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Country Meetings

Community News

For the latest updates from the various teams, subscribe to the mailing list, or check the archived updates here.

Week of September 21

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-September/000146.html

Rwanda: Preparations continue for the workshop to be held next week in Kigali. There is tremendous pride among Rwandans in hosting such an event. It is part of an effort to dramatically transform the nation into a knowledge-based society that pursues just and equitable social and economic development. OLPC plays a major role in this.

Mongolia: Elana Langer and David Cavallo held numerous meetings with government officials, NGOs, and grassroots organizations as Mongolia prepares for the distribution of the laptops for the new school year. There are some delays as the new government comes into place next week, but significant progress was made in addressing issues to date. After the new government takes shape, Elana will return to finalize the implementation plan and to help further develop the local staff and core team.

Haiti: The island has been hammered by four major storms. Unsurprisingly, there has been considerable damage and multiple disruptions. Progress continues, however. In addition to repairing the storm damage to infrastructure, Guy Serge Pomiplus, the government’s laptop coordinator, has begun a new XO content development effort to help the children learn more about hurricanes and disaster prevention.

Cambridge: The learning team hosted the introductory workshop in Cambridge this week. Participants included representatives from Colombia, Palestine, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, the University of Wisconsin, the International Relief and Development Organization, the World Council of Churches, the Seed Foundation and the International Education Exchange. Participants worked on various learning activity projects including Turtle Art and group storytelling in Scratch. The week ended with discussion groups on real world OLPC implementation. Workshop feedback was positive. A partnership was formed between the University of Wisconsin student team and OLPC Paraguay. After the storytelling sessions one participant commented; "now we can see the true potential of the XO.”

[...]

Lebanon: Matt Keller attended a moving ceremony in South Beirut commemorating the September 17, 1982, slaughter of a thousand or more Palestinian refugees, many of them children, at the Sabra and Shatila camps. Local leaders this year brightened the otherwise somber remembrance by also passing out 400 XOs, all donated by OLPC, to children living in the camps. They attend a school operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The deployment is being managed by an NGO called the SabraShatila Memorial Scholarship Fund, which is scheduled to buy an additional 800 laptops. Matt’s report: “OLPC was the star of the event. Roughly 3000 people attended, including many members of the press, local politicians, and UN officials. Among them was the mayor of South Beirut, with whom I spoke. ‘The American government sends bombs to kill the innocent,’ he said, ‘and the American people send us computers for our children. We are very grateful to OLPC. This means opening up the world to our children.’ It was a fairly intense moment.

“The children themselves were simply ecstatic. The thought that they were getting these laptops was almost too much for them to grasp. In fact, it came close to actually being too much. People began grabbing and pushing. Some adults tried to make off with laptops. But order was restored by security, and the would-be thieves were stopped at the gate. “I also met with Dr. Ghinwa Jalloul, one of only six women in the Lebanese parliament, and chair of its IT committee. After two hours of discussion, we decided to work together to bring the XO to the children of Lebanon. The question, as always, will be funding. But this marks the beginning of what could be an excellent partnership.”

Week of September 14

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-September/000145.html

Week of September 7

New York City: Nicholas and Chuck met with Taxi and The Barbarian Group to review the ad campaign for Give One Get One, now scheduled to launch again on November 17th. Three platforms – ad jargon for themes or stories - were presented. One was about lighting the world. Another was about growing a mind. The third was about "Generation XO." The latter two will be explored further, with art work starting as soon as next week. As previously reported here, Amazon will distribute the laptops for us and handle all payment and fulfillment. Contrary to published speculation, XP will not be offered in Give One Get One. Learning

Rwanda: It was a sunny Friday, September 5th at the Kagugu Primary School in Kigali where the national government officially launched OLPC in Rwanda. Many national officials, the press and various international organizations attended. The ceremony included more than three thousands students who received their XO laptops.

The impressive event included traditional music and dance, performed both by the children and by professional dancers – living reminders of Rwanda’s proud past and abundant future promise. The school was fully prepared for the occasion. The electrical infrastructure had been expanded. Wireless connectivity via Vsat was installed. Decorations were in place. Education Minister Théoneste Mutsindashyaka and Prof. Romain Murenzi, a senior science and technology official in President Kagame’s office, both spoke to the gathering of their shared vision of how OLPC can improve education in Rwanda, as well as the country’s economy. They also announced that the government will create a fund to support a full XO deployment to all of Rwanda’s two million primary school students within five years. Jerome Gasana, Director of the Regional ICT Training and Research Center, is providing full support for the national core team as they work in the schools. They have learned that their approach to teacher development is much more important than content. What they do is much more important than what they say. One small strategy that works well is to discuss and reflect together with the teachers after each practice. Terms like projects, learning by doing and hard fun are becoming a part of the teachers’ vocabulary. It is also important to note how much the local core team is starting to own the project, a positive development reflected in the way they defend the XO against criticisms and advocate the importance of the project for primary education and President Kagame’s program of national goals, called Vision 2020

