One Laptop per Child

Antonio Battro wrote recently about spontaneous reading and literacy experiments with laptops, in an essay on computers as reading prostheses (for children and others). In it he refers to Sugata Mitra’s work in India with the Hole in the Wall project:

In this sense, we should also experiment with spontaneous reading using a computer. OLPC will start now to deliver XO laptops with special software to remote communities with no schools where children and adults are lacking reading, writing or number skills. An inspiration was the famous “hole in the wall” experiment done in India with illiterate children who spontaneously started to read while sharing an unsupervised computer, what Sugata Mitra calls “minimally invasive education”.

Everything we learn in life is part of our education — most of it not conveyed explicitly by instructors. From your own experience: how has minimally invasive education been part of your life, in contrast with controlled, highly directed learning?

Rodrigo spoke last week at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), on “Children as a Mission not as a Market”.

Mike Hutak, OLPC Oceania director, signed an agreement with the University of the South Pacific this week, committing to work together to further research and teacher training on 1-to-1 Computing in the region.  Mike commented on the handover in Fiji:

USP is the leading teacher training institution in the region with campuses in all 10 Pacific countries where there are OLPC projects. Governments and ministries of education will now have access to the best minds in the region for their country to using the XO laptop in the classroom. And at the Japan Pacific ICT Centre, they will now have access to the best facilities too.

 
Mike: thanks for the update!

The contest rules are out for the OLPC/Nickelodeon storytelling contest.   OLPC and Nick will be judging the submissions together.  All XO users in Latin America are eligible to compete by submitting a story, anination, or other multimedia clip of up to 3 minutes.  Contest ends August 29.

OLPC Association y Nickelodeon organizan y juzgan el concurso en conjunto (anuncio, reglas completas):

Hat tip to Claudia, Christoph, and Giulia.

Are you programming on XO hardware today? Working on Sugar core or
activities? Porting Fedora or other distros to ARM?

As I write this, XO-1.75 B1 prototypes are being assembled 20 meters
away from me. These are engineering samples — some will go to drop
tests and mechanical and electrical torture tests. Luckier units will
go to the hands of passionate developers interested in helping us with XO-1.75.

To request one, please follow the instructions on the wiki:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program#FAQ

We cannot guarantee every request will be satisfied –
unfortunately, we have a limited number of units and we may have to
turn some requests down.

These units will be early samples: expect hardware and software bugs,
and be prepared to report them and help us in the diagnosis and fixing
(it wouldn’t be fun otherwise!). We will be asking recipients to be
very proactive in reporting bugs and using the latest software for
them. And to remember that these machines are /on loan/: offer to pass
on your prototype if it is not being used.

It will be a fun 2011 — our goal is to have a new hardware platform
and OS: XO-1.75 running XO OS-11.3.0, and there is a lot to do between
now and the end of the year.

We’re hoping to hear from you!

“More 4 Me” is a documentary about having and having not by filmmaker Lincoln Fenner released last spring.  It features (and donates 75% of its proceeds to) a few global charities, including OLPC.  It was recently nominated for Best Documentary at the NYC Int’l Film Festival in October.  Details to come; here’s the press release from the producer:

AUSSIE FILM TO LIGHT UP TIMES SQUARE

More 4 Me nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the New York City
International Film Festival

Creation Box Films is proud to announce that its debut feature-length documentary
More 4 Me has been selected for the New York City International Film Festival (NYCIFF)
next month, with three of its five screenings to be held in front of thousands in Times
Square.

Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Drake has good news for XOs of all flavors:

OLPC OS 11.2 is now out for both XO-1 and XO-1.5, along with some activity updates.
Install it and check it out!

This release is build on Fedora 14 and Sugar 0.92, which includes a feature I am especially fond of: a touchpad-mode selector.  For those of you who miss being able to use the stylus-mode of the older dual-mode touchpads, this lets you toggle between stylus and capacitive modes.

This release has vastly improved build properties: olpc-update is now faster and requires much less free disk space, OS Builder is much improved for those spinning their own builds.  And the XO reflashes more than twice as quickly now:

“As of this release, installation images are now sparse, meaning that data is only written where data actually resides. The result is that installation time is now more than twice as quick.“

Solar charging has also been tweaked on the XO-1.5.

While there was no 11.1 release this year, there are plans in the works for an 11.3 as well.  If you have bundle updates or other fixes that didn’t get into 11.2, that’s the release for you.

A huge thanks to everyone who has helped with developing and testing this release!

The XO-3 design work is coming along, still scheduled for the end of next year.  The screen will be one of the latest Pixel Qi models.  They will run Linux, though what flavor is still under investigation; followers of C. Scott’s blog can read the full details there.  And like the XO-1.75, they will use an ARM chip.

In an IDG interview, Nicholas notes that design discussions about how to implement solar and satellite connectivity continue.  Meanwhile, those interested in working on software for the XO-3 are invited to get involved in XO-1.75 hacking this summer.

