Animated Educational Videos Promote Learning Among Farmers

There are up to one billion people with low literacy globally, many of whom live in rural areas and only speak their region’s local language. In Africa alone, there are an estimated 2000 local languages. Researchers are exploring new ways to make knowledge accessible to isolated communities that only speak local languages. One approach involves the use of animated educational videos, which can be dubbed in any language and can be shared in rural communities. In a study conducted in Benin, Dr Julia Bello-Bravo of Purdue University compared the effectiveness of animated educational videos to traditional presentations. This work was performed in collaboration with Benin’s International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. Dr Bello-Bravo’s team found that, not only did participants prefer videos, they actually learned more from them too.