Deployment meetings/20090203
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Intros
m_stone> shall we start rollcall?
m_stone> I see several familiar faces and some new ones.
m_stone> walterbender, caroline: hellO!
walterbender> hi m_stone
m_stone> juliabomb: greetings.
icarito> hi m_stone, sebastian silva here
m_stone> icarito: hi sebastian.
m_stone> fcr, hpachas-PE: hola!
anil_> hi m_stone, anil here
fcr> hi m_stone
hpachas-PE> m_stone, hola
transbot0> hpachas-PE> transbot0, hello
m_stone> okay. it seems that no one provided any written agenda items
today so I expect that things will be free-flowing.
m_stone> in case you some how managed to avoid my repeated emails, minutes
from our last meeting are here:
m_stone> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployment_meetings/20090127
m_stone> and new ones will appear here after I write them:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployment_meetings/20090203
m_stone> so who has questions?
aa> this meeting is also being translated to spanish by transbot0 in
#olpc-es
aa> ;)
m_stone> aa: great, thanks.
m_stone> dsd_: no questions?
m_stone> walterbender: are you satisfied with the testing you're getting
on TAP?
walterbender> It is a great beginning. We need to do a lot of work in
anticipation of the new release
walterbender> 0.84 has many new features and we have had little feedback to
date.
Sierra Leone
cjb> I just finished listening to an interesting presentation on a
Sierra Leone pilot
cjb> they just finished a small pilot, I think they're proposing to
extend it using G1G1 machines
m_stone> cjb: do they need support help that folks here might be able to
supply?
cjb> their population of kids has 0% literacy :/
cjb> I think they could use some activities that help teach literacy..
m_stone> cjb: what languages are needed?
cjb> English
cjb> which makes it easier. all instruction in Sierra Leone is done
in English
m_stone> ah hah: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SL
walterbender> cjb: where was the presentation?
cjb> walterbender: at 1cc
walterbender> cjb: metaquestion: how can we advertise these things to those who
would be interested?
icarito> unlikely someone like me would come across it if not from this
meeting
cjb> walterbender: they have a wiki page on our wiki with lots of
details, I think
m_stone> cjb: do you know the url for the pages?
cjb> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Sierra_Leone
walterbender> cjb: I guess that I need a way to find and monitor all of these
pages then...
cjb> m_stone: not yet
m_stone> cjb: who gave the talk?
m_stone> (i.e. who can we follow up with?)
cjb> they seemed optimistic that the kids were being held back by no
access to learning materials in English, and that the laptops
would do magic things just because they don't get to take any
books home at the moment and have few per school
cjb> but I guess I'm skeptical of this
cjb> because most of the stories from their trials involved kids using
Record, Paint, Maze, and so on
walterbender> soon TAP, I hope...
cjb> in any case, I'm sure it could only help to have activities that
teach things like the shape/pronunciation of letters, etc
bemasc> cjb: do you happen to know how much bandwidth they have?
cjb> bemasc: none
cjb> bemasc: there is a cybercafe five hours/50km away
bemasc> that's important to know
cjb> they would get bandwidth as part of increasing the size of their
pilot, or something
m_stone> cjb: did anyone ever do a simplified english wikislice?
cjb> they used the English wikipedia activity, which was interesting
to hear
cjb> it's pretty much the only content they had installed
m_stone> what was their reaction?
cjb> they said some of the older kids would read to the younger kids
with it, but very very few kids knew how to read
cjb> something like 2% of kids graduate primary school into secondary
school
cjb> and the secondary schoolers they tested could not read the fourth
grade textbooks
walterbender> It may be helpful to introduce the teachers to the wikislicer
activity...
walterbender> Older kids could make books for younger kids.
cjb> walterbender: oh! yes, I'd forgotten about that
walterbender> It is only just finally generally available.
cjb> they picked the least-wealthy area of sierra leone to trial in
cjb> which is very ambitious for lots of reasons
yamaplos> Sorry to barge in, but the wiki sucks. It sent me to
http://mibbit.com/chat/
cjb> yamaplos: which wiki?
cjb> (and why was that bad?)
yamaplos> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployment_meetings#Meeting_notes
walterbender> yamaplos: we added a link to mibbit for newbies to irc...
yamaplos> it was bad because I was there alone. cold!
yamaplos> hallo all!, sorry, usability freak I am, and quite a noob
yamaplos> Great, Walter. Doesn't work :-) Or didn't work for me
yamaplos> Sorry guys, carry on, warming up now
m_stone> cjb just related a few fascinating fragments of a talk he
recently heard about a Sierra Leone based deployment in an area
with a 0% literacy rate.
m_stone> we thought about trying to introduce the team there to the
wikislicer activity which can be used by more experienced
students to help prepare materials for less experienced students
m_stone> and also talked a bit about other activities that we wish we had
access to in order to better help them with literacy issues
yamaplos> Lancasterian approach, I'm all for it, the way I envision it to
involve older siblings of kids who already have an XO, and set
them up to help in that and other ways
Caryl> the anticdotes I sent from Uruguay re using the XOs with
developmentally challenged kids had some great ideas for using
the XO to teach reading to complete non readers
m_stone> Caryl: would you like to add a link to for the minutes?
