One Laptop Per Child News on Countries

The Unofficial One Laptop Per Child India Pilot Experience

Posted on May 09, 2008 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Education, Countries: India

After working with science students in the US, a few of us got together and decided that the XO laptops could be used for a lot more good than the various national governments currently allow, so we decided to try our hand at an unofficial OLPC deployment! Our focus was to try and use the XO as a learning tool for the subject of science, for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at a small grammar school in India.

Expanding access to inquiring minds

We started our academic year two weeks ago here in Meerut, India. The 6th, 7th, and 8th graders have been using the XO laptops about half of the class days, alternating with hands-on experiments and required, standardized textbooks.

As there is no state certified content for the laptops, we feel that this "bridging the gap" effort has added merit as compared with a strict XO laptop regiment. Currently, the students are studying various levels of electricity and magnetism.

We're trying to gather as many data points as possible for the OLPC community. We aim to present the findings and unique perspectives generated by this opportunity with larger bodies of educators. By sharing results (and content) with first through third-world organizations, we can fill the gap left between the official OLPC deployments, and those first world individuals with a laptop.

In this way, the XOs can be leveraged by a much larger number of students worldwide: home-schooled students worldwide, G1G1 children, and other schools with a computer to student ratio of less than 1:1. Specifically, we are already understanding and overcoming challenges faced by unofficial deployments of the OLPC learning platform where there is limited support, both in terms of OLPC training for teachers and for the laptops themselves.

Currently we have 5 XO laptops from US donors of the G1G1 program. As there are between 8 and 12 students in the classes that use these laptops, we could use a few more. We have already noted a definite, quantifiable difference in the effectiveness of the laptop when a student has his or her "own" XO laptop vs. sharing with 1 or 2 students, even within class period time limits.

We're definitely interested in acquiring a few more laptops. Because our XO-compliant curriculum is already underway, any XO donated can make a huge difference in our program! Each XO means that two students get to use their own laptop as a learning tool or science experiment setup! If you do have a G1G1 laptop, please consider letting a student learn on it!

Holden Bonwit reminds you that you can still develop code without the XO laptop itself, by emulating the XO.

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An OLPC India Request for Anthony Charity

Posted on February 24, 2008 by Guest Writer in Countries: India

I am Marc Valentin and I saw the Waveplace Foundation call for help getting some more donated XO laptops for their project in Haiti and thought of our own project.

Indian kids ♥ XO laptops

We are a Belgian NGO, Anthony Charity, and we have a school project in a remote place in north India. Nobody cares about educating the children in the villages in India, that is why we are there. We have 525 students already and we get 125 more each year.

The school is called "St-Anthony School". We cannot afford to invest in 100 XO (the minimum number proposed by OLPC). That is why, recently we purchased some XO on Ebay (nine). Five have already reached the school as you can see on the pictures, the remaining ones will reach next week. We have an address in the USA in Florida where we collect the laptops, they are sent together in one package from there to India with DHL.

I will go to India personally tomorrow to see what can be the best use of these laptops, I will stay for one month. I would appreciate, if we could call for help for donated XO laptops like the Waveplace Foundation did recently on OLPC News.

In India, children are 40 to 50 in one class, certainly 9 XO will not be enough and we will have to find some solution. Of course, after my stay in India, I will make some report about my experience and propose some summary for you to be published on OLPC News as well.

Our organization is an official non-profit organization recognized by the Belgian government. We have a website though the english content is not "up to date" but if will update it soon.

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One Laptop Per South Asian Child Expansion

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Countries: India

XO laptops for inquiring minds

Late last year, we all felt the warm and fuzzy feelings of accomplishment when OLPC launched its One Laptop Per Khairat Child in India, countering the previous "pedagogically suspect" criticism by Indian education ministers.

This year, OLPC is expanding its presence in South Asia with an expansion in India itself and the promise of One Laptop Per Sri Lankan Child in two new initiatives. First, the Economic Times of India reports that through One Laptop Per Child:

The project, which aims to provide digitally-enabled education through the use of low-cost laptops to children in developing countries, will see its first deployment in Maharashtra.

About 500 XO laptops, as the laptops are called, would arrive in February for deployment in various schools in the state. The laptops have been localised and come with the keyboard in Devanagari.

But that is just the start of an Indian revolution in childhood education. The government of India is embracing a computer saturation model that is exactly one half the dream of 1:1 computing, according to The Telegraph:

“Our target is to have one computer - a PC - for every two school-going children by the end of the eleventh Five Year Plan. We will start with government schools, which need the assistance the most,” a senior official at the ministry of human resource development told The Telegraph.

A National Policy on ICT in Education is being drafted, which for the first time will provide a synchronised plan of action in making computers - and the Internet, in particular - available to all children. The policy will focus on getting private players to build school computer labs which the companies will own and offer as a paid service, before transferring ownership to the school or the government.