Haiti: Between hurricanes, the recruitment and qualification of potential pedagogical and IT staff at each regional school center (EFACAP) continued. The Haitian OLPC core team visited two of the five regions scheduled to receive laptops. The good news is that one region (the "plateau central") has more electricity than expected. The bad news is that after Fay, Gustav and Hanna, the start of school will be delayed in some regions. The Haitian team continued to work on designing activities and putting them on the Haitian OLPC initiative wiki. Three XOs were upgraded to Joyride 2388 and to the latest Kreyol translation. These machines will go to professional translators, along with instructions how to test the translation and report errors and suggestions. The team also is designing new materials for training EFACAP technical staff. At week’s end there came more good news with the installation of Michèle Pierre-Louis as Haiti’s new prime minister. The previous government was dismissed in April after food riots erupted around the country. Pierre-Louis has been head of the Knowledge and Freedom Foundation (FOKAL), which is supported by George Soros.

Mongolia: The school year started September 1st. In two separate televised speeches, President Nambaryn Enkhbayar reaffirmed his commitment to OLPC in Mongolia, heralding “the year of the success of OLPC.” The minister of education and the director of primary and secondary education were both shown using their XOs in televised ceremonies at schools.

The new government is in the process of being assembled. The prime minister will remain the same. Other ministers are expected to be chosen before the end of the month. Schools and districts have begun to pick up the laptops. A Dutch couple purchased three servers, three switches and 15 access points. They are being donated to help support three schools in the capital. The director of Project READ is preparing to buy 2000 computers. Their rollout will begin in December. Cambridge: OLPC will hold a learning workshop on September 17 through 19 at the OLPC offices in Cambridge. This is in addition to the regional workshop to be held in Kigali, Rwanda on September 29 through October 2. Please invite key people involved in learning and project development to both workshops.

Week of August 31

Birmingham: The XO eXpO was held on Saturday, August 23, at the McWane Science Center. The capabilities and functionality of the XO laptop were presented to 154 business and civic leaders, educators, and educational administrators. Guests came from around the city, the state, and as far away as Panama. In addition to OLPC President Chuck Kane, the numerous speakers included Michael Wilson, principal at Glen Iris Elementary, our pilot school, Prothaniel Harris, a 5th grade teacher from Glen Iris, the Birmingham City schools director of instructional technology, a Birmingham city councilman, a professor from the computer and information sciences department of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the president of the board of education and two representatives from Mayor Larry Langford’s office. Nine Glen Iris students who created campaigns using Scratch to teach their communities about health care issues showed eXpO participants their projects and taught general use of the laptop. Another highlight of the Expo was a robot controlled via the XO laptop and the Wiimote from Nintendo's Wii Gaming System, created by Tyler Williams, an MIT student and a member of the OLPC team to Mongolia.

Both children and adults came away excited about the XO laptop’s potential. "It looks like a glorified toy,” said Mr. Harris, “but they are not toys. Children need to be doing things that are hands-on. It kind of takes away a lot of the negative behaviors they otherwise would have because they are engaged." In an added program feature, Magic Seth, former Media Lab student and impressive technological magician, utilized the laptop for 2 magic shows.

Through the XO eXpO, Birmingham - the Magic City - has been exposed to the magic that is possible through the combination of the XO and a community coming together to make a difference. The event was covered by local Fox, ABC, and NBC affiliates, and both the Birmingham News and Birmingham Times. Links: Birmingham News Fox News ABC News University of Alabama Birmingham

Rwanda: This week the 11th Rwanda International Trade Fair was held in Kigali. The Rwanda Information and Technology Agency – RITA – set up a booth and highlighted the OLPC project as one of its main initiatives. Carine Umutesi, RITA’s long-time liaison to OLPC, brought one teacher and some students from the project pilot school in the Rwamagana district to demonstrate the XOs. Rwandan President Paul Kagame opened the fair and spent considerable time in the RITA space interacting with the students and watching them present what they have learned so far. The laptops were running the alpha versions of Sugar 8.2 localized to the local language, Kinyarwanda.

President Kagame and Nkubito Bakuramutsa (left), RITA's executive director, visited the RITA table for a first-hand look at XOs in action.

The preparation for the OLPC launch on September 5th is moving quickly. Many challenges such as the electricity infrastructure in the schools, translation of software to the local language, and digitization of text books are being solved so that the project can begin properly. Coordinator Richard Niyonkuru is now working full-time dedicated only to the OLPC initiative. Besides helping with preparations for the deployment, Niyonkuru is also visiting many governmental agencies and stakeholders in the country to promote awareness of, and coordination with, the project. As a result of Richard's initiative, the team began working both in a medium-term planning for the next year, as well as a five-year vision for the project. The plan for rollout is shifting to begin in the poorest areas of the country. Using this strategy, it will be possible to take advantage of other governmental initiatives to cut such costs as infrastructure. The idea is also to promote the project not just as a ministry of education initiative, but as a broad-based governmental program. In order to achieve this objective, the government will use the OLPC Regional Workshop, to be held from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1st, as a vehicle to promote awareness inside the country and to attract international donors.

Mongolia: A functioning government at last should be in place by the end of next week. Cabinet members, including the minister of education, are expected to be changed. On September 18th, OLPC will co-host a roundtable discussion about its role in Mongolian education among government officials, funders, NGOs, countryside representatives and the media.

