[IAEP] Computer as a tool

[Caroline Meeks]

Thanks! This is really interesting.

What sort of results do you have so far?

Technologically: How many USB sticks failed? How many were lost/stollen?

Did the kids find any places to use the sticks outside of school?

Do you have any measure of how much content was created? Is there much
sharing between schools? Do you have any advice on how to facilitate sharing
of created content?

Sounds like a great project.

Thanks for letting me know.

Caroline

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 3:14 PM, K. K. Subramaniam <subbukk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This thread was spun off "Re: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David
> Pritchard and "Mastering" Educational SW"
>
> There are differences in the use of computers in schools between Sikshana
> (sikshana.blogspot.com) and Sugar Labs/OLPC. Sikshana's tech pilot is only
> three years old and will reach around 6000 kids (grades 5..7) across 120
> schools this year.
>
> Our involvement in these schools, as community members, was child-centric
> and
> focussed on building basic skills set. Supplies shortage is a perennial
> issue
> in these remote villages. We introduced computers as digital authoring
> tools
> so kids never run short of 'supplies'. There was no pre-loaded content - no
> physics lessons, no cartoons, no quizzes. A 2GB USB flash memory chip
> issued to
> each kid served as a "digital school bag". Etoys (customized for vernacular
> support) ran off the chip while others were installed on the hard disk.
>
> The difference between OLPC/Sugar/SoaS in the separation of personal
> content
> from the rest of the stack. Computers are not networked, collaboration is
> physical. The machine, OS, GUI, software tools were all subject to change.
> Putting OS on the chip would have reduced space for project files and
> upgrading
> software on so many chips would be a logistical nightmare!  Our field
> office
> maintains a pool of computers (notebooks and desktops) from which schools
> can
> borrow as many as they can manage in the classrooms. Bite only what you can
> chew. This system allowed teachers and students to focus on authoring and
> not
> get bogged down by IT issues.
>
> We didn't try to simplify GUI. It was not even localized though teachers
> and
> students knew very little English. We found that kids enjoyed the challenge
> of
> mastering GUI. They were thrilled to use the same 'computer' that IT folks
> use
> in their offices. English-Kannada dictionary got used heavily.  "Undo"
> became a
> much loved feature. They learnt LaTeX encoding to produce Kannada and Math
> text. Students formed teams to share 'tips and tricks'. Now teachers,
> across
> schools, are forming self-help groups to share their findings.
>
> Subbu
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
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>



-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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