[Its.an.education.project] Ivan's latest blog entry on OLPC

info at olpc-peru.info info at olpc-peru.info
Wed May 14 05:55:55 CEST 2008 

Christoph,

Why you say that there are million other projects competing for that 
money? It is supposed, I have saw the budget approval by the congress, 
that Peruvian Goverment has pay for the computers.  Are they "under the 
value" and OLPC is spending more money than the US$180 value on each one?

_Answering your question:
_I doubt that the Ministry of Education (or anyone) will evaluate the 
impact of the current deployment.  Not in a technical way.
Why? Because I think they will be more than happy to say to the media 
that "240,000 laptops" have been bought by the goverment for the poor 
children in Peru.  Photos, newspapers, and that will be all.  Develop a 
study to measure the impact cost money, and can bring some "not so good 
news".. it is a possibility.  I don't think that is the job of a "normal 
politician".

And.. just to start to speak in a right way: you need to establish a 
"BASE LINE".. before you do any deployment, before you do any training, 
before you develop any pilot, before you move one pencil or speak one 
word in front of the general audience.  No base line? Then you can do 
anything and say that it was a success.  Here we can see that some 
people has think that this XO + Construccionism + Open Source + Sugar + 
Linux +... (many other ingredients) is the good formula to help the 
poorest children.  Knowing poverty from first hand, and seeing how my 
own different groups of people (north, south, center people) is not the 
same, don't behave the same, don't think the same, don't need the 
same... then I wonder how the method to introduce this "SOLUTION" is 
just one.  That is because we have not study the "BASE LINE" on each 
enviroment.  If we should have done that in time, then we could realize 
that the kids in the peruvian jungle have a different reality than the 
kids on the high andes town, and the ones in the coast.    A "MAP".  I 
think there was a lack of accurate map.

So measuring the impact, today, in the today's conditions, will be very 
hard (and very subjective) without a previous "base line".

Don't take me wrong: those XOs will be useful.  Oh yes! But the intended 
goals (of the OLPC) has been "wounded" because we have put "the wagon in 
front of the mules".

Anyway, you can ask directly to the Minister of Education or Mr. Becerra 
or Mr.... ooppps  well... other name.. those are the ones that know IF 
some measurement will be done and when.   But... my guess is that there 
will be an "official" measurement and I have seen too many of them 
(paper doesn´t complain about nothing).

Best regards,

Javier Rodriguez
Lima, Peru


Christoph Derndorfer wrote:
> Javier,
>
> thanks a lot for that insight.
>
> The one thing that I've been asking for a long time (and I haven't 
> been able to come up with a satisfactory answer) is if and how the 
> Peruvian Ministry of Education is evaluating the impact of the current 
> deployment. There must be someone there who is interested in 
> understanding whether it's worth spending x amount of money on an OLPC 
> initiative when there's a million other projects (other education 
> efforts, salud, infrastructure. etc.) competing for that money. On a 
> smaller scaler this is probably something that happened during the 
> pilot that was going on since mid-2007...
>
> I'd appreciate any pointers from you (or others) about this.
>
> Thanks,
> Christoph
>
>
> info at olpc-peru.info schrieb:
>> Ivan et al,
>>
>> Just giving you plain info.
>>
>> In your essay you tell us... "As far as I know, there is no real 
>> study anywhere that demonstrates constructionism works at scale."
>> I agree.  But... there is a huge place to test how construccionism 
>> has work in the last 8 years: Peru.
>>
>> Las weekend I have been talking with my sister in law and another 
>> friend, both are teachers and have small kids in the school.  One of 
>> them teach in top high school (rich schools) and the other in public 
>> schools (poor schools).  Both told me the next: 8 years ago 
>> (aproximately) the peruvian goverment decide to follow the 
>> construccionist method for the education (here is as easy as one 
>> person in charge deciding this or that... then the whole system will 
>> move in that sense).  They (the teachers) got order to take a special 
>> course about "new education methods" that was basically 
>> construccionism.  The course was obligatory.  Both teachers are from 
>> the coast and for the coast area (I don't have information about 
>> Andean teachers... but I suppose it must be the same because the 
>> education is managed as a whole system... it shouldn't be... but.. it 
>> is!).
>>
>> I can continue telling about all the questions that I have ask them 
>> (to my sister in law and other teacher) but it was a long 4 hours 
>> conversation and, of course, was not a scientific or statistical 
>> study.  I don't have very clear IF the construccionism has bring good 
>> or bad for the teachers in Peru, but at least a huge group of 
>> peruvian teachers know what it is and they have been, in some way, 
>> trained to use it in the classroom.
>>
>> Knowing my country, and knowing my own people, I can guess that the 
>> theories of construccionism has not been well taught, deeply learned, 
>> or are in full use in my country.  But... a statiscal work (taking 
>> aleatory data) could be done.
>> The bad news are that our authorities take an exam (about general 
>> knowledge) to 180,000 teachers.  Just 2,100 aproved the examination 
>> with the minimum qualification (11 points over a total of 20) and 
>> just 140 aproved with a note of 14 or more (over the 20 maximum 
>> points).  So any study about construccionism should take note the 
>> "base" over what you are trying to develop construccionism.  It can 
>> sound hard but I need to give you all the information (good or bad) 
>> so serious studies can be develop taken in account all the sides and 
>> happenings.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Javier Rodriguez
>> Lima, Peru
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ivan Krstić wrote:
>>> On May 13, 2008, at 9:46 PM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>>>> Just make sure you read all the way through before trying to
>>>> understand it. I needed to read it through twice as he is a very angry
>>>> person and his anger seems to go at a lot of targets..
>>>
>>> Do you feel that particular points were not properly supported or 
>>> explained in the essay?
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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