After a public launch of the OLPC program, the Governor of Sonora handed out XOs to the first school receiving the laptops in Bacum Sonora.
Governor Padres with ministers
In other news, the deployment to indigenous communities in Nayarit, Mexico is progressing well; they recently uploaded a great set of photos online.
Sonora Is Latest Mexican State to Integrate Laptops into Children’s Learning.
MIAMI, Feb. 21, 2012 – One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression, announced today that the State of Sonora, Mexico, is distributing 5,000 XO laptops to elementary school children. Adoption of the OLPC program is part of the State’s larger plan to extend Internet connectivity to all its citizens. In accordance with the UN’s declaration of Internet access as a basic human right, Sonora is the first state in Mexico to establish connectivity as a human right in its Constitution.
The OLPC project in Sonora will be implemented by Nueva Generación Sonora A.C. (New Sonora Generation), a nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide every child in the State access to the knowledge economy through strategic use of information and communication technologies and programs.Â
During the next three years, 350,000 XO laptops will saturate all elementary schools in Sonora. In addition, XO laptops will be implemented in more than 100 community centers that will offer connectivity and technical and pedagogical support to students and teachers and for local projects to benefit their communities. The OLPC project has the full support of Governor Guillermo Padres and the mayors of Sonora, as well as the Social Development Secretariat (SEDESOL) of the Federal Government.
“Improving children’s education is a key goal for my administration,†said Governor Guillermo Padres of the State of Sonora. “Society and government must work together to support projects that will ensure a better future for all our citizens. Education is everyone’s responsibility.â€
Sonora is the latest Mexican state to launch an OLPC program. In September 2010, 500 XO laptops, funded by Procter & Gamble, were distributed to indigenous children in San Felipe del Progreso, State of Mexico.
In August 2011, the General Department of Indigenous Education of the Ministry of Education distributed 1,800 XO’s to remote schools in the State of Nayarit in Western Mexico. As part of this project, the Sugar learning environment is being translated into several indigenous languages – Huichol, Cora and Mexicanero.
1,900 XOs are also in the process of being distributed to children in the State of San Luis Potosi in North-Central Mexico. For this region, Sugar has being translated into Teenek.
“Our progress in Mexico is based on partnerships between the public and private sector,†said Rodrigo Arboleda, Chairman and CEO of the One Laptop per Child Association. “Mexico is a very diverse country and we are focused on projects that bring learning to all children, including those who speak indigenous languages.â€
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About One Laptop per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC at http://www.laptop.org) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression. In partnership with the public and private sectors and non-governmental organizations and supported by comprehensive implementation and pedagogical services, OLPC seeks to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power connected laptop that empowers individual learning and growth.
Media Contacts
Giulia D’Amico
giulia@laptop.org
305-877-5504
Jackie Lustig
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978-460-2236
Uruguay has now deployed over 500,000 XOs to students from 1st to 9th grade, since 2007. This includes a nationwide laptop deployment, a nationwide wifi rollout, teacher training, material development, and maintenance & repairs.
They note a number of beneficial side effects:
* 15,000 unregistered students were registered
* roughly 1/4 of parents are getting connected through their students laptops
From a recent presentation by Miguel Brechner of Plan Ceibal, at the September meeting of the Association of Learning Technology.
Last November, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia gave the annual speech presenting the country’s National Competitiveness Report (pdf) – presented by the national Private Council for Competitiveness.
In his speech, he spends some time discussing his national plans for education, and recalls one of the great OLPC stories — the first OLPC program in Colombia in 2008, involving delivery by helicopter, no less, when Santos was Minister of National Defense. This took place in the town of Vista Hermosa, which at the time had recently been captured by government forces from the FARC.
Vista Hermosa students receive XOs in Dec. 2008
Here is the story in his own words. It is worth watching the original video; Santos is a good speaker. (The whole talk is fascinating; education starts at 26:25, the Vista Hermosa story is at 28:55.)
Excerpts after the jump. Continue reading
Paraguay’s vice president, Federico Franco, recently presented an award to Giulianna Pozzoli, the recent winner of the Nickelodeon-OLPC Scratch animation contest, and other student leaders. This was held Caacupé, home to the country’s first large deployment of children’s laptops.
At 0:39 you can see one of the children in the audience filming his speech on her XO; another is typing as he talks. Others have hand cameras. He talks briefly about how everyone needs to work together to help improve children’s education, for a better future – and this an essential part of it.
Post via Silvia Kist
Seymour’s Papert ideas are a source of inspiration for many teachers and researchers in Brazil and had a big impact on how the country’s computer lab program was shaped in the past. One Laptop Per Child brought to life Papert’s vision for a Children’s Machine, and also inspired many teachers and academics in the country.
Because of this history, the strongest characteristic of the OLPC project in Brazil is the involvement of universities researching how laptops can create powerful educational experiences, and promote cultural change around learning. Many research labs from Brazil’s top universities are working with OLPC in this challenge, and have developed field studies: including LEC/UFRGS, NIED/UNICAMP, LSI/USP, CERTI/UFSC, UFC.
One of the first investigations in Brazil, was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Léa Fagundes. It studied how the XO impacted the reading and writing learning process of 6 year old children in a public elementary school at Porto Alegre. The full study was published in Portuguese. A summary:
They hypothesized that each child having their own laptop would change the practices of reading and writing by students, impacting how they create concepts about the written language. Student practices were observed and analyzed in two ways: practices proposed by the teacher and things that students did spontaneously.
After 7 months of observations, the research concluded that daily use of networked laptops allows children to use writing and reading in real life situations, differently from artificial activities in school. This kind of usage builds a symbolic environment helpful for understanding the function and meaning of written language (fluency) and leads to a conceptualization process driven by the need to understand others (literacy). In the class that was analyzed, the teacher’s proposals and some other conditions were necessary for that to happen. Project work, laptop ownership by students, connection to the Internet, and the use of a virtual learning environment were among them.