[Sugar-devel] NPR story on OLPC in Peru

[Dr. Gerald Ardito]

I wanted to share that we have faced the same criticisms in our school
regarding the XOs. For the last four years, the teachers and students have
complained that the devices do not connect well or reliably to our wireless
network.

Obviously, in our case, we have a wireless network and essentially
continuous access to the internet. But, what I have had to fight against is
that this is the most basic use of any computing device.

The only way I have been able to stem this tide is to come up with projects
and programs that made use of the XOs as standalone or mesh networked
devices. For example, we have done a lot with Memorize and Etoys and
Scratch (and beginning to work with TurtleBlocks). I have found that once
the students and teachers are involved with these activities, the internet
stuff goes away.

But the bigger point that is missed in the story, and the broader
conversation, is that the XOs and Sugar tap into non-traditional methods of
teaching and learning. When this invisible line is crossed, real magic
happens. It is the conversations which illuminate this invisible line that
is tough.

Just my two cents.
Gerald

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Christoph Derndorfer <
christoph.derndorfer at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 2:21 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Alexandro Colorado <jza at oooes.org>
>> wrote:
>> > On 10/13/12, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Alexandro,
>> >>
>> >> I think you are grossly underestimating the connectivity problem in
>> Peru.
>> >
>> > Yes maybe, but I understand most educational systems dont have enough
>> > budget to acquire connectivity so getting connectivity from other
>> > sources like public buildings, libraries, will allow other resource to
>> > come through without needing to be funded by the educational budget.
>> >
>> > Now if we are talking about, the whole town not having ways on
>> > connecting, then the next option would be looking for alternative
>> > sources, in Mexico they used Satelite modems.
>> >
>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/10324524/Capacitacion-Para-Maestros-Uso-Del-Aula-Enciclomedia#page=15
>> >
>> > But other mediums like DSL modems attached to a wifi router will be
>> > able to get some basic Internet for HTML/images, IRC, etc. The big
>> > question is about the level of connectivity for copper phone lines.
>> >
>>
>> It seems that a fair number of offline requirements will be served by
>> the XS school server, but I don't see that show up in any of the
>> conversations. Does any location in Peru use any version of the XS?
>> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server)
>>
>
> I'm not aware of any schools having school servers, at least they didn't
> have them when I was there in 2010. The next best thing were USB drives
> with some collections of offline materials compiled by DIGETE but as far as
> I can tell only a certain percentage of teachers ever received theirs.
>
> Cheers,
> Christoph
>
>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>>
>> >
>> >>
>> >> regards.
>> >>
>> >> -walter
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Walter Bender
>> >> Sugar Labs
>> >> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Devel mailing list
>> >> Devel at lists.laptop.org
>> >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Alexandro Colorado
>> > PPMC Apache OpenOffice
>> > http://es.openoffice.org
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Devel mailing list
>> > Devel at lists.laptop.org
>> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>> >
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Christoph Derndorfer
>
> volunteer, OLPC (Austria) [www.olpc.at]
> editor, OLPC News [www.olpcnews.com]
> contributor, TechnikBasteln [www.technikbasteln.net]
>
> e-mail: christoph at derndorfer.eu
>
>
>
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