[IAEP] Sugar Digest 2010-06-10

[Yama Ploskonka]

I wonder what name is given in rhetoric to assuming out of a few
disconnected and exceptional examples that the whole operates in a
certain way.  I would want to name what I often see among those who
assume anecdotes mean the whole OLPC / Sugar project works.

Mark's biggest sin was not to qualify his answers.  You quote, "No
planning, no training, no teacher engagement... "  Had he said
"insufficient planning, little training, scant teacher engagement... "
he would be home free.  As is, things are NOT working mostly because
people refuse to see the naked king, even though it is really plain.

Yes, we DO have some be-au-ti-ful stories to share.  I should know, I
have helped put some of those together and shared them.  But the whole
thing is messed up as long as we try to force America's ways where
there is no context for them.  Elsewhere kids really, really depend
for their own personal future in being molded to a certain profile,
that will be required of them to enter University.  Making people be
good at Doom and MP3 playing will not help them, will actually hurt
them enormously.  I fear the pain that is being brought to them by
nice, intelligent, educated people who actually do not know what it is
to have to grow there.  And how their refusal to see and engage the
problems that come up are actually effective elements in us all losing
credibility.

While I do not agree with all Mark has to say, I believe we need more
of those who follow ideas with a scientific attitude, reporting what
they see on both sides.

I admire Walter's and others half-full attitude.  Nice.  To be really
useful, let's also dare see that objective information is scant.
Let's wonder and think why it is so.  Let's advocate more information
be shared, for the good and credibility of the project.

On 6/10/10, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Christoph Derndorfer
> <e0425826 at student.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>> Am 10.06.2010 21:38, schrieb Daniel Drake:
>>> On 10 June 2010 16:13, Christoph Derndorfer
>>> <e0425826 at student.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>>>> I hate to play devil's advocate here (naaa, not really;-) but one might
>>>> argue that based on what little we know about OLPC in Peru, arguably the
>>>> 2nd largest OLPC / Sugar project at the moment, this ("simply passing
>>>> out XOs and getting out of children’s way.") is pretty much exactly what
>>>> seems to be happening.
>>>
>>> While the deployment info is less public (and less publicized?) than
>>> most, and while like any deployment it faces a fair share of
>>> challenges and difficulties, it's not like this.
>>
>> Glad to hear you're getting a good hands-on impression down there! :-)
>>
>> Out of curiosity: Which provinces are you visiting?
>>
>> From the information that I've gathered from Oscar Becerra, last year's
>> interns and a researcher who spent several weeks in the Ancash area in
>> 2008 and 2009 the difficulties that the project faces in Peru seem to be
>> quite a bit more extensive than in other countries. Two of the most
>> striking examples I've heard are that it often seems to take up to 3
>> months for broken XOs to be repaired and that between 2008 and 2009 30%
>> of the teachers in one province dropped out and their replacements
>> didn't receive any XO / Sugar teacher training whatsoever.
>
> Harsh realities intervene with best intentions, but to suggest that
> Peru or any other OLPC deployment is 'dump and run' as Warschauer
> suggests is misleading at best.
>
> -walter
>
>> But then again, I should have a clearer understanding of realities on
>> the ground once I arrive in Lima in early August;-)
>>
>> Christoph,
>>
>> --
>> Christoph Derndorfer
>> co-editor, www.olpcnews.com
>> e-mail: christoph at olpcnews.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
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