Caryl> I'll go find the link...give me a minute in case some folks
missed it
Caryl> English link (Spanish next): http://olpc-
ceibal.blogspot.com/2009/01/anecdotes-of-plan-ceibal-in-
durazno.html
Caryl> Spanish link: http://www.blogedu-rosamel.blogspot.com/
Logistico, Técnico y Pedagógico
m_stone> so, something that I'd like to return to this week is the
excellent thread started by hpachas-PE last week...
m_stone> and kindly translated into English by david...
m_stone> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2009-January/022829.html
m_stone> hpachas-PE: last week, you wrote about the three important themes
of implementations: logistico, técnico y pedagógico
transbot0> hpachas-PE> sorry, what is the thread of the agenda?
m_stone> hpachas-PE: no agenda was written. :(
m_stone> hpachas-PE: I will try to get an agenda written for our next
meeting.
m_stone> hpachas-PE: but today, I thought it might be good to explore your
theory of deployments in more depth.
transbot0> hpachas-PE> anyone can be a model, and carry the agenda .. would
help us a lot.
m_stone> but let's further discuss your ideas from last week. we didn't
spend enough time on them then.
m_stone> hpachas-PE: you wrote that you think that each deployment should
evaluate its needs in the three areas you cited.
m_stone> and that we should consider meeting separately to discuss each of
the three areas.
m_stone> how do others feel about these suggestions?
icarito> i actually think it might be a good idea
icarito> especially this transbot thing might enable some here to
participate
m_stone> reubencaron: thoughts?
yamaplos> I personally have a bit of a whale bone with the order of
"logistico, técnico y pedagógico". AFAIK all major deployments
have followed it. Result is that pedagógico is sort of an after
thought. I know that it's very hard to do it otherwise, I mean,
unless we got the hardware, we have no project, but I wish
someday someone will manage to get away with putting the
pedagógico first, and then let the other two guys mold
themselves as needed.
icarito> +1
walterbender> yamaplos: maybe Sugar ona Stick is a short term solution?
yamaplos> point is, how linked is it with felt needs of teachers and
parents and kids?
m_stone> okay. here's a basic question: in what ways are the people in
this room able to and responsible to support deployment's
pedagogical concerns?
walterbender> m_stone: there is a great deal of latent knowledge about the
pedagogy in Peru and Uruguay. In a very pragmatic sense as well.
yamaplos> you got it, latent. It's hardly getting realized, except by
exceptional people
transbot0> hpachas-PE> m_stone, coordinator of the OLPC program in Peru.
walterbender> I'd love to see Hernan's questions answered in some coordinated
way...
yamaplos> +1
Caryl> +1
m_stone> walterbender: which specific questions?
walterbender> m_stone: Hernan's questions about pedagogical, technical and
logistical needs/questions/issues
walterbender> yamaplos: I find your invention, OLPC-Sur, to be quite useful
yamaplos> thankee
yamaplos> OK, start with the kid. Notice the interpreter, i.e., the
teacher and parent. Aim there and you got half a chance to make
something happen
yamaplos> then get you developer, testing team, whatever, to focus not on
perfect geekdom this side of nirvana, but on usability, the
prosaic, the stupid little things that kid will be supposed to
know so he can get where he needs to get, of course adding as
much as you can of the real good stuff he can really grow on
transbot0> hpachas-PE> m_stone, technical issues and I see which is my
specialty, but I also see the social (child, parent, teacher,
developer, testing team)
transbot0> hpachas-PE> I think before starting development, we must insert
in the villages to see their needs and see how we can make
society is interested in certain subjects, using an activity and
XO
transbot0> hpachas-PE> (this is in the development of activities)
m_stone> hpachas-PE: what things stop or limit deployments from doing that
today?
transbot0> hpachas-PE> m_stone not understand the question
yamaplos> that people have not been groomed to make it happen
Involving Local Talent
m_stone> hpachas-PE: sorry, I'll rephrase.
m_stone> hpachas-PE: I hear very few stories about deployments producing
activities to meet the needs of children.
m_stone> I hear more stories about deployments producing activities to
meet testing standards. :(
yamaplos> Activities made to meet testing standards? Do we have even one
of those?
m_stone> why is this?
yamaplos> they are being told to do things, "see how we can make
society..", it's not about how we can make them do things, rather
how we can enable them to do things. It's more than a nuance,
it's the difference between empowering and merelly telling them.
m_stone> can we change it?
yamaplos> certainly
Caryl> some clever teachers adapt the existing Activities to meet their
students' needs. But this seems to be rare
m_stone> what do we have to do to make it easier to write activities in
Peru?
yamaplos> m_stone: get them to be aware they can. Involve them in the
community
walterbender> I think it is early in the process to expect deployments to have
built too many activities...
walterbender> but in Uruguay they have quite a few, as aa demonstrated at XO-
Camp
walterbender> And tools like TAP came directly from discussion in Peru
Caryl> South Carolina wants to know how to get things written
(programmed) for their pilot deployments too...
m_stone> walterbender: okay. when would be the right time?
m_stone> walterbender: aa mentioned 4 activities -- PlayGo,
ConozcoUruguay, a role playing game, and _____
walterbender> Speak with Sara?
m_stone> walterbender: yes.
walterbender> sorry--I cannot type fast enough to keep up.
yamaplos> told ya. Fingers are warming up, am in a roll :-)
m_stone> walterbender: I'll slow down.
transbot0> hpachas-PE> sorry, I must insist someone to model the room. can
not understand the conversation
yamaplos> Hernan, what I mean is, tell us what activities you talking
about, please. Dunno any
yamaplos> hernan: Also supposedly you have some question, haven't seen it
yet, could you please share? Thanks
walterbender> So I think deployments are beginning to appropriate the
technology...