While the Indian government is focused on half-solutions, its much smaller rival, Sri Lanka, is thinking much bigger.

Matt Keller of OLPC

According to the The Sunday Times FT interview of Matt Keller, Director OLPC Europe, Middle East and Asia, the World Bank has stepped into fund a pilot project to introduce laptops as an educational tool in nine provinces in the island through a OLPC Lanka Foundation.

This would be shocking news to me, having heard that the World Bank is adamantly opposed to funding OLPC activity before there are objective results proving that laptop purchases are more effective than better teacher training.

Regardless, I do salute Matt's optimism that OLPC Lanka Foundation would overcome the logistical challenges of importing XO laptops duty-free. From my experiences with Sri Lankan customs police, that alone would be a stunning success worthy of a One Duty-Free Laptop Per Child award.

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OLPC India's XO Laptop Cow Power Dynamo

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: India, Hardware: Power Supply

Arjun Sarwal has just made a short video about his Cow Power Dynamo to generate electricity for the Khairat village school pilot of OLPC India.

Before you think of the easy bovine humor, realize that Arjun is applying a very innovative solution to the shocking electrical power costs in the developing world. Rather than relying on a gasoline generator that would lead to recurring petrol/diesel costs for the villagers, he looked at locally-available and relevant power generation solutions that minimized reoccurring costs:

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Peace In Our Time Between OLPC and Intel?

Posted on November 30, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Countries: India, Sales Talk: Intel

Can't we all just get along?

ICT4Dev expert Cheri Voisine has just found an interesting paragraph in an Economic Times article about One Laptop Per Child's tumulus relationship with Intel Corporation:

Intel, which has its own low-cost laptops called Classmate PC, became an OLPC member in July this year. Consequently, a clear demarcation has been agreed upon by OLPC and Intel, according to which the XO laptop will cater to students in class I-VI while Intel’s Classmate PC will cater to students in the classes above that.

Could this be the way Nichols Negroponte plans to create peace with OLPC? Divide-up the educational laptop market in India with Intel.

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All Education and Educational Decisions are Local, Not Federal

Posted on November 27, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Education, Countries: India, Countries: Nigeria, Countries: Peru, Commentary: Press

Yesterday's Boston Globe had an telling juxtaposition of Iqbal Quadir of the wildly successful GrameenPhone and Nicholas Negroponte of the wildly publicized One Laptop Per Child. Like last week's WSJ article, Negroponte again came off looking the fool. Why? Because he ignored local user groups in favor of dealing with governments - federal governments. Now let's have Iqbal Quadir give the money quote on why GrameenPhone is a success and OLPC isn't:

"I have learned from history that actually, the countries that are developed, where governments behave and serve the public, are those where the citizens have empowered themselves through technologies and business,"

So let us take a tour of XO laptop users where citizens have empowered themselves through technologies, through education, to form more holistic communities. First up, a news report on OLPC Peru's Una computadora por niño program in Institución Educativa Santiago Apostol de Arahuay

.

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One XO Laptop Chronicle Per Khairat School Child

Posted on November 01, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Education, Countries: India

OLPC India pilot participants

The OLPC India pilot has its first write-up by Carla Gomez Monroy and besides being the longest report from her to date, its also one of the most comprehensive. She has detailed multiple aspects of the One Laptop Per Child implementation in the Khairat-Dhangarwada village school, Raigadh district, Maharashtra state, India.

Unlike OLPC Nigeria, where the poor children of Galadima school are juxtaposed with the wealthy Abuja Model City, Khairat is far off any major road and can only be reached by a footpath. In fact, the history of school itself displays the overwhelming obstacles to providing primary education in rural India

:Khairat school is a one-room schoolhouse. The land to build it was donated by a villager, who is extremely happy with the idea of having the children of the town educated. I was told that she used to go and help the construction workers with the building of the school.

She also came to help organize the digging of the hole for grounding the server. The building itself was sponsored by a villager who has a lot of land in the area. He also supports, on a continual basis, with other items the school needs.

Note that the school is a community, not government, supported resource. This situation is not unique to India or to the developing world, and one of the major obstacles to a government supported OLPC implementation. How can XO's be passed out like schoolbooks when many governments don't even sponsor local schools, much less distribute textbooks to them?

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OLPC India: A Twenty-Two Laptop Pilot in Khairat

Posted on October 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: India, Implementation: Plan, Commentary: Press

A year ago, One Laptop Per Child was lambasted by India's Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee who called Nicholas Negroponte's idea of Constructionist learning through XO laptops "pedagogically suspect."

Now I suspect that a portion of that rejection was due to the MIT India backstory and India's own laptop fantasies. But not matter the reason, India has been a sore spot for OLPC. As Nicholas Negroponte says:

India has more child population than any other country and will benefit greatly from a creative society of them. India needs to take a role of world leadership in the concept of one laptop per child, even if it is ahead of its time and seemingly daunting.

