.

As others have said in this thread, similar projects have been tried and have not really gained traction. Not saying that some such project may not eventually succeed but given that there is no objective data being given on the success of this program in the video, one should probably be somewhat sceptical that this is anything more than a marketing tool.

arfliw• 12 years ago

Watching the video is the closest I've ever come to crying from something I saw on the internet. Moving stuff.

personlurking• 12 years ago

There's a well-known problem in Brazil with English acquisition. This is due to the actual need for it (or rather lack of), the false "become fluent" promises by the language schools (like CNA, Fisk, Skill, Wizard, etc.), the cost of taking a course for the student, the methodology of said schools, and the lack of daily contact with people from other cultures in Brazil (tied to my first point).

As for the teacher, working in a school like the ones mentioned, you get low pay (not too many years ago it was about $7/hr) and no leeway in terms of hours and method. Being a private, one-on-one teacher, though, one can command higher prices ($30-50/hr in the largest cities) and have more control over everything (just not always whether the students keep their appointments).

Nonetheless, cool video in the link.

steamn• 12 years ago

Check out Lynckia a WebRTC framework( https://github.com/ging/licode ) it includes a MCU that allows recording and more...

mrcactu5• 12 years ago

this article is very sad. it's about elderly people who have noone to talk to, but also Brazil is poor country with a growing demand for having users speak English.

so this "chat-roulette clone" has a lot if impact.

amaral-herberth• 12 years ago

I'm a native Brazilian and I practice my english by writing texts that aren't meant to be published and talking to myself when I'm walking home. This could be an excellent alternative to improve my english. I'll certainly get in touch with CNA people in my hometown :-)

Brazilian Kids Learn English by Video Chatting With Elderly Americans

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