walterbender> The children in Thailand didn't write code, but they came up with
two innovative uses of TamTam tjhat they spread thooughout the
region
icarito> +1 and 0.84 will improve that with View Source functionality (so
lower floor)
m_stone> hpachas-PE: I asked this question: "what are reasonable
expectations for growth of activity development?"
m_stone> and this one: "what is needed in order to help Peruvians to write
more activities and to more easily share new uses of old
activities?"
yamaplos> That one is easy to answer. get them in community. get them to be
part of a list, have that as an expectation. help them to get to
wiki, to blog, etc... to share results, the good, the bad, the
ugly, the precious, but *share*!!!! ...cannot be done from up
high, has to happen horizontally
icarito> +1
m_stone> hpachas-PE: do you agree with yamaplos?
Disconnected
walterbender> +1; Peru, perhaps because so many of the schools are not on line,
has been quite in the discussions...
walterbender> maybe a way of delivering to the teachers the digest from the Sur
list each month?
walterbender> make it availabell at the regional centers?
walterbender> then they would get a sense of the level of participation they
can be part of
m_stone> walterbender: you're a journalist to the end -- I approve.
yamaplos> walter, connectivity... What happened with that? wasn't that
part of the whole Peru exercise, to solve thatcreatively,
Huascaran and all that?
walterbender> Hernan knows better than I, but they started OLPC in very remote
places
walterbender> so a large portion of the schools have mesh, but not internet
m_stone> walterbender: mako has a project on blogging for prisoners (who
may send mail but not email). perhaps it could be adapted?
walterbender> I'll have to ask Mako about it.
Caryl> We don't hear much from the US deployments either. Maybe there
should be an olpc-USA list too
m_stone> Caryl: I thought walter was suggesting a sort of newsletter.
Caryl> nice, but discussions are good too
yamaplos> Don't think Sur in itself would help that much. I can tell you
how we'll (attempt to) solve that in Bolivia, though...
walterbender> yamaplos: all ears
yamaplos> a WAN among all participating schools, and Abarka net for
connecting to the outside
yamaplos> Basically, Line of Sight connectivity is a sure possibility
yamaplos> but internationalk pipeline to the big I Internet is not
walterbender> yamaplos: I don't think that is feasible in Peru yet, given the
remoteness and scale. working locally is the Peru model, I
believe. Hernan?
Caryl> Yama can you explain the problem?
yamaplos> so we'll be working a lot at the local level, getting teachers,
kids, etcx connected locally, in a obsessive way
yamaplos> The problem in Bolivia is twofold, has to do a lot with
infrastructure
yamaplos> The pipeline to teh internet is thin, unreliable, expensive.
Then we have mountains
greebo> I think a way to communicate about deployments would be great, I
was going to start blogging each week after each meeting, but got
caught up after the last meeting, so I'll start blogging after
todays meeting. I think the grassroots mailing list _might_ be a
useful venue for deployment discussions, but if we need a new
list, we could have an @olpcfriends.org list if people want :)
m_stone> greebo: the trick is to find something that works in places like
Peru.
greebo> m_stone, something in terms of communication for the people doing
deployments for this, or generally to get them connected to the
internet? I'm just trying to get the right context :)
m_stone> greebo: in general, discussing what it means for people like us
to provide "support" to people who are trying to address
pedagogical issues
m_stone> greebo: and, in specific, discussing how to help foster activity
creation and reinvention in Peru.
yamaplos> So with LOS wifi, we get about 50 miles line of sight, which
should be quite OK for our first few dozen schools. We'd have
some central services, and then we'd use whatever we can fashion
to connect ourselves to the outside world, but definitely *NOT*
depend on the Internet as we know it
yamaplos> Maybe email and nightly uploads/downloads we could count on
yamaplos> It's VERY hard. I spent 2 weeks trying to negotiate a simple
connection for my home, I even had the guy visit me and ascertain
it was technically feasible. But the system is just way slower
yamaplos> I mean, the people, businesses, very, very hard to get things
done. So I still have no connection with my team there, except
for 15 cents a minute phone. or them going to an internet cafe
Caryl> Yama: how do the internet cafe's get their internet service?
yamaplos> caryl, who knows :-) I mean, I will get it eventually, but 2
weeks was too short, obviously
Caryl> yama...let's find out their secret!
yamaplos> I'm phoning the guy right now
icarito> perhaps having used existing huascaran conectivity infrastructure
would've helped?
yamaplos> Was / is there huascaran connectivity?
m_stone> http://www.olpcnews.com/internet/access/synchronous_internet_conn
ectivity_vsat.html seems relevant
icarito> hpachas-PE: why was OLPC not made to match existing connectivity
from huascaran? how was that not feasible?
icarito> yamaplos: I understand schools were selected with a different
criteria: one-teacher multil-grade schools
icarito> so virtually no existing connectivity infrastucture was used
icarito> nice method: pilot connected, deploy isolated
yamaplos> was that lack of connectivity a given? we all saw Ivan doing the
two-step in Arahuay...
icarito> *and* have chief security officer fix antennas
greebs> yamaplos, I was chatting to some folk in Uganda who have similar
issues. They have gone with an internet connection in a community
centre connecting up the surrounding villages. They heavily use
proxy caching and repeaters to get as broad coverage from the one
centre as possible
yamaplos> VSAT no good , unsustainable, too expensive. This is what I am
trusting on http://www.nepalwireless.net/progress.php
Local Involvement
m_stone> we should return to the original thread which hernan's remarks
caused us to study:
m_stone> what things can we do "before starting development, in the
villages, to see their needs and see how we can make society is
interested in certain subjects, using an activity and XO"
m_stone> do we agree with that idea?
