Pencils Not Guns
XO: pencils for a new generation
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New study views OLPC Birmingham as a radical experiment
The OLPC program in Birmingham was a quick decision and rapid implementation by a district where it was a tremendous change from what had been done before. While it has not received new funding, some of the primary schools involved have continued with other laptop programs since then – the district still has dramatically greater access to computers and internet tools than others in the state.
A recent article in the International Journal of Learning and Media summarizes the 2-year research project of Shelia Cotten, with input from Mark Warschauer and Morgan Ames, shares their independent view of the pilot and its outcomes, describing it as a radical experiment.
Solve for X: Negroponte talks about children learning by themselves
Solve for X is a forum to encourage and amplify “technology-based moonshot thinking” and group collaboration.
Nicholas and Mary Lou both gave talks at the forum recently. Nicholas talked about the capacity of children to learn by themselves, and ideas of minimally-invasive learning.
OLPC Kenya: working towards an education alliance
Sandra Thaxter, who has been working with some of the grassroots programs in Kenya, recently joined with others in the OLPC Kenya volunteer community, for a meeting with the the Kenyan Institute for Education on their digital learning initiatives.
Assistant Minister of Education Calist Mwatela set up a meeting between these groups, and they are planning a series of Skype meetings over the next few weeks. Sandra wrote more about this and her dream of an OLPC Kenya Alliance, as a guest post on the Eshibinga blog.
Keep up the good work!
South Africa: Building grassroots support for access to a modern education
As noted last week, Jackie Lustig has compiled a report from our South African projects. It draws on background data from the country, and highlights work done there over the past four years.
Starting with a gift of 100 laptops from donors on Boston, and expanding through the interest of a number of OLPCorps projects in 2008, South Africa has expanded its OLPC community to almost 1500 students and teachers today.
OLPC South Africa case study, 2008-2012
(This is an 8MB pdf, so may take a moment to load)
Kevin Brooks challenges Mark Warschauer and Morgan Ames to reflect
Kevin was recently fired up by likes Sridhar’s recent summary of Australian OLPC projects and how they are building a national education programme. He challenges Warschauer and Ames to take a look at their work. (They are known in the olpc-verse primarily for their paper framing the idea of a computer for every child as a “technocentric” “utopian vision”.)
Given the depth of information out today about the diversity of olpc programs, there is much more research to be done – not about whether to give learning tools to children (of course you should), but about how to use them as the basis for transforming and enriching a community. To paraphrase a famous educator, the diversity in OLPC implementations around the world will help us discover the most effective approaches.
A tip of the hat to OLPC Australia, which continues its truly remarkable work.