Contributors program versions of the beta-test boards will be available soon.

reposted on behalf of OLPC France

Registration is now open for the 2nd SugarCamp Paris. Please join us in making Sugar a better learning experience!

This event is organized by OLPC France, and takes place in Paris, France from September 9 (evening) to September 11 (evening).

The goal is to enhance Sugar as a free learning platform, already used by ~2M kids around the
world, and to focus on a specific problem: how to make Sugar *documentation* better with respect to accessibility and readability?

Partial travel refunds are available for regional trips for those who could not otherwise come. Please contact the organizers with any questions.

Let’s take this challenge, and enjoy a good time with many members of the OLPC/Sugar community!

Carnegie Mellon University’s iSTEP internship program is working with Plan Ceibal in Uruguay to develop and deploy English literacy activities and web apps that work well on XOs, for children of all ages. They are also creating tools to help teachers customize these apps. The interns have been living and working in Montevideo while doing this work.

This is just the latest in a series of projects by CMU students to support OLPC initiatives around the world.

From the Very Exciting dept. : Nickelodeon Latin America (part of MTV Latin America) is partnering with OLPC to run an international contest to design multimedia about improving the environment.

Elementary school children in OLPC schools will be challenged to develop multimedia content in an international contest focused on creating a better environment. The winner will be awarded with a trip to the Teen Nick Halo Awards, a show where celebrities give awards to amazing, accomplished and inspiring kids who work hard to make the world a better place. From our joint press release:

This initiative is in line with OLPC’s desire to enable a generation of children to think critically, connect to each other and the world’s body of knowledge, and to create conditions for real and substantial economic and social development. Nickelodeon and OLPC will work together to leverage the advantages of the XO laptop in elementary school education and promote strategies for increased access to laptops and connectivity in Latin America.

“We are delighted to partner with One Laptop per Child for this important initiative,” commented Mario Cader-Frech, Vice President of Public affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility for MTV Networks Latin America and Tr3s: MTV, Música y Mas. “OLPC has done an outstanding job of bringing technology and computer-assisted learning to kids around the world. This contest not only inspires children in the region to make a difference in their communities but also helps them to develop new skills that will prepare them to become productive members of tomorrow’s workforce.”

“OLPC is constantly looking to engage with private sector companies to achieve mutual objectives for children and education,” said Rodrigo Arboleda, CEO of OLPC – “Nickelodeon joins a distinguished group of OLPC partners that includes General Mills, Marvell, Procter & Gamble and BHP Billiton, all devoted to bringing quality education worldwide”.

Children will be welcome to participate across Latin America.  We can’t wait to see the first submissions come in — and to seeing similar storytelling projects start in other parts of the world.

Press contacts at MTV Networks Latin America:

International
Axel Escudero
(5411) 5295-5270
axel.escudero@mtvstaff.com

Miami & Colombia                    Argentina & Chile
Marimar Rivé                        Vanina Rodríguez
(305) 938-4910                      (5411) 5295-5272
marimar.rive@mtvstaff.com           vanina.rodriguez@mtvstaff.com

Mexico
Erick Zermeño                       Guillermo Reyna
(5255) 5080-1729                    (5255) 5080-1766
Erick.zermeno@mtvstaff.com          guillermo.reyna@mtvstaff.com

Rwanda is rolling out a software and firmware update to the students and teachers in their current schools, as they prepare to deploy a new batch of XO-1.5s as they approach their 100K milestone.   Project lead Nkubito Bakuramutsa gave a few interviews about the process, which started two weeks ago in southern Rwanda.

The security update may also give them a chance to reflash their current machines to XOOS 11.2, which has improved solar charging performance and overall power management along with many speed and interface improvements.

The planned expansion of their program will make Rwanda the largest OLPC deployment outside of South America, surpassing even the US and Mexico.

A recent CSM article about getting young people involved in programming and hacking (noting both OLPC and Raspberry Pi) quotes Rodrigo on students’ accomplishments in Uruguay:

“Debugging a program is the most perfect way of learning… We have already 12-year-old children in Uruguay that are proficient programmers. You cannot imagine the stuff we are beginning to see in these young kids.“

by Antonio M. Battro, Chief Education Officer, OLPC

Children can learn a new common and universal language that we may call “digitalese”. Even before speaking, infants can perform with the computer many interesting actions by pressing a key. This elementary action, the “click option” – to click or not to click- is the consequence of a conscious choice made at the cortical level of the brain. The remarkable ability of our brain to make simple choices and make predictions about the outcomes of an action is the basis of the acquisition of a universal “second language” by any kid in the world with access to a computer, the so-called “digital natives”. In a sense we are witnessing the unfolding of a new “digital intelligence” (Battro & Denham, 2007).

Children learn to speak any language without the help of a grammar, just by hearing how others speak in their community, and they also learn to communicate with a computer -and via the computer with other people- when they share the same digital environment just by peer-to-peer interaction. This is why “saturation” is a central principle of the OLPC program. It is a matter of scale. We need a large numbers of participants in different cultures to enhance the diversity of strategies for teaching and learning.