icarito> m_stone: yamaplos already answered: grow community
m_stone> icarito: yamaplos' answer seemed non-specific to me.
m_stone> icarito: walter made one specific suggestion; namely, to pursue
solutions based in journalism; e.g. newsletters.
icarito> m_stone: actually he suggested OLPC-Sur digest, which I would
prefer
Caryl> the teachers, parents, and students should have a chance to see
the XOs nd what they can do to get interest and find out what
they want. perhaps a traveling "roadshow?"
yamaplos> the question is a bit hard to get. OK, first, we DO need to get
to the villages. Get the parents, teachers teall us what they
want
greebs> m_stone, I think the best thing to do is to work directly with
the teachers, show them what is possible with the XO and
activities, and then allow them to decide if/how it will be used
in the education. It empowers them and also helps ensure they'll
be used in a way appropriate culturally and in line with their
education needs. I think getting parents and students excited is
easy enough, but you need the teachers to make it work.
Caryl> let the teachers try the machines. have a center they can come
to, easy to get to from lots of places.
aa> greebs: I agree its "easy enough" if you have the resources to
have people work with them locally
aa> re: getting parents involved
greebs> aa, yeah, but scaling that's challenging right?
aa> greebs: exactly
yamaplos> In Bolivia I started with 11 orphan kids. 3 days. then I had
thos girls teach 11 teachers
yamaplos> those teachers were selected to be part of this because they had
a son or daughter 11 to 13 years old
yamaplos> so they get the XO home, they explore it together, the kid
obviously (hopefully!) will get more excited, and drag mom or dad
along
greebs> m_stone, walterbender what sort of newsletter is being suggested?
Would a weekly blog/news be enough?
m_stone> greebs: we think that there isn't sufficient connectivity for
anything so high-frequency.
walterbender> I think we are talking about two different needs...
walterbender> my suggestion re Sur was for the existing deployments
walterbender> to keep the teachers informed
greebs> I think a regular digest of information can be useful, if it is
for teachers, then we need a list for teachers to subscribe to to
get it, if for deployers, we need alist for that. All digests
should also be blogged, write once, publish many :)
yamaplos> Giving thim Sur won't get them engaged. Having them *do* things
may
icarito> yamaplos: +1 so need a way to get feedback too
greebs> walterbender, wouldn't the deployment people on the ground would
be keeping teachers informed? and keeping in mind many parents
_and_ teachers won't be engaged through online means anyway, they
will engage with their peers locally, so perhaps forming a
computer club in each deployment would be a good way to encourage
on the ground peer support?
m_stone> greebs: from what I understand, in Peru, that's much easier to
say than to do.
icarito> m_stone: it'd be nice to *try* tho
greebs> m_stone, gotcha, thanks
transbot0> icarito> hpachas-PE: A suggestion was made to estimate the
specific needs of communities and teachers: to train community,
and specifically to distribute a summary (say, weekly) of the
OLPC-Sur list to teachers, do you think?
transbot0> hpachas-PE> one can say little about the issues they are talking,
but I need just a few minutes of your time. I listen to and not
distract
transbot0> hpachas-PE> when I speak a dire and EOF may conentar
transbot0> hpachas-PE> m_stone, let me know when you can do
aa> what I've found when talking to parents in the poorest places is
that they are _extremely_ shy
aa> but yes, once you engage them they have been, so far, very
responsive
aa> what's been extremely succesful here in Uruguay is RAP's model of
having a handful of people in each town working locally
walterbender> 6-7% is pretty good IMHO
yamaplos> aa: successful? we only have 6%-7% of the Uruguay teachers
involved in community, and they don't have the excuse that Peru
has that there is no connectivity. Could you define what you
mean by successful, please?
aa> yamaplos: _that_ is incredibly successful :)
yamaplos> Sure...
aa> of course, we can, and must, aim higher
yamaplos> I say 100% is what I aim for and I intend to deliver
greebs> aa, those people on the ground in each location, are they
employees? volunteers? teachers?
aa> greebs: volunteers
greebs> aa, cool, what is the org that brings everyone together and
coordinates the volunteers?
yamaplos> people get engaged not when they listen, but when they speak.
Yes, they are shy, boy, are they, but the "evil secret" of Sur is
that magic happens when they actually get a chance to speak
walterbender> yamaplos: I suspect that the teachers in Peru don't know there is
a conversation to join. Once they see the conversation, I hope
they speak up. I believe that they are already doing things...
they have some great learning results from Peru. But little
backchannel that I am aware of.
yamaplos> walter: you got it
greebs> yamaplos, aa yeah, I find the teachers love this stuff, but even
the really enthusiastic ones aren't really engaging (in
Australia, but also throughout the Pacific deployments), so they
basically use what they get/learn from the deployment stage
transbot0> hpachas-PE> m_stone, I want to comment at this time. but I just
need a time to talk.
m_stone> hpachas-PE: I understand. I'll slow things down.
m_stone> hey folks -- I'd really like to hear what hernan has to say. he
says that he needs to speak slowly though so that we understand
him and vice versa. so let's go slow for the next few minutes.
