(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
From VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report.
More than 100 million people in Nigeria are not connected to the Internet. There are only a few networks that offer service and it is costly and undependable. Now, a new project provides a resource for off-line viewing at no cost.
A non-profit organization called The WiderNet Project has developed the offline eGranary Digital Library. The service puts millions of digital documents, multimedia work and websites onto a server. The information is then available to students, medical workers, and researchers at no cost, whether there is Internet or not.
Users can access informative websites that eGranary updates every day such as Wikipedia, Khan Academy, Project Gutenberg, MIT OpenCourseWare, and MIT BLOSSOMS (which is Math and Science video lessons for high school students). Other resources on the service include university and medical publications, computer software, and educational games.
Ahmadu Bello University is the largest university in Nigeria and the second largest in Africa. The university uses eGranary's digital educational resources. Kasa Mathias is head of the school's database department. He says students can access tens of thousands of educational materials without much problem.
"We give them background information on the available databases that they can use for their research work, their assignments, especially projects, and sometimes we will carry them through sensitizing on new databases that are available for them."
Ibitoye Idowu is a first-year student of archeology. He says easy access to university reading material, documents and journals has greatly helped his studying process. He says that in some cases, he understands the digital materials better than class lectures.
Students now have great reading material, but only when there is electric power. It often fails. (Sound of assistant apologizing for power outage) Student Ibitoye Idowu says those moments are difficult.
"The only challenge I am having here is the power supply, sometimes it will just go off."
Muhammed Mu'azu leads the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Professor Mu'azu says the university has spent a large amount of money on access to information. He says, now, it is available for 40,000 students and teachers.
"With or without Internet access students and staff have most of these educational databases and university has also invested a lot in Internet access so even for online materials they are readily available for staff and students anywhere you are in the university campus."
There are fears that students may waste time on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter instead of spending it on school work. Professor Mu'azu says the university needs to be careful about placing restrictions on usage. But he said it will investigate what a user is accessing if a large amount of bandwidth is used.
Muhammed Mu'azu compares the speed of the offline service to access over the Internet. The eGranary server can download hundreds of pages in less than 15 minutes. In the past, a 10-page document would take hours to download.
The offline digital library began in 2001. Hundreds of schools, clinics and universities are connected to it in Africa, Southeast Asia and many other places.
WiderNet says it aims to expand to thousands more education and health centers around the world.
McKinsey & Company is a private international management consulting business. It released a report in 2014 that said 4.4 billion people around the world lack Internet access. And, it said most of them live in just 20 countries.
For the VOA Learning English Education Report, I'm Jill Robbins.
词汇解释
1.informative adj. 教育性的，有益的；情报的；见闻广博的
Both men termed the meeting friendly and informative.
他们两人都称这次会晤亲切友好，使双方增进了解。
2.assignment n. 分配；任务；作业；功课
The assessment for the course involves written assignments and practical tests.
这门课程的评估包括各种书面作业和实践测试。
3.archeology n. 考古学（等于archaeology）
He has been studying archeology these thirty years.
他这三十年来一直在研究考古学。
4.bandwidth n. [电子][物] 带宽；[通信] 频带宽度
To cope with this amount of data, the system will need a bandwidth of around 100mhz.
要处理这样的数据量，这个系统将需要约100兆赫兹的带宽。
内容解析
1.and sometimes we will carry them through sensitizing on new databases that are available for them.
carry through 贯彻；完成；坚持下去；(常指不顾困难) 完成
We don't have the confidence that the U.N. will carry through a sustained programme.
我们没有信心的是，联合国能否将该项目长期坚持下去。
Only his courage carried him through his illness.
他完全是靠勇气渡过了疾病这一关。
2."The only challenge I am having here is the power supply, sometimes it will just go off."
go off 离开；进行；变质；睡去；(水电等)被切断；(煤气等)用完；爆炸；(枪炮等)被发射；突然发出响声；(疼痛)消失；(药物)失效；死亡
I've got rather a headache, but it will probably go off when I've had a rest.
我头痛得很，但休息一会儿后，头痛可能会消失。
The power went off during the high wind.
起大风时，电被切断。
参考译文
这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。
尼日利亚有超过一亿人无法上网，只有少数网络能提供服务，而且成本高且不稳定。现在，一个新项目提供了免费离线观看的资源。
一家名为The WiderNet Project的非盈利组织开发了eGranary离线数字图书馆，这种服务将数百万数字文档、多媒体作品和网站上传到服务器，然后学生、医疗工作者和研究人员就可以免费获取这些信息，无论是否能连上网。
用户可以登陆eGranary每天更新的信息网站，比如维基百科、可汗学院、古腾堡计划和麻省理工学院的BLOSSOMS项目，后者为高中生提供数学和科学视频。提供的其他资源报道大学和医疗出版物、电脑软件和教育游戏。
艾哈迈杜·贝罗大学是尼日利亚最大的大学，也是非洲第二大的大学，该大学使用eGranary的数字教育资源。卡萨·马蒂亚斯是该校数据部负责人，他说学生们可以轻易地获取成千上万种教育资料。
“我们给他们提供可用数据的背景资料，可以用于研究工作、课后作业，尤其是科研项目，有时我们会帮助他们激活可用新数据。”
埃杜瓦是考古专业大一学生，他说，获得大学阅读材料、文件和期刊的便捷性极大地帮助了他的学习过程，他说在有些情况下，他对数字资料的理解超过了对课堂讲课的理解。
学生们现在可以获得大量阅读材料，但必须是在有电时，但是经常停电，埃杜瓦说这个时候就比较困难。
“我在这里唯一的麻烦就是电力供应，有时会停电。”
Muhammed Mu'azu是电子与计算机工程系负责人，Mu'azu教授说该大学在获取信息上投入了大量资金。他说现在4万名学生和教师可以获得这些信息。
“不管有没有互联网，学生和教师们都可以获得大部分教育数据，大学还投入大量资金接入互联网，所以即便是网上的资料，教师和学生们在校园的任何地方都是可以得到的。”
有人担心学生们可能会在脸书和推特等社交媒体上浪费时间，而不是用来学习。Mu'azu教授说大学需要在互联网使用限制上谨慎小心，但他说，如果有大量宽带被占用，大学就可以调查用户在访问什么内容。
Mu'azu比较了离线服务与互联网接入速度的差别，eGranary服务器可以在不到15分钟内下载数百页文档，而在过去则需要数小时才能下载。
这个离线数字图书馆项目开始于2001年，在非洲、东南亚和很多地方，有数百所学校、诊所和大学都能连接上该图书馆。
WiderNet称希望该图书馆能推广到全世界更多教育和医疗中心。
麦肯锡公司是一家私营国际管理咨询公司，该公司2014年发布报告，称全世界有44亿人口无法上网，称其中大多数人生活在20个国家。
这就是美国之音慢速英语教育报道，我是吉尔·鲁宾斯。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
