One Laptop Per Child News

English summary at the end of the article

En septiembre del año pasado publicamos un artículo sobre los planes de la Fundación Quirós Tanzi para lanzar un proyecto de OLPC en Costa Rica. Esta semana me alegré mucho cuando leí la noticia que la entrega de los primeros XO a más que 1500 niños estaba por empezar:

Este Lunes 20 de Enero estaremos haciendo entrega de las primeras 21 XO en la escuela Jorge Rossi de Santa Teresita de Turrialba. Este será un momento que definitivamente cambiará la vida de estos niños. Durante esta semana completaremos entregas adicionales en 15 escuelas de Santa Teresita, Río Cuarto de Grecia, San Isidro de Alajuela, Curridabt de Curridabat y San Rafael de la Unión. Este Jueves, 1518 niños tendrán su computadora.

Daniel Castro (Director Ejecutivo de la Fundación Quirós Tanzi) nos comentó que 12 de las escuelas se encuentran en zonas rurales y 3 en zonas urbanas. Además la implementación es 1:1 de primer a sexto grado de estas 15 escuelas y los niños podrán llevarse a casa las computadoras.

Como ya había mencionado en mi artículo anterior me gustó mucho que ya desde el inicio el equipo parecía tener un enfoque amplio en cuanto a la implementación del proyecto:

Muchas veces nos han preguntado que sigue ahora, después de entregar estas 1518 XO. Ahora es que empieza verdaderamente Conectándonos, que pasa de ser un proyecto a una realidad. Nuestro departamento educativo estará trabajando incansablemente con niños, docentes y directores para que aprovechen al máximo esta tecnología. Nuestro departamento técnico estará asegurando que cada escuela cuente con Internet, que los equipos se mantengan funcionando, y que la seguridad de los niños sea resguardada.

En total esto parece ser un lanzamiento muy sólido y ya no puedo esperar para aprender más sobre cómo se desarrolla el proyecto en Costa Rica durante los próximos meses y años.

English summary: Back in September 2011 we published an article about the preparations for an OLPC project to launch in Costa Rica early this year. As such I was very happy when I found out that the first 1500 or so children in a total of 15 schools are receiving their XOs this week. Fundación Quirós Tanzi which runs the project also seems to have a good approach in areas such as supporting the teachers and setting up the necessary Internet infrastructure. I therefore can't wait to see how this project develops over the coming months and years.

Resumen en español al final del artículo

At the recent Solve for X forum Nicholas Negroponte gave a 15min presentation with the title Learning by Yourselves. Since a number of other olpc aficionados had recommended watching it on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter I also decided to go for it. And I certainly didn't regret it as Negroponte spent surprisingly little time talking about OLPC itself and instead focused on more of a mid-term perspective.

In many ways what seemed to be the core message for me was summed up on this slide about 5 minutes into the presentation:

Having heard plenty of talk of the first three points in the past I was most interested in hearing what Negroponte had in mind with regard to the "New Constructionism". Unfortunately most of what was said doesn't really strike me as new at all.

The one thing which was quite interesting is the aspect of "Learning to Read by Yourself" which very much ties in with Negroponte's much discussed helicopter deployments which saw its first pre-pilots being launched earlier this year.

He shared that the first 30 tablets with several thousand books on them had been distributed. Not too many other details were revealed and while Negroponte mentioned that "they read themselves" it's not quite clear for example what language these books are in. What is really exciting however is that he mentions a rigorous evaluation of these efforts and working with critics which I believe should make for some interesting results and discussions down the road.

Overall I think the presentation is well worth watching. What is however striking for me is how in some sense Negroponte's focus has become quite different to what the organization OLPC, and in particular OLPC Association, are working on. While Negroponte talks about 1 billion tablets by 2015 the currently ongoing Hult Case Challenge asks the participating student team to come up with a way for OLPC to "get 10 million laptops to children in 5 years".

Resumen en español:

Resumen en español al final del artículo

Powering education in remote Papua New Guinea

(Editor's note: This is second part of David Leeming's overview of how the DC Power Share us used at the OLPC project on Papua New Guinea.)

The teachers in our project schools in PNG were initially a bit sceptical about the systems. However, on a recent visit to some of the schools, where some have been using the system for well over a year, we found that the practicality and reliability of the system has largely won them over. Compared with providing AC power to a class of 40 7-year olds, the DC system has far less impact on a teacher's blood pressure and once the students are organised result in minimal addition to their workload - a key enabling factor that encourages maximum use of the technology.

