OLPC Rwanda takes off

Update: the OLPC Rwanda 2011 report is out!

OLPC Rwanda (twitter) has grown steadily since its launch a few years ago, and is now part of early education in every school district in the country. Rwanda aims to become a technical and Web powerhouse, and has remained true to that vision. Today they are in some ways the most technically advanced country in the region (to the chagrin of neighboring Kenya, which also hopes to be the hub for software and technology development in East Africa). Rwanda is preparing to double the size of the OLPC project in the country over the coming year, now that they have a smoothly-running system in place.

Happily for us (and for future deployments), the country team has put together a beautiful report on their first three years of work, which will come out tomorrow. It is concise and written for a general audience, with a fine balance of perspectives, from political and financial to the needs of teachers and PTAs.

In related news, Joseph and Erize, the two boys who made their own business cards for their OLPC outreach efforrts in Kigali, saw that we wrote about them on the blog last week, and left comments of their own welcoming questions from all of you. 🙂

School computer labs passing out of favor

Mike Trucano, in a typically balanced and measured World Bank blog post, notes that computer labs are coming under increasing scrutiny — and that despite decades of use in the developed world, there is little evidence for them being an effective use of resources given today’s options for discovering computing, learning to use software tools, or connecting to the internet.

Expert opinion, at least in many OECD countries, is increasingly calling into question the reliance on school computer labs as the primary model for impactful use of educational technologies.

He notes the common arguments for teaching with or building computer labs, a countervailing shift towards personal and mobile computing, and the history of the concept.  A good read, and a strong argument for the need for long-term studies to compare and contrast various options without prejudice — so that we cannot again say, decades from now, “The evidence base in support of  <this educational and technological model> is, to my knowledge, not very robust… there is still not a lot of rigorously obtained hard data that we can point to.” We shouldn’t be able to say that about any significant aspect of educational life.

That sort of ignorance in science, business, politics or economics would be utterly unacceptable.  We should demand more, not less, for our own education — which underlies our capacity to pursue the rest.

US survey finds support for 1:1 computer programs among school admins

A recent study by edutech research firm Interactive Educational Systems Design (IESD), funded by 1:1 curriculum provider Time To Know, asked school administrators how they felt about classroom technology.   Hundreds of superintendants and principals across the US, drawn from districts with more than 2,500 students, were polled.

Details of the study have not been made available, but the results of four questions were published in edtech magazine  The Journal:

When asked their preference for a comprehensive curriculum if cost were not a factor, 80 percent of respondents indicated a preference for a comprehensive curriculum program with 1:1 computer access and an interactive whiteboard in combination with some print or printable electronic materials.

We need educational studies to start sharing their underlying data — something we should remember to ask our partners to do as well when they evaluate OLPC projects.

Game design contest for students focuses on math and science games

The STEM Challenge is an annual game contest organized by E-Line Media, and sponsored by the AMD Foundation, Xbox, PBS, and the Entertainment Software Association.  It invites students from middle school to university to design games focused on math, science, engineering and other technology.

Games can be built on most any open platform, and can be submitted from now until March 12, 2012.

 

OLPC Asia team visits Sichuan school, updates their XOs

Last week twenty volunteers joined the OLPC Asia team to return to the OLPC pilot school in Sichuan.  OLPC donated 1000 XOs to children and teachers at the school, which supports students whose schools were destroyed by the 2008 earthquake.  The visitors spent a few days at the school, meeting with the school community and helping them update and repair their machines. Here’s a snapshot of them at work:

 

Paraguay Vice President hands out awards to OLPC students

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.