Author Archives: Mariana Ludmila Cortés

How Ometepe Became Latin America’s First Digital Island

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Originaly posted BY ON

By Leah Shadle on behalf of One Laptop Per Child

In the heart of Nicaragua lies the largest lake in Central America, Lake Nicaragua. Millions of years ago, a volcanic eruption formed a curious island in this freshwater lake composed of two volcanoes — Concepcion and Maderas — the former of which is still active. Concepcion has an altitude of 1,610 meters, which makes Ometepe the world’s highest island on a lake. Volcanic ash has created an extremely fertile island and the volcanoes are visible everywhere on the island. Ometepe is truly a paradise, with its tropical, lush and magical air and soil.

In addition to the natural brilliance of the island and its volcanoes, Ometepe recently became the first digital island in the Americas. To put that in numbers, 100% of its 5,000 elementary school children and all teachers received a laptop connected to high-speed Internet, as part of the One Laptop Per Child educational initiative. Participating students and teachers receive OLPC laptops and the training and support needed to truly realize the potential of these machines

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Learning from Seymour Papert – #BacktoLearning

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Far beyond the idea of giving computers to children with “an educational purpose”, like if education meant just providing content to be consumed, the origins of the learning philosophy of OLPC has been to provide kids with computers so that they can compute.

 

Seymour Papert believed, supported by decades of research, that by computing (coding, programming), the learner could be empowered to understand, create and think about their own learning, especially at early childhoold.

This panel from the Spring 2014 Member Event at the MIT Media Lab will explore more in detail the learning vision of Papert. Enjoy!

Panelists: Mitch Resnick, Marvin Minsky, Alan Kay, and Nicholas Negroponte.

OLPC Corner Summer Letter

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It is hot season in Rwanda, and international schools are on summer holidays. Governmental schools will soon be on summer break as well.

Many parents are happy but also worried about what their kids will do at home all day. They do not want their children to forget what they have been learning during the school year.

The OLPC corner, located in the kid zone at the in Kigali Public Library, hosts children from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM. Every child is welcome and it is free of charge.

Children have the opportunity to read, write stories, and play educational games, including typing Turtle, memorize, and maze. Children can also work with simple programming languages like scratch. All of those activities are available in XO Laptop.

Instead of staying at home alone, children can come to the Kigali Library to take advantage of the computer. Any kid is welcome to come.

Thanks to the guidance of Celestine NGARAMBE, OLPC facilitator, they learn, they create, they share, and they explore.

Kids are having fun through learning. We believe that holidays are not meant to be spent sleeping and watching movies; rather, holidays here mean to change the situation you’ve been living in to experience another opportunity.

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Why schools should provide one laptop per child

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, Professor of Education and Informatics from the University of California, Irvine and ,  Assistant Professor from the Michigan State University, recently posted an article asking if there is a need to abandon attempts to integrate technology in schools due to a recent international study published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found no positive evidence of impact of educational technology on student performance.

According to the article, Professor Warschauer and Assistant Professor Zheng, have conducted their…

…own extensive observations. We conducted a synthesis of the results of 96 published global studies on these programs in K-12 schools during 2001-2015. Among them, 10 rigorously designed studies, mostly from the U.S., were included, to examine the relationship between these programs and academic achievement. We found significant benefits.We found students’ test scores in science, writing, math and English language arts improved significantly.

And the benefits were not limited to test scores.

To find out about their conclusions and read the full article, please click here.

 

Disclosure statement

Mark Warschauer has received funding for his research from the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences, the Carnegie Corporation, the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, the Spencer Foundation, the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, and Google Research.

Binbin Zheng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above

. @MoneyGramMe Foundation Reinvests in Innovative Educational Organizations in 2016

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money-gramGrants of nearly $300,000 will support educational programs

Original post from  MoneyGram

DALLAS, June 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — MoneyGram (NASDAQ: MGI) today announced the MoneyGram Foundation will award seven grants across seven countries for the first grant cycle of 2016. The foundation will renew its support to innovative educational programs operating in India, Jamaica, Laos, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Vietnam, as well as in four cities in the United States.money-gram-5

“The MoneyGram Foundation is honored to continue to support programs around the world that are making a meaningful and measurable difference for children’s education in communities where our customers live and work,” said Pamela H. Patsley, MoneyGram’s  executive chairman. “MoneyGram is proud to expand our foundation’s work to Laos and Nicaragua through these established programs.”money-gram-4

The recipients in the foundation’s first grant round of 2016 include:

  • Agastya International Foundation, to continue funding three mobile science labs traveling to Darbhanga, Mumbai, and Aligarh with the mission of providing an experiential, hands-on science education program to thousands of economically disadvantaged children.
  • Children of Vietnam, to fund the construction of a 25 x 30 foot weather-resistant school building in A Pat village in Tay Giang District, Quang Nam Province, complete with ceiling fan, lighting, electrical system, water system, indoor plumbing and awning for shade. When complete, it will be the sole school building for the community.
  • Developments in Literacy, to fully fund the operational and administrative costs of the Nai Abadi school located in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
  • First Book, to fund a book donation through the Día de Los Libros initiative in the United States (Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and Miami) and Jamaica.
  • Grants for Innovative Teaching (GFIT), a Signature Project of the Junior League of Dallas that encourages and supports excellence in teaching by awarding grants up to $2,000 to Dallas ISD teachers for innovative projects that otherwise would not be provided for in schools budgets.
  • One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), to fully fund the implementation of the “MathemaTIC” educational program in two schools in Chinandega, Nicaragua. The schools will receive 300 laptops to complete the program.
  • Pencils of Promise (PoP), to fund one of 14 schools Pencils of Promise will build in the Luang Prabang Region of Laos this year. A typical PoP school has 4 classrooms and a minimum lifespan of 20 years.money-gram-3

The MoneyGram Foundation plans to distribute two more rounds of grants in 2016. To learn more about the MoneyGram Foundation and the projects it supports, please visit moneygramfoundation.org.

#moneygramfoundation

 

Switched-on youth – CASE STUDY: @OLPC

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Technology plays a momentous role in shaping the future of our societies and ensuring that the next generation is prepared to cope with the burdens – and embrace the opportunities – to come. So, how exactly are we enabling our youth to contribute in this digital era?

Read this article by Stephanie Spurr posted at International Innovation where

Mariana Ludmila Cortés, VP of Business Development at OLPC, explains how the non-profit organization is enabling children in developing countries to access educational devices for self-empowered learning.

You can download the PDF here.