Teacher's server training at Tekin, Oksapmin, PNG

The 15W panels produced by Goldpeak have as an option additional regulators built in, to counter some voltage oscillations that were observed in some circumstances. The 60W output from four panels seems to be sufficient on a bright day to run sets of four XOs all day, leaving them with a good amount of charge. On cloudy days you can run fewer XOs per DC Share system, and we found that even on a quite gloomy day four panels could keep a single XO going. The teacher can work with one XO per 4 students and still benefit from the technology.

I don't have any hard data but the teachers who have been using this system at Jim Taylor School for 18 months told us they have managed very well. The school is situated at Kisap in the Wahgi Valley of central PNG, and has an average highlands climate - sun and showers mostly, with variations either way. Certainly, there is very little sign of any of wear and tear - none of the thin film solar panels have failed, there is no sign of de-lamination or significant wear and tear.

Laptops powered by DC share in use

At this school they have adopted a variation on the OLPC principle of ownership in that the schools are guardians of the students laptops, as they and their board, who represent the community, have judged that it is a high risk area and allowing children to take the laptops home every day would be unwise. Also contributing to this decision is the fact that the homes do not have power in that area.

The downside of such a policy is that the amount of time the students use the laptops is controlled - and limited - and a lot more teacher training input is required to empower them, so that they are confident to plan for and manage the technology in class, with extra free time for students to use the laptops out of class. In response to this issue, the partners of the PNG SDP programme have been talking with OLPC Australia about the possibility to extend their XO-Certified distance training scheme to teacher at the PNG schools.

Another simple ploy is to build storage space in each classroom, so that there is as little extra workload for teachers in setting up and managing the power supply technology. Several of the PNG schools have built lockable storage cabinets, and organise the students to set the systems up in the mornings and replace them at the end of the day. Simple strategies like this can make a lot of difference.

Server resources being accessed in a class activity

The servers at the schools, which all have campus-wide wireless networks and XS school servers loaded with open educational resources (and increasingly) some curriculum resources from PNG and from regional organisations. These are powered by integrated kits by Sundaya, an Indonesian manufacturer. They are designed for rural lighting and the integrated design with battery, regulator and DC-only distribution with proprietary connectors makes it difficult to misuse them as described above. We modified them to power the server machines, which are fanless mini-PCs consuming less than 16W of power, and access points with PoE. These are also bearing up very well - at Kisap the server and wireless infrastructure operated 18 months with no servicing, continuously.

The PNG schools are currently using the XO-1. The systems should perform even better with the later versions, especially the XO 3.0 with their reduced power consumption.

David Leeming is an ICTD activist from the Solomon Islands

Resumen en español: Esta es la segunda parte del artículo de David Leeming sobre el uso del DC Share en el proyecto de OLPC en Papúa Nueva Guinea. Explica como los maestros y alumnos estan usando el sistema y da una impresión más amplia del proyecto allí.

Force measurements with an XO

• Construir un pulsógrafo con XO
• Física con XO: Sensor Resistivo de Fuerza
• Measuring a Lemon Battery with an OLPC XO Laptop
• A Game Built Around Turtle Art and Some Wires
• Controlling LEGO WeDo robots via Scratch on an XO laptop
• Project Butía turns your XO laptop into a robot!
• Uruguayan Pupils Using Butiá Robots at sumo.uy 2011 Event

The XO laptops, specially designed for primary school children, will be provided by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), with $245,000 in support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

In Germany a group of dedicated organizations have teamed up to introduce 100 of these laptops for three classes at the St. Jacob School in Rwanda. The Stuttgart-based Care for Kids e. V. has taken the initiative and took over the project management, the Hamburg-based OLPC Germany e. V. has organized the procurement of the laptops, the Stuttgart-based WCE (Germany) e. V. took over the IT implementation tasks, and the Hechingen-based Children need Peace e. V. organized the activities at the school and the children's village in Rwanda. All organizations and members also strongly contributed in funding through donations.

"Family picture" after handover of the laptops and the responsibility to the school

• The move to a tablet device for OLPC
• The relationship between device design and learning
• The OLPC model and the Sugar operating system