[IAEP] 70 minute interview with Bryan Berry on XO deployment in Nepal

[Bryan Berry]

On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 22:18 +0930, Bill Kerr wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Bryan Berry <bryan at olenepal.org> 
> on the other hand if you are saying that you don't have time to do the
> educational research as well as doing everything else then that is
> understandable. I wouldn't criticise that but I don't think it should
> be abstracted to become a theoretical point either, that local is in
> some sense superior to central. I think a formulation that there is a
> dynamic interaction b/w central and local is better - and leads to
> better global working relationships as well.

Our team has done a lot of research, in fact our curriculum experts
received some their professional training at the Bank Street school of
education in New York. I wager that they are as well-versed in Vygotsky,
Piaget, and others I don't know the names of as their western
counterparts.

I think we can agree that there should be interaction b/w both local and
central and neither can be neglected ;) My core point is that outside
materials have to be assimilated into the educational system, the
educational system won't be assimilated to the materials, whether in
Vienna, Kathmandu, or NYC.  

For example, Turtle Art is useful in all three cities, but needs to be
translated to each locale, accompanied w/ lesson plans, and linked to
the local curriculum. The great thing about Turtle Art is that it can me
modified in these relatively small but important ways due to the fact
that it is open-source.


-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Technology Director
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org