(thanks)
m_stone> hpachas-PE: your turn.
yamaplos> well, the Nepal - Bolivia axis of community intends to get them
to get engaged *first*, then let them have a computer
m_stone> yamaplos: shush.
yamaplos> sorry....
Reality
hpachas-PE> 1 .Las XO se han distribuido a nivel nacional y han llegao a
lugares muy lejanos donde no existe conectividad a internet y en
muchos casoss solo llega una señal telefonica. lo que aqui se
denomina "telefono comunitario". la población que se encuntra en
esos lugares, son personas que viven de lo que la tierra les da,
es decir, ganaderia y agricultura. obviamente su interes es el de
sobrevivir en ese mundo y muchas veces es mas importante que el
niño ayude al padre en esta labor, en lugar de ir a la escuela.
es decir, ven mas productivo a un niño en el campo que en el
colegio. se ha hecho una sugerencia específica para estimar las
necesidades de las comunidades y los profesores: formar
comunidad, y específicamente distribuir un resumen (digamos,
semanal) de la lista OLPC-Sur, a los docentes, qué te parece? lo
pocos lugares que tienen conectividad a internet, son alimentados
por antenas satelitales, denominadas VSAT y estuvieron y fueron
creadas para el sector secundario existe actualmente un divorcio
entre lo que los desarrolladores hacen y piensan que les puede
ser util a los niños, maestros y padres .. con lo que realmente
le es importante para ellos. debemos escuchar mas a los maestros,
debemos internarnos en esos pueblos, púeblos que se emncuntran
en el peor de los casos a 2 o 3 dias de la civilización y en el
mejor de los casos a 3 o 4 horas de la ciudad (civilizacion).
conocer que es lo que realmente les interesa, crear aplicativos
que puedan ellos entender, comprender y ayuden tanto en su
desarrollo de capacidades de aprendizaje, como en el dia a dia a
sus padres. si seguimos imaginando su mundo,. no llegaremos a
nuestro objetivo. tenemos que vivir su mundo. luego de eso
discutimos que es lo mas importante
transbot0> hpachas-PE> 1. The XO has been distributed nationally and has
traveled to places far away where there is no internet
connectivity and many casoss only reaches a telephone signal.
what here is called a "community telephone". people will find in
these places are people living in what the land gives, ie
agriculture and livestock. obvious interest is to survive in this
world and is often more important than helping the child to the
father in this work, instead of going to school. ie, see a child
more productive in the field at school. the few places that have
internet connectivity, are fed by satellite dishes, and were
known as VSAT and were created for the secondary sector. There is
currently a discrepancy between what developers do and think that
they can be useful to children, teachers and parents .. what is
really important to them. Developers should listen more to
teachers, we need them in these villages, where people live, in
the worst case 2 or 3 days from civilization and in the best case
at 3 or 4 hours of the city (civilization). Then we know what
they really are interested, they can create applications that
understand, understand and assist in their development of
learning capabilities, as in every day to his parents. if we
imagine the world, we will not reach our goal. we have to live
the real world. after that we discuss what is most important.
greebs> hpachas-PE, if you believe the digest would help get the
community behind education in general, then that is great. It
sounds like you need to educate the families more than the
teachers, so perhaps coordinating some parent and teacher
meetings would help educate the parents?
greebs> hpachas-PE, perhaps providing incentives for the families to send
children to school. Perhaps looking at loading up onto the
computer some activities that are useful to farming families
(perhaps the spreadsheet application??) and then inform the
communities about these devices that will both help education and
help the farm...
walterbender> hpachas-PE: +1, but the question remains, how? Can we leverage
the UGELs? Some forum for getting the communication flowing?
Because it is not practical to send developers to the Andes, as
much as I would love to go there.
aa> walterbender: I think that we can all agree that, for starters,
software developers in other countries cannot achieve that (any)
level of communication with these places
walterbender> aa: we need local developers, for sure... but that will take
time.
aa> walterbender: I'm not talking about developers. I think that
hpachas-PE very real concern implies that we need people working
on the ground engaging and providing feedback
walterbender> aa: hernan and I have been working towards that goal in a
different thread
Caryl> see the Uruguay links above. They had similar issues with rural
families
walterbender> aa: I met many of the teachers in Peru. I think they are capable
of providing that feedback
greebs> aa, I think it isn't just people, it is about messaging and
incentives. We need the families to want and see value in both
the technology and education.
aa> greebs: of course, but that needs personal interaction in these
settings
transbot0> hpachas-PE> need a transbot0 between society and the technical
aa> hpachas-PE: +1
m_stone> hpachas-PE: :)
greebs> hpachas-PE, heh :) +1
_sj|> a translation[bot] between social and technical groups is a good
metaphor
greebs> aa, yeah, and part of the question is what can be done within
this group, I think we as a community of practitioners can create
some of this information and messaging, getting people on the
ground is always going to be a local coordination effort.
aa> walterbender's point is a good one, those of us who have met
teachers in the field agree that they are very capable people.
