One Laptop Per Child News

We're told the first twenty laptops off the OLPC production line went to 4th graders in the US Virgin Islands. These lucky kids are taking part in a ten week pilot program conducted by Waveplace Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to bringing digital media skills to Caribbean children.

One month into our first pilot, we're starting another pilot in Haiti next week. I am Timothy Falconer of Waveplace, and I ask for your help.

Waveplace is all about mentoring. While OLPC's notion of "pick up and learn" has appeal, we find that mentors make all the difference. You wouldn't expect a child to learn music or baseball on their own. A kid might noodle around a bit, but the real magic, what we call "spark", can only come from an experienced guide, someone whose love for learning shows through as they teach.

Waveplace works with local Caribbean groups to find motivated mentors, then trains them to teach Squeak Etoys on the XO. From our pilots, we'll develop a textbook and DVD set, which we'll make freely available to the world this summer. You can get a taste on our website where five hours of video tutorial can be found.

We're also making a documentary of our experiences, since books and screencasts only get you so far. There's no substitute for actually seeing a mentor engage a group of kids. It's inspiring.

Anyone can teach the basics of word processing and web browsing, but we're after much more. Our goal is transform how each child views their own education, for them to feel a new ownership and interest in exploring their world. We've seen this spark again and again in the work of Papert, Resnick, and Kay, but we've also seen this approach fail without proper tending.

Alan Kay, who's on our board of advisors, has said,

"Logo was a great idea and it failed. It didn't fail because computers couldn't do Logo, and it didn't fail because Logo software was bad. It failed because the second and third waves of teachers were not interested in it as a new thing."

We're afraid the same thing could happen with OLPC, which is why Waveplace puts so much emphasis on courseware development and first-hand experience with Waveplace mentors. Our goal is not only to spark imagination, but to tend the fire well into the future.

As I said, we need your help. We've raised only half the money needed this Spring for our pilots, courseware, and documentary. If you believe in what we're doing, then please donate some money on our website, however little.

More immediately, we need donated XO laptops, since OLPC said there are none till May. This is a problem, since we're flying to Haiti next weekend to start our pilot there. If you'd like to "Give Two, Keep None", please contact us through our website.

We need eight more laptops before leaving next Saturday, and another twenty for Saint Vincent next month. To see the Haitian children who'll get your laptop, watch our video:

Do you have a OLPC-related activity you'd like to publicize on OLPC News? Then email Wayan for you can always BETT on a Guest Post happy ending.

Tags: Alan Kay | Caribbean OLPC | OLPC Haiti | Timothy Falconer | Virgin Islands | Waveplace Foundation | XO Laptops |

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In this week's Community News, Walter Bender enlightens us on how the OLPC Mongolia implementation team -
Enkhmunkh Zurgaanjin, Carla Gomez Monroy, Jan Jungclaus, and David Woodhouse -are working both sides of the one laptop per child challenge: technology and education.

First, David, with remote support from John Watlington in OLPC Cambridge are having fun getting WiFi meshing through the tick, concrete walls of Soviet constriction:

The servers we shipped from Cambridge have arrived and are being installed. David has been handling the difficult task of positioning two servers (with six antennae) to cover a three-floor school. He is also facing the need to upgrade the laptops right away to avoid a networking meltdown...

Hopefully, the nature of the mesh will improve coverage. To start with, each school will have five antennae, with two servers. That setup will be re-evaluated when it's fully deployed and tested in the classrooms. It is physically installed in one school so far, and fully cabled (including CAT5 to the other rooms where they have computers). The other school should be similarly set up by the end of Monday

Despite the -31C temperature (better known as "damn cold"), they are making connectivity progress. The school now has an optical-fiber cable connecting it to the Internet.

Over in the educational sphere, One Laptop Per Child is engaging the Mongolian Ministry of Education to try and institutionalize OLPC learning systems:

We met yesterday with the Ministry of Education team, teachers, principals, ICTA, content team and pilot research team to provide detailed feedback of how the project is going so far and to bring up things to be considered for the short and long terms.

