Category Archives: Schools

Little Pim to provide language learning on XOs

Posted on by
Reply

Little Pim the Panda has a series of videos that are part of an ‘Entertainment Immersion Method’  which uses animation to help children learn new vocabulary, and improve analytical, memory and concentration skills in 11 languages.  Children can learn over 360 words and phrases using all of the Little Pim lessons.  Now OLPC is partnering with them to bring language learning to millions of students with XOs around the world.

Rodrigo said of the partnership,  “We are delighted to join forces with Little Pim to make learning language more fun for children. OLPC and Little Pim share a common philosophy that learning should be a joyous experience and that children learn best when learning and play are seamless activities.”  Julia Pimsleur Levine, CEO of Little Pim, said: “We are thrilled to partner with OLPC and help bring Little Pim content to millions of bright young minds around the world.”

Read the press release.

Uruguay celebrates 5 years of Plan Ceibal!

Posted on by
Reply

Plan Ceibal’s first pilot, in Cardal, began 5 years ago on May 10, 2007. The town has a sign commemorating the event. And tomorrow they will host a celebration of the program’s fifth anniversary with a small festival, starting at 11:30. If you’re nearby, come and celebrate 😉

olpc-inspired pilot launched in American schools in Germany

Posted on by
Reply

The US Dept of Defense recently launched a project to give laptops to 4600 high-school students and teachers in US military schools in Germany, in an effort to copy successful programs in the US (such as Mooresville) and elsewhere. This is presented as a curriculum and pedagogy update, not a technical change; starting in places that already have strong wifi infrastructure.

The schools to be involved this year are in Hohenfels, Schweinfurt, Bamberg, Patch, Wiesbaden, Vicenza, Alconbury and Kaiserslautern. If the pilot is successful, it will be expanded to include middle schools and additional cities.

XO Educational Software Project underway

Posted on by
1

Professors Doug Kranch (of North Central State College) and Terri Bucci (of Ohio State University) are launching an XO Educational Software Project this year. This will be a collaboration between them and their students, and partners in Haiti, to develop math and science modules for the XO. They are also developing a simple router/server setup that Haitian teachers can use to support such software — NCSC’s fall course on client/server development will focus on this work.

The project aims to meet Haitian curricular standards, with ongoing feedback from schools around Croix des Bouquets, in collaboration with teachers, students, and university faculty and students from University Episcopal in Port-au-Prince. These contacts are supported by Ohio State’s ongoing Haiti Empowerment Project.

The group is developing their plans on their group blog, including early efforts this Spring to enhance use of XOs.

It sounds as though they should all be subscribed to the IA Education Project mailing list to share their thoughts!

From Jamaica: OLPC and the need for early childhood education

Posted on by
Reply

Craig Perue posted this wonderful video from Jamaica about their work with the first 115-child school to take part in one laptop per child.

And the Jamaica Gleaner last week covered a speech given by Dr. Ralph Thompson to the local Rotary Club about the necessity of early childhood education.

The Government is supposed to provide one trained teacher for 100 children but in practice, this more likely works out to one trained teacher to 1,000.

No country can make overall progress if the vast majority of its citizens are kept in ignorance and poverty. Not in a democratic society. Demagoguery feeds on ignorance. The result will be either chaos or dictatorship.

Learning to read with One Tablet per Child

Posted on by
1

Can tablets make a difference to a child learning to read for the first time, without a teacher or traditional classroom structure? That’s the question we are exploring with our reading project, currently underway in Ethiopia.


A few dozen children in two rural villages have been given tablets which they are using for a few months. They are interested in learning to read English, and understand this is something they can learn with the tablets; which also come with hundreds of children’s apps.

They are equipped with software that logs all interactions, building up a clear picture of how each tablet is being used. Data from the tablets is gathered each week and sent back to the research team, which also rolls out new updates to the tablets week by week.

Richard is in Ethiopia this week, to get better first-hand knowledge of how the tablets and other infrastructure are holding up, and a visual sense of how they are being used.

“if a child can learn to read, they can read to learn”