Luckily lack of capacity is not our problem, the main issue is
engaging them
aa> greebs: first of all we should be explicit about the paramount
importance of having a network of local volunteers, and making
that clear to everyone who's starting a pilot
greebs> aa, definitely!
greebs> aa, walterbender I am unsure we can _ever_ engage even a large
percentage of teachers. And the ones that engage aren't
necessarily the ones who need the most support. We need to think
of strategies to help the teachers who aren't going to engage
that can be part of a normal deployment process :)
transbot0> hpachas-PE> if we have achieved many goals bot sustainable local
or do what the company (internally) wishes .. OVERCOMING
yamaplos> Has anyone tried first asking the families and teachers what it
is they want, needs? That seemed to have worked in Nepal....
greebs> yamaplos, I think that approach is extremely good, and if you
empower the participants from the start, they have an incentive
to make it work in the long term
yamaplos> greebs: well, yeah... :-)
icarito> well how about using the existing human intersection: Local
Technical Groups
icarito> we might be good translators (better than bots!)
m_stone> icarito: well, I get the feeling that people here think that
/technical/ groups aren't really what's needed.
m_stone> rather, that groups which /give voice/ to needs and to inventions
are what's wanted.
Caryl> if custom software is needed, technical groups are needed
Caryl> how do they do basic customization? e.g. change Conozco Uruguay
to Conozco Peru?
greebs> Caryl, often enough, custom software isn't needed, just basic
customisation of the activities and options. I don't think
developers are necessary for a deployment, but vital to the
community
icarito> i'm guessing requirements and dev feedback at least, could be
handled locally by semi computer proficient locals
greebs> icarito, many geeks are not good translators :) I feel like this
should be part of a process, rather than trying to find all the
existing ingredients. The existing Deployment Guide
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployment_Guide) has some of this,
and if we can improve upon it, it'll make it easier for everyone
icarito> not geeks, not many of us
greebs> icarito, feedback to the developer community could be sought
through groups like this, where we have a bunch of deployers
together, I think the deployment wishlist is a great way to get
feedback from the deployments.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployment_Wishlist
greebs> By the way, just a quick announcement, could everyone here
_please_ add any of your ideas and edits to the deployment guide
and could you also please add any links to reports,
documentation, and other resources to the resources page. Both
are linked from the deployment meeting page
_sj|> also one between what one needs and what can be contributed
_sj|> it is very difficult to know what to ask, or what to suggest
_sj|> when one has not seen the realm of tools or opportuniites.
Blogs & UGELs
walterbender> While it is hard to imagine reaching all the teachers, we need to
start somewhere.
walterbender> aa, greebo: the standard OLPC deployment, as developed by Carla
Gomez and followed, AFAIK, in Peru, enagges the parents and
community explicitly as part of the process.
yamaplos> walter "the standard OLPC deployment,... enagges the parents and
community explicitly as part of the process." Really? besides
infomercials, where are the results of that "engagement"?
doesn't seem to be working IMHO
walterbender> yamaplos: I cannot say if in practice these outreach ideas are
there, but I had the impression that it was part of the Peru
deployment strategy. Hernan?
walterbender> Hernan, it strikes me that for Peru, the UGELs have to be part of
the solution.
walterbender> (FOr those who don't know the term, these are regional
distribution centers run by the minstry. the teachers come there
1x per month)
hpachas-PE> walter, I would see a lower level.. Teachers are responsible for
the XO.
walterbender> Cannot we use the UGELs for a point of information exchange? Even
a high latency one?
walterbender> a web form they fill out to say what works, what doesn't? their
hopes? their fears?
greebs> walterbender, a basic feedback form would be great, and I think
teachers would do that if is was part of the deployment process,
but much more than that may be hard to extract :)
aa> I wonder why this feedback form hasn't been implemented as part
of the support system in Uruguay?
walterbender> aa: there seems to be more momentum in Uruguay around blogging
fcr> the +1 goes for encouraging blogging as a normal part of the
workflow, from what I saw, there almost all classes have blogs
hpachas-PE> walter, I\u0026#39;m just working with Victor, to be taught the
teachers to create blogs, and can comment on everything that
happens in their schools
hpachas-PE> Blogs give us a great vision of what is happening in schools
hpachas-PE> is a tough job, but it is the clearest source of information
walterbender> Are the blogs publically accessible?
hpachas-PE> walter, the idea is beginning to use personal blogs, where q say
things happen.
hpachas-PE> I think we can provide a virtual space for this job
Caryl> Many teachers are already overloaded. Adding blogging to their
agenda might turn them off to the project (retired teacher
speaking)
greebs> Caryl, this is my concern, however if we can encourage blogging
as a normal part of the workflow (so children perhaps blog their
homework and a teacher comments on the homework, etc) then it is
doable. Excited teachers will always to the fun new stuff, but we
need to capture all the rest of the teachers too
greebs> we have a national blogging platform for teachers, might be a
useful model http://edublogs.org/
yamaplos> I saw some action on Moodle in Peru a while back...
yamaplos> I believe simple webforms, a sort of opinion surveys, just asking
teachers to choose a couple things, maybe fill in a single line,
are the way to go
yamaplos> I agree that asking them to blog is a Bad Idea
aa> hpachas-PE: conoces EduBlog? http://edublog.ceibaljam.org hpachas-PE> ligth should be a space for children .. is easy to come easy to modify. a simple single blog LATAM maybe OLPC hpachas-PE> donde podamos encontrar blogs de los paises hpachas-PE> nos nutrimos de cada uno de ellos aa> hpachas-PE: please take a look at edublog, I am one of the developers and would be happy to assist if you are thinking of deploying something like that
icarito> hpachas-EP, would the teachers use this blog from the UGELs?
