Revisiting the history of Sugar

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Just before the new year, Walter wrote up a quick recap of the history of Sugar design and development.

Our principal partners in Sugar development were a small engineering team from Red Hat and Pentagram. The Red Hat team, under the leadership of Chris Blizzard, an experienced systems engineer, was tasked with leading the software engineering effort behind the development of the Sugar desktop. Lisa Strausfeld, a former MIT Media Lab student, led a team from Pentagram tasked with developing the interaction design and graphical identity of Sugar. In six months, this core group was able to produce a basic framework for Sugar upon which a community of pedagogists and software engineers could build learning activities. The team used an iterative-design process: rapid prototyping of ideas followed by critiques, followed by coding. We went through two to three cycles per week until we reached consensus on a basic framework.

Upcoming case study : South Africa

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OLPC South Africa is preparing to publish a case study of it’s entirely grassroots growth – from 100 students and mentors in Klipotwn in early 2008 to a network of 1400 students in 5 cities, all sharing training and class experiences.

Support for these programs was a combination of individual donations, local purchases, government support, OLPCorps, and support from other international NGOs.  Some are traditional school projects, while others such as at the Kliptown Youth Project involve a combination of community, school, and peer mentoring.

The full study should be up on Friday.  Here are a few quotes:

South Africa spends a larger share (5-6%) of its GDP on education than any other African nation. Education is compulsory for all children between the ages of 7 and 15 (grades 1 to 9) and access to primary education, the UN’s second Millennium Development Goal, is now nearly universal.

However, as recently pointed out by Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s National Planning Minister, South Africa ranks 137 out of 150 countries in math and science and is one of the bottom 25 performers on the African continent.

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As of early 2012, there are a total of 1,400 XO laptops in South Africa. The Kliptown Youth Program provides technical and training support for all these deployments.

…

The first priority was getting people to understand that the XO is not a toy – it is a resource for education. Many children in Kliptown have difficulty learning to read so it is important to get them excited about reading. The children like reading from the XO screen because it makes learning fun and cool.

DC Learning Club repeats solar-only experiment

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The OLPC Learning Club DC repeated the experiment of running an XO-1.75 on a solar panel, with no battery involved.  They tried this on a cloudy late afternoon, rather than a sunny early afternoon, and had to switch to a larger panel, but were able to make it work for some 20 minutes.

I look forward to further creative power tests and batteryless setups!   And to any additional power-saving tweaks.  (these tests have been run with suspend off. another interesting stat would be howl ong it takes to charge the battery while actively using the XO with suspend on.)

OLPC and Knight Foundation launch digital literacy program in Miami school

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This semester, the Knight Foundation and One Laptop Per Child are launching a digital literacy effort at Liberty City’s Holmes Elementary School. Video from the school is up on Vimeo. And here is the joint press release:

Every student will receive their own XO laptop today, in an effort to level the digital playing field for more than 525 kids at the school. The XOs will be provided by OLPC, with $245K in support from the Knight Foundation.  Community advocates will present the laptops at 9:30 a.m. today.

“Access to the Internet and digital skills are vital for success in today’s connected world,” said Jorge Martinez, who leads Knight Foundation’s Universal Access Initiative. “We hope the laptops help these eager young minds at Holmes Elementary to become digital natives who are more informed and engaged in their classrooms and their community.”

OLPC will provide in-house training at the school for parents, teachers and students on how to use the computers to advance students’ learning. The laptops have tools that let students and teachers to work more closely together. Students can follow their teacher’s work on their laptop, or work collaboratively on projects. OLPC is also assisting in creating a localized curriculum to help kids meet their academic benchmarks.

“We are pleased to be working with Knight Foundation and the Miami-Dade County public schools on this new OLPC education initiative in the U.S.,” said Rodrigo Arboleda, chairman and CEO of the OLPC Association.  “We believe that partnering with foundations, the private sector and the public sector is an excellent model that can be replicated across the country.”

Holmes Elementary School, which serves the majority of Liberty City residents, is at risk of closing at the end of the year if its state test scores do not improve. In an effort to boost performance, a variety of tools and resources are being used to enhance teaching and learning, including the laptops and training program.

“With this project, every child will carry learning in the palm of their hands and we will be one step closer to leveling the educational playing field in Miami,” said Atunya Walker, Holmes Elementary School’s principal. Holmes Elementary has been selected because it is already working with Knight-funded Teach For America to change student performance. Knight provided funding to triple the amount of Teach for America teachers in Miami-Dade – bringing the number to 350 – in a group of inner city schools that includes Holmes.

See the video about this project.

There are natural assessments built into the program, with a fairly short timeframe, thanks to existing conditions at the school and their risk of closure. And I am honored by the involvement of the Knight Foundation, which has been thinking about issues of access to tools and information in the US for a long time.



Whoa! Go: check out this year’s Win One Give One site

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General Mills has rolled out their new gorgeous WinOneGiveOne campaign for their ongoing partnership with OLPC, this year supporting programs in Rwanda and Nicaragua.  They’ve designed some fine art for participating food packages, and their ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi put together great commercials and PR interviews for the program.