It may take some time to find the best spontaneous strategies to learn how to read and write with the help of a computer but we already have some hints about successful prosthetic devices in education. For instance, nobody will deny that the cochlear implants have changed the life of a deaf person. Today the implanted deaf person can hear not only environmental sounds but understand language as well and early implants in deaf infants is increasing the formidable success of those neuro-prostheses. We can expect similar neurocognitive breakthroughs in reading and writing soon thanks to the “prosthetic” use of a computer at a very large scale.

As a matter of fact, many children using the OLPC platform since early ages (another basic OLPC principle) learn to type before they learn to write with paper and pen! In a sense we are witnessing something that educators didn’t predict. In most schools the explicit or implicit rule is to learn handwriting before typing and children start with the difficult analog skills needed to draw a letter, a word or a sentence (by a continuous and precise hand movement) before they are allowed to use a keyboard, a much simpler digital skill (a simple discrete action). The alternative is to start with the digital skills before “going analog” but for many educators and parents this strategy is considered a “forbidden experiment”. However it happens that nowadays in many places children enjoy the right to use a laptop not only at school but at home, and the once forbidden experiment is happily and spontaneously performed. In the “expanded school” of a digital environment children don’t need a pen and paper to write.

In this sense, we should also experiment with spontaneous reading using a computer. OLPC will start now to deliver XO laptops with special software to remote communities with no schools where children and adults are lacking reading, writing or number skills. An inspiration was the famous “hole in the wall” experiment done in India with illiterate children who spontaneously started to read while sharing an unsupervised computer, what Sugata Mitra calls “minimally invasive education”.
Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this year, Shelia Cotten and coauthors Hale, Moroney, O’Neal & Borch published an overview of their data from surveying 27 schools during the first year of the city-wide OLPC project in Birmingham, AL.  In the 2008-2009 school year, 1st – 5th Grade students and teachers, in every public primary school in the city, received XO laptops via this program. — amounting to over 15,000 students and teachers. and every public primary school in the city.

The paper, ”Using Affordable Technology to Decrease Digital Inequality“, appeared in Information, Communication & Society Volume 14, Issue 4.  From the summary:

[F]ourth and fifth grade students at 27 Birmingham City schools were surveyed just prior to receiving the XOs and then again about 4.5 months later. A total of 1,202 students were matched between the two surveys… students who used a computer to do homework before receiving the XO, tended to make greater use of the XO and felt it helped them in their education. Teachers’ use of the XO was also an important factor. Students who reported their teachers made greater use of the XOs in the classroom tended to use the XO more and felt that the XO had a positive impact on their education.

These findings highlight the importance of training teachers to make effective use of new technology and the need to develop curriculum to integrate computers into the classroom.  Dr. Cotten is currently leading a National Science Foundation funded project that helps… teachers receive training which builds technology-teaching capabilities so that students develop the attitudes and the skills necessary to succeed in a technologically advanced society.

Their research has continued since then, and they will also publish about longer-term results.

The Tux Paint dev team last week announced a 2011 summer drawing contest, with prizes including three OLPC XO-1′s, Sugar-on-a-Stick drives, and TuxPaint shirts.  All children 3-12 are encouraged to submit their best Tux Paint art; the best 10 drawings will receive prizes. The contest is sponsored and judged by the retail company Worldlabel, which will showcase the winning art on their blog.

HOW TO ENTER:

• Download Tux Paint
• Make your drawing in Tux Paint and save it in png format
• Send your finished drawing in png format to worldlabel@gmail.com and include “Tux Paint” in the email subject line
• In the email submission include: 1) the artist’s’ name 2) the artist’s age 3) the title of drawing 4) the country where the artist lives
• All artwork must be the contestant’s original work created on Tux Paint.
• Only one entry per child

Entries will be judged on the quality and originality of the artwork. Extra points will be given to drawings that tell a story.

Entries must be submitted by midnight USA Easter Standard time on 12 September 2011. Winners will be announced no later than 22 September 2011. All entries will be licensed: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported and will be exhibited on this page.

Kudos to Russell Ossendryver and the other devs who keep Tux Paint one of the best drawing activities out there.

Peru’s extraordinary Una Laptop por Niño program continues to lead the way for deployments around the world. Most recently, they expanded their program to 100% of Peru’s public primary schools (roughly 20,000 in all), the largest OLPC project  in the world.  On Friday Oscar Becerra, head of ULPN in Peru, reported:

Today at noon President Alan García formally inaugurated the new Ministry of Education building in Lima. The building features a monument sign at the front, crowned by an XO computer in its original green and white colors. We hope it will be a lasting memory of the outstanding contribution of OLPC to Peruvian education improvement.

Three cheers for that, and for expansion to a new building! And congratulations to Oscar and President García for leading the way in supporting education at all ages with technology and creativity, under a wide variety of conditions.  I can only hope for similar education reform to reach my own country one day soon.