hpachas-PE> lo usarian 1 . en el colegio, si el coletio tiene internet, 2 en
la ciudad si utilzan un cyber cafe. 3 en sus casas si en sus
casas tienen internet
hpachas-PE> the idea is that they can access from anywhere
hpachas-PE> remember that we are talking about some people who exceed 50
years. and this must be done. (ie simple)
greebs> so I guess the question I have is what can we build into the
deployment process to help with all these things? Should we
perhaps try to include a group of things into the teacher
training? Should we engage local high schools to help with
support? How do we get the teachers engaged, and could we perhaps
say to the schools that they have to delegate at least one
teacher to be engaged in the community to ensure they get the
benefits of the programme as part of the deal?
icarito> hpachas-EP: I still believe that the idea of distributing a
summary of OLPC-South is good, yamaplos, suggesting (perhaps you
should be on # olpc-es to read what he writes hernan)
hpachas-PE> Fear of technology is like my fear of visturi:-D
yamaplos> vistury= surgeon's knife
aa> hpachas-PE, Caryl: nothing restricts deployments from installing
such service in the school servers
yamaplos> 8.000 blogs? me seems maybe 30?
fcr> yamaplos: there are hundred
yamaplos> as we used to say in the playground, fcr, "show me!"
aa> yamaplos: http://ceibal.edu.uy/blog/ceibalolimar/
http://ceibal.edu.uy/blog/escuela119salto/ http://ceibal.edu.uy/b
log/escbra17/http://ceibal.edu.uy/blog/sanjo52/
http://ceibal.edu.uy/blog/maestrosdeyoung/
fcr> yamaplos:
http://ipv6.google.com/search?q=blogspot+ceibal&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
aa> yamaplos: these are some examples in ceibal's blogging system :)
yamaplos> fcr, when google tells you it has 20.400 hits, that does not mean
there are 20.400 blogs... :-)
greebs> yamaplos, we are having success with blogs in the classroom,
where they are a part of the normal workflow. Eg - the edublogs
website.
fcr> yamaplos: I know, but beleive me, there are a lot of blogs
yamaplos> aa, fcr: I don't want to deny there is *some* work done, and it's
GREAT! But AFAIK about 0.7% of teachers are doing it, VERY far
from calling that a success. Now. I don't want to say that in
itself is bad, but please, don't call it a mission accomplished
when there's 99.3% to go...
aa> yamaplos: I think the proportion is a bit larger
yamaplos> OK, aa, 0.9%. Happy now? I will be happy to stand corrected and
do the "sorry dance and song" if you can prove it
m_stone> aa: and so begins your quest...
yamaplos> on youtube
aa> yamaplos: if you can help me find the total number of elementary
teachers in uruguay I'm pretty confident I can contest it :)
yamaplos> 200.000 kids. say 1 teacher per 25 kids. 8.000 teachers. Add
special ed, principals, music, extra teachers, let's round about
10.000. Get us 91 blogs, you'll be famous as the guy who made
yamaplos do the sorry dance
greebs> hpachas-PE, if you believe distributing anything will help your
teachers, then you should do it :) Getting someone in each school
to read and transmit that information to the rest of the school
is the challenge
hpachas-PE> greebs distributing what?
greebs> hpachas-PE, you are talking about a digest for teachers, and were
asking whether it was a good idea. I'm suggesting it could be
good but we need to be sure as part of each deployment that
someone in each school is responsibile for keeping up to date and
informing the school. It is unrealistic to expect teachers to
join such a list in the majority of cases, so we should build it
into the process and responsibilities of a deployment
hpachas-PE> must have multiple sources of information, one of them is the
blog, but I also think there are other forms q
greebs> walterbender, what sort of engagement do you think would most
help teachers in the field? the digest you were mentioning?
walterbender> greebs: I think that we need to show the teachers that their
voice is valued.
walterbender> I think the Sur list is a good example of that
walterbender> and it is in Spanish and from the region.
greebs> walterbender, so you see the digest as being what the teachers
themselves are sharing?
walterbender> greebs: an example of teachers speaking up and developers
listening
walterbender> and sharing od ideas and criticism
walterbender> ie. learning
greebs> walterbender, I think this form of communication is very
important, but I'm not sure we'll get most teachers (and
particularly those most in need of the information) to
participate. It is great it is working on the SUR list, but I
don't see most of the teachers in Oceania wanting to do this,
although I'm sure a few would be open to receiving a newsletter
with information
walterbender> greebs: just one arrow in our quiver...
greebs> I think we'll be lucky to engage >5% of teachers in most
countries, it doesn't matter what the technology. The trick as I
see it is to make the deployment process such that even the most
tech-terrified teachers feel comfortable to integrate the
XO/Sugar into the classroom. So documenting learning activities
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Learning_activities), providing local
volunteer peer support groups, and trying to link at least one
person per dep
Goodbye
greebs> this has been a great discussion (albeit without any real agenda
:), and we should try to keep to the one hour mark. Could
everyone please add any notes to the minutes when they come out
in the coming days, and could you all please ensure you add stuff
to the agenda, and we'll try to stick to an agenda next meeting
so we can get through more :)
m_stone> hpachas-PE: muchisimas gracias por estos pensamientos.
m_stone> bye everyone, and thanks for joining!
aa> bye, and thank you!
greebs> back to the broader support community to hopefully keep momentum,
enthusiasm and new ideas flowing
greebs> ok, I've got to fly, sorry for being late everyone. See you next
meeting!
yamaplos> thank you all, this was great!
cjb> bye!
walterbender> ciao
icarito> chao!
walterbender> dance, Yama, dance!!