And yet it has a massive education problem. A problem that OLPC now hopes to solve using an alliance with Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) to provide logistics to the OLPC's India initiative:

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Build Schools or Buy OLPC XO Laptops?

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Guest Writer in Countries: China, Sales Talk: Countries, Use Cases: Education, Countries: India

An OLPC computer lab in Thailand

Roland, from Switzerland

I think that the discussion to build schools or buy OLP XO laptops was initiated by the officials of India, China and of other countries turning down OLPC. What concerns me is that the opinions of subsequent discussions were on both sides rather superficial.

Even though I am also not knowledgeable about education in developing countries I would like to take up this discussion again hoping for better informed and more differentiating opinions on the Children's Machine XO.

I think it is necessary to distinguish different groups of countries with different situations of their education systems:

countries where the majority of kids have no access to schools because there are by far not enough of them.
countries where some (urban?) regions have almost sufficient number of schools (maybe with bad quality of education due to lack of teachers or lack of school material) and some other (rural?) regions have absolutely insufficient number of schools resulting in almost no education.
countries with sufficient number of schools almost everywhere but insufficient quality of education due to lack of teachers or school material.
countries with sufficient quality of general education everywhere but lacking computer education.

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Other Technologies Appropriate for Children's Education

Posted on March 08, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Commentary: Academia, Use Cases: Education, Countries: India

While we geeks all too-easily get wrapped up techno-lusting after the laptop part of One Laptop Per Child, every so often Nicholas Negroponte reminds us:

This project is about learning, not about laptops. And that is perhaps the hardest thing I have when I travel around the world bragging because all too long people think that this organization is selling laptops and we are indeed distributing a huge number of laptops, but the purpose is education.

Yet, if the goal is education, might there be more effective alternatives for the $30 Billion dollars OLPC wants to spend on OLPC XO laptops? Technological alternatives, even.

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Reality Checking OLPC's Mapping

Posted on October 26, 2006 by David in Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: India, Countries: Nigeria, Countries: Thailand

Last week, OLPC updated their OLPC Country Map causing a number of the countries on it to change colour. Some of these changes appear rather surprising to me. It seems wildly optimistic on the part of OLPC to presume that some of these countries, such as Ethiopia and DRC could be involved at such an early stage, given the political situation they find themselves in. Moreover, the map colouring, in its current form, doesn't reflect facts on the ground:

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India to Attempt $10 Laptop Per Child

Posted on September 26, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Countries: India

In what seems to be a moment of hubris, the Indian Human Resource Development Ministry, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science met last week to devise a roadmap for a direct challenge to the One Laptop Per Child program - an Rs 450 ($10) laptop.

That's right, $10. Or $128 dollars less than the One Laptop Per Child's 2B1 Children's Machine continuously revised price point of ~~$100~~ $138 dollar per laptop. Regardless, the OLPC 2B1 is still the leading realistic low-cost option for at least it has a working prototype screen, developer boards, and software.

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OLPC Country Orders Update from Negroponte

Posted on August 18, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Argentina, Countries: Brazil, Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: India, People: Negroponte, Countries: Nigeria, Countries: Thailand

Buried at the end of the "A Crusade to Connect Children," BusinessWeek article are telling quotes by Nicholas Negroponte on the status of One Laptop Per Child computer orders. First off, he explains why India just said no with this interesting passage from the article:

[T]he Indian setback is the result of "an orchestrated campaign by small interests" in some parts of the country. "We are not sure of why this occurred." [says Negroponte] He does have some theories, though, for the overall opposition that OLPC is encountering. "Considerable disinformation is coming from communities that do not want to see Linux on the desktop. There are also laptop interests that see us as competition," [Negroponte] points out.

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Mary Lou Jepsen on BBC News Digital Planet

Posted on August 16, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Internet: Access, Software: Applications, Countries: China, Countries: India, People: Leadership, Software: Operating System, Hardware: Production, Hardware: Wireless

Did you know that the One Laptop Per Child leadership believes that the OLPC laptop (CM1, maybe) is:

"not a cost reduced version of today's laptop, it's an entirely new approach to laptops"?

In her interview with BBC News' Digital Planet, One Laptop Per Child, Chief Technical Officer, Mary Lou Jepsen said that and more.

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India Rejection Backstory

Posted on July 27, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: India

ZDNet UK reports that MIT Media Lab Asia was such an unmitigated disaster it made

Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab founder and lead wolf on OPLC, persona non grata within the subcontinent - and guarantee the rejection of any project with his name attached.

And apparently MIT Media Lab Europe was not much better.

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India Just Says No

Posted on July 20, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: India

In a big snub to OLPC, The Economic Times of India reports that Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee strongly disapproves of the One Laptop Per Child idea, calling it "pedagogically suspect." and believes the money would be better spent on universal secondary education.

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Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.