Teachers are putting their hearts into the program. They had their first sessions with the children. Parents, too, have shown support. And the children, of course, love it. The Constructionist model of learning has found wide-spread support within the MoE.

By the look of the children on the OLPC Wiki, there is definitely support for XO laptops in the land of the Khan.

Tags: CAT5 | Constructionist Model | Damn Cold | David Woodhouse | OLPC Mongolia | OLPC Wiki | Ulaan Baatar |

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Two months ago UNDP started a project with OLPC in Macedonia. Two classrooms were set up with 25 laptops each in early September when the school year begun. The news about the project was made available to the public last week when a major newspaper printed a story about the project.

I am Novica Nakov of Free Software Macedonia and I visited OU "Vojdan Chernodrinski" that is one of the primary schools that have a OLPC classroom to see what's going on.

The kids that are using the XO laptops are in the second grade. They seemed very enthusiastic when I entered the classroom. They were chatting on the laptops and telling each other what they wrote to their friends. They had no obvious problems using the laptops although the interface is in English.

Some of them even explained to me what kind of things they do and how to use some of the software. As I understood, classes in mathematics and Macedonian language are held using the laptops. The children are allowed to take them home and do homework. As a part of the UNDP project and with cooperation from OLPC the teachers had gone through some training so they can apply adequate teaching methods using the laptop.

One of the problems is the fact that there is no Cyrillic keyboard available on the XOs. That means that the kids type Macedonian in the Latin alphabet which could be counterproductive at their age. However, I hope that UNDP will solve this issue in cooperation with the local Free Software community.

The goal of this project is to serve as a recommendation to the Government of Macedonia in future investments in technology for schools. With the recent purchase of NComputing hardware with Ubuntu, it might seem that the Government made its mind about this, and maybe the OLPC project is rolling out a bit too late even though we still haven't seen the classrooms with NComputing's products.

I would like to believe that OLPC still has a chance in Macedonia.

Tags: Free Software Macedonia | NComputing | Novica Nakov | OLPC Macedonia | UNDP | Vojdan Chernodrinski |

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Hi, I am Winter. We had Anders Mogensen's wonderful reports from Galamida, Nigeria on OLPC News just in early October

1. One Laptop Per XO'ing Child with OLPNC
2. OLPNC Galadima School Headmaster Interview

Now the BBC carries a story about the same school.

The story is set in a positive tone. Children, teachers, and reporter do seem to like the project. They do not seem to expect to solve world peace, hunger, and the climate problems like Negroponte envisions.

We do get a first example of class room use.

At the moment the laptops are used to augment the text books and black boards rather than replace them. "One of the biggest uses of the laptop is for note-taking in class," said Mr Kusamotu.

In addition, he said, teachers use the preloaded encyclopedia to teach classes. During our visit we saw a lesson on the mammalian eye based on the preloaded content along with maths lessons that used the calculator.

This is more or less what is to be expected from a short deployment.

Tags: Anders Mogensen | BBC News | Galamida | Jonathan Fildes | OLPC News | OLPC Nigeria | OLPNC | XO Laptop |

BBC Visit to OLPC Nigeria's Galamida School Pilot | Comment (15) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Ivan Krstić, the guy behind the BitFrost system which is key to security in OLPC's XO laptop, wrote on his blog Saturday an inspiring story about the laptops' first deployment, in Uraguay.

In Krstić's words, his badgering about the details of securely deploying the new XOs drew an unanticipated reaction from Nicholas Negroponte:

"Well, we'll just mail you along with the first laptop shipment, and then you can be sure just how things will work."

Krstić went (as a passenger, not as mail), and helped deal with shipping hassles at the airport, as well as reflashing 200 machines with a newer version of the OS and some custom software specific to Uraguay.