yamaplos> You know, Walter, I'd rather be wrong in this that right. If I'm
wrong, it's that things are actually less than really bad. If
I'm right, it's the silliest victory possible, for I am proving
this whole caboodle is in a sorry state. Just in case I'll get
the nice shoes out
walterbender> yamaplos: right or wrong, I want to see you dance :)
yamaplos> we'll do a duet, OK?
walterbender> a deal... but watch out because I have two left feet.
yamaplos> cool!
yamaplos> I have an extra tooth
yamaplos> :-)
greebs> m_stone, what is the notes backchannel? I'm going to do a blog in
about an hour or so about this. I think some really interesting
ideas have come out of the meetings and I promise I'm going to
start the weekly blog about it today :)
m_stone> "notes backchannel"?
aa> an interesting statistic: Ceibal offers discounts on standard
laptops to high school teachers, most of the models have linux as
an option. So far 20% of the teachers have chosen linux
cjb> is linux the same price as windows?
aa> cjb: linux is somewhat cheaper
kristianpaul> cjb: and is free as in freedom of speech
cjb> I'm aware of the freeness of linux :)
bjordan> cjb: you should try it sometime ;)
cjb> bjordan: nah, I hear it's developed by losers with beards
m_stone> and I hate freedom, as is well known.
aa> cjb is completely lost to us now that he has his Windows 7 beta
cjb> I know it's wrong, but it feels so right
aa> cjb:
http://latu30.latu.org.uy/pls/portal/latu_portal.ntb_lista_equipo
s
cjb> aa: cool
fcr> It's a shame that one of the providers, is giving the linux
laptops without even X
hpachas-PE> m_stone, http://fedoraunity.org/fup/meeting-guidelines/ m_stone> hpachas-PE: si? hpachas-PE> m_stone, esto puede ayudar a las reuniones futuras m_stone> gracias. :) hpachas-PE> m_stone, :-)
m_stone> greebo: I'm afraid that I'm not going to be available this
evening.
m_stone> (I didn't get much sleep last night, so I'm going to crash in the
not-too-distant-future)
Cyberbullying
kevix> anyone around?
kevix> anyone have to deal with chat cyberbullying?
cjb> no, but there are ops in #freenode or #freenode-admin or whatever
it is
greebo> kevix, yep
kevix> I am talking about the chat activity
cjb> oh. in a local school setting?
kevix> yes
greebo> kevix, the backing up of the journal is helpful for that
cjb> I'd deal with it equivalently to physical or cell phone bullying,
I guess
greebo> kevix, so, teachers can browse the backed up journals to keep an
eye out for cyberbullying
kevix> my amigos are trying to make a script to grep from badwords.txt
cjb> which deployment are you working with?
kevix> alabama
greebo> kevix, and the children are told everything they do is visible to
the teachers, which also helps with avoiding cyberbullying
kevix> i mentioned that they can use that as a detterant
cjb> (note that this is deployment-specific advice, since some
deployments opt for privacy by default)
kevix> privacy is what way?
cjb> that the childrens' files are private from their teachers by
default, unless they choose to publish them with a system like
edublog, hand them in as homework, or if there's a reason to
override the privacy
kevix> ah.
kevix> would that mean that the journal backups can not be scanned for
'bad words' and a generic alert give to the teacher?
cjb> well, it means this could be done if the deployments wanted to
kevix> hi anna_bham
cjb> I'm just letting you know that our large deployments like Uruguay
and Peru have decided not to do this, policy-wise
kevix> tell the nice folks what your issue is
anna_bham> Hi kev
kevix> this is interesting
cjb> it's okay, you don't need to explain the reasoning to me
cjb> I'm sure you can go ahead and do it if you want
cjb> although I don't think Chat logs are stored in the Journal
cjb> so that probably wouldn't work
kevix> I would want that, but not everone thinks the same
anna_bham> Well, I got a support call today. The teachers wanted to save
off a chat with "ugliness." The victim brought it to the
attention of the educators.
cjb> there's a very different attitude towards school responsibility
outside the US, I suppose
anna_bham> Yes, chat logs are stored in the journal
cjb> oh! cool. then you're all set.
anna_bham> So they wanted "evidence" to print out
anna_bham> Of course, you have to drag and drop to a usb drive and then take
it to a windows machine
cjb> sure
anna_bham> Anyway, one of my friends is modifying her "findinchat" script to
grep against badwords.txt
cjb> sure
anna_bham> Which some of my users are enthusiastically submitting content to
badwords.txt. Geez, I had no idea.
cjb> it seems like you're going to quickly find that the kids all stop
using chat and move to something on the web :)
kevix> ah.
kevix> the adapt like borg
anna_bham> cjb, Not when they don't have internet access at the school, for
now anyway
anna_bham> But that's a whole other issue
cjb> ah
anna_bham> y'all might find this interesting, humorous, bothersome, etc. I
installed Foxfilter on FF3 on the XOs cause this project is under
so much media scrutiny here, that's all we need is "Porn on the
XOs! Report at 10"
anna_bham> Anyway, the default keywords include "free adult"
anna_bham> so, I got a support call yesterday asking why a kid trying to
look up Booker T. Washington for Black History Month was running
into Foxfilter. Um, guess the web designer put the keywords free
and adult into his title.
cjb> sigh
anna_bham> I can't anticipate everything
cjb> that's okay, it wasn't a personal sigh :)
anna_bham> after all, Booker T. Washinton was freed when he was a young
adult
anna_bham> Really, any webmaster worth his salt should refrain from putting
the word "adult" in the title if the site is innocent