[IAEP] OLPC tablets and Nell in the wild?

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi Folks,
Actually, C.Scott did post the videos (it is in 2 parts) and the accompanying slides on his blog at http://cananian.livejournal.com/67703.html For anyone who missed it, it is worth the time (60-90 min?) to watch it.
As you will see, it is a "pre-pilot" sort of a "proof of concept" project. The children did not learn to read, but 55% did show that they were "pre-literate" at the end of a year based on getting 12/15 correct on a letter recognition test. 
One huge obstacle to their learning to read is that, at the request of the Ethiopian government, the lessons are in English. The children speak only Amharic. 
Long ago, when I was taking classes for ESL certification, we were taught that children should be taught to read in their home language first. The decoding skills transfer if it is an alphabetic language and probably other alphabets but  not completely true for a character based language such as Chinese. That is probably why the Chinese government invented the phonetic pinyin system.
Caryl
BTW... C.Scott and Chris describe the theory and methods behind the project and data. It is a very welldesigned study that meets all of the requirements for good academic research. 


From: cbigenho at hotmail.com
To: cjb at laptop.org; curiouslee at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:04:15 -0700
CC: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org; yamaplos at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [IAEP] OLPC tablets and Nell in the wild?





Here! Here! Cheers for Chris Ball and C. Scott Ananian (a brand-new Daddy) who were our "house mates" at Casa Sarandi in Montevideo. Two great guys and supporters of Sugar Labs and OLPC in every way.
Caryl

> From: cjb at laptop.org
> To: curiouslee at gmail.com
> Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:41:32 -0400
> CC: IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org; yamaplos at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] OLPC tablets and Nell in the wild?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Oct 31 2012, Mike Lee wrote:
> > That experiment did not involve anyone from Sugar Labs or the
> > community. The article is based on an education panel at EmTech 2012
> > that, for some reason, has not been posted as video yet. Check
> > here:  http://www2.technologyreview.com/emtech/12/
> > 
> > But Matt Keller and the OLPC Association team who ran the project went
> > into great detail in their talks at the OLPC SF Summit over a week
> > ago. The Livestream on the subject has been archived and is viewable
> > at the these links:
> 
> A minor point:  I consider myself part of the Sugar Labs community
> and expect that C. Scott does also; maybe others from the team too.
> 
> - Chris.
> -- 
> Chris Ball   <cjb at laptop.org>   <http://printf.net/>
> One Laptop Per Child
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
 		 	   		  

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