There are some well-linked technical details of interest. It took about 12 minutes, he writes, to complete the entire process of reflashing each box of 5 laptops, once the custom image was prepared. The IBM x3105 servers (running Debian) providing some of the infrastructure. There are three kinds of wireless access points to be used:

Tags: BelAir 100 | First Deployment | Ivan Krstić | Mikrotik R52 | OLPC Uruguay | Reflashing XO Laptop | Wavion WS410 |

Ivan Krstić Implements OLPC Uruguay's First Real Deployment | Comment (4) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

I am Anders Mogensen, co-founder of Seismonaut - a Danish idea and innovation consultancy. At Seismonaut we map emerging technologies, new media and user trends in the changing global landscape.

A few weeks ago I was in Nigeria taking a closer look at the OLPNC (One Laptop Per Nigerian Child) initiative. During my five day visit I had the opportunity to meet with the key stakeholders in Abuja, and pay a couple of visits to L.E.A School Galadima.

Over three days, I am sharing some of my findings in short write-ups. One Laptop Per XO'ing Child with OLPNC was the first one, OLPNC Galadima School Headmaster Interview was the second, and this is the third installment:

The Nigerian One Laptop Per Child Model

Yes, Olusegun Obasanjo the former Nigerian president did have influence on the OLPC XO-1 color scheme, so I am told by a reliable source in Abuja. And according to the same source Obasanjo was and still is very committed to the OLPNC project. But what about the 1 million laptops which apparently were ordered by the former Nigerian president?

Tags: ALTEQ ICT | Ndidi Nnoli Edozien | OLPC Nigeria | OLPNC | Olusegun Obasanjo | One Laptop Per Nigerian Child | Tomi Davies |

The Nigerian One Laptop Per Child Model | Comment (10) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

I am Anders Mogensen, co-founder of Seismonaut - a Danish idea and innovation consultancy. At Seismonaut we map emerging technologies, new media and user trends in the changing global landscape.

A few weeks ago I was in Nigeria taking a closer look at the OLPNC (One Laptop Per Nigerian Child) initiative. During my five day visit I had the opportunity to meet with the key stakeholders in Abuja, and pay a couple of visits to L.E.A School Galadima.

Over three days, I will share some of my findings in short write-ups. One Laptop Per XO'ing Child with OLPNC was the first one, this is the second.

An Interview with the headmaster of L.E.A Galadima School

I step into the office of Mrs. Juliana Okonkwo, headmaster of L.E.A Galadima School. It's Monday morning, and this is the first day of school after the summer holidays. Outside some kids have started coming to school, most have brought along their XO, and a few have opened them up and have started working on them.

A teacher calls out the name of a girl. She comes forward and is handed a broom and told to start sweeping one of the classrooms ­ I guess that's what you get for coming early to school :-). As she starts sweeping, dust is whirled up all around her. Only half floor of the classroom is covered with cement.

The headmaster calls me in and asks me to please sit down. She finds the visitors book and asks me to please sign it. I quickly scan through it ­ I always find it interesting to study visitor books, and this one in particular is interesting, as it gives a perspective on who has been following the Galadima project.

Tags: Alteq ICT | Anders Mogensen | Galadima School | Juliana Okonkwo | Khaled Hassounah | OLPC | OLPC Nigeria | OLPNC |

OLPNC Galadima School Headmaster Interview | Comment (26) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

I am Anders Mogensen, co-founder of Seismonaut - a Danish idea and innovation consultancy. At Seismonaut we map emerging technologies, new media and user trends in the changing global landscape.

A few weeks ago I was in Nigeria taking a closer look at the OLPNC (One Laptop Per Nigerian Child) initiative. During my five day visit I had the opportunity to meet with the key stakeholders in Abuja, and pay a couple of visits to L.E.A School Galadima. Over the next three days, I will share some of my findings in short write-ups.

Visiting the school

Before meeting with the stakeholders I decided to pay an unannounced visit to the L.E.A. School Galadima, to get a personal first hand impression of the project. This was a few days before the school would resume after the summer holiday.

Tags: Abuja Model City | Anders Mogensen | L.E.A School Galadima | OLPC Nigeria | OLPNC | Seismonaut | XO Camera | XO'ing |

One Laptop Per XO'ing Child with OLPNC | Comment (13) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It