Haiti: This week has been interrupted by Hurricane Gustav. Everyone on the team is fine and our building stood up firmly against the rain and the wind. But Gustav did delay recruitment of the EFACAP staff, which is now expected to occur toward the end of next week. Emmanuel has gathered information on the various schools that will be part of the initial rollout. [...] We hope to feed the database with geographical information, using geolocalization services like OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

Medly and Beatrice have been working on several educational projects. One focuses on birds for 10-year-olds. Another is about discovering plants. While jotting down ideas for these two projects, we discussed the appropriate level of details required for instructions. We agreed that we should have various levels, from step-by-step guides to general and suggestive directions. The idea is to have a sufficient variety of materials to reflect the various teaching needs, the various teachers' profiles, and to encourage initiative. Since these materials will be online on the wiki, any activity is apt to evolve (and perhaps fork) in any direction. We tried to put some activities online and refined the forms for doing so.

We also started to work on the technical training. The first XO dissection will happen on Monday [...] Reading the reports from Mongolia, we realized how important it could be to have a Linux User Group in Haiti. People on the team were encouraged to be the proud initiators of such a LUG. They liked the idea, so this might eventually happen. It is hoped that such a group would serve as an effective proxy for gathering volunteers around OLPC Haiti.

Wanda is working with the tech team as they gear up to test the solar panels received from OLPC. [...] Also talks with the tech team this week were really informative in efforts to develop a better idea of how to address the technical needs in Haiti. The project coordinator has just signed an agreement with a publisher, which will bring a considerable amount of educational content to the XO. We will have four or five people dedicated to adapting this content to the XO. They will come and work here in the building at Rue 2. We will upgrade 4 XOs to the latest version of Sugar and activities, switch them to the latest available translations, and send those prepared XOs to linguists for review. We will integrate their corrections during September. Two big milestones for September: the teacher/tech training, and visiting the schools to fix as many electricity/connectivity issues as possible (and make a plan for fixing those we cannot afford to fix right now.) On the political side, Haiti has a new government and a new minister of education. The impact on the project is not predictable but things look fine so far!

Cambridge: Members of the Learning, Technical and International teams participated in a comprehensive telephone review of ongoing deployments, with specific attention to Mongolia, Rwanda, Haiti, and Birmingham. For each of these discussions the Cambridge team was joined by on-site OLPC-ers. Emphasis was placed on technical performance and immediate needs. One recurring demand was for improved networking and collaboration performance, particularly in large schools, as well as power, both management and solutions to lack of infrastructure. The knowledge and idea transfers that occurred during these calls is leading to more persistent feedback and support loops, particularly as the number of deployments continues to grow.

- From the Field**

Landlocked Mali is vast – nearly twice the size of Texas – remote and impoverished. Half the West African country’s 12 million citizens are under 16 years of age, and illiteracy estimates run as high as 70 percent. Mali, in short, is ideal for an XO deployment. In mid-July, 30 machines donated by Laptop magazine arrived in the little Mali village of N’tentou, which is within the larger city of Ouéléssébougou, about 25 miles south of the capital, Bamako. There, Salimata Fandjalen Bangoura, a former Laptop employee, took charge. Her report:

“The eight-week program began with the teacher and volunteer training. They had no previous experience or knowledge in computer use, so it was necessary to familiarize them with the XO and computer technology before they took on the students. This was very important to help the teachers feel more comfortable teaching the students and answering their many questions.

“The first few days there was no electricity in the school, so the XOs died pretty early in the day. When the electricity was finally installed, the XOs were charged in the classroom. So far, the most popular activities are Chat, Write, Record, Calculate and Memorize. The students are learning very fast, and are very appreciative of the opportunity. They even want to have sessions on the weekends. They share what they learn and know with their families, and the demand for an adult program is very high. Students who are not in the program flock to the school courtyard and windows every day. They are eager for their chance to come and learn how to use a computer.”

OLPC so far is not widely known in Mali, a situation Salimata and the OLPC team hope to remedy later this year with a demonstration tour of the country. They are hoping to find financial support for a second-stage deployment, 1600 laptops – with Internet - in two local schools.

For more, go to http://blog.laptopmag.com/olpc-mali-village-teachers-learn-to-use-thexo

“We want to inform and educate people on the potential of the XO,” she writes, “and what it could mean for the educational system in Mali. I believe this would be important in raising awareness and gaining support within the country.”

Week of August 24

Haiti: This week was spent in planning recruitment of the core staff members, the 5 x 2 teams (with one educator and one IT in each) that will be in charge of the five schools/training centers, or EFACAPs. Each EFACAP in turn will oversee another team of 12, scaling the project to about 60 schools. The examination for the core staff will take place next week. The team has been finalizing a practical guide for the trainers.

“We also designed a few projects and activities,” they report. “M. translated the Scratch Reference Guide into French. And since everything wasn't clear when she was translating it, Bastien insisted that we should explore Scratch interactively as soon as possible. We eventually did, having a lot of fun together showing off our crazy sprites. This was also a way to build confidence in the way we conduct the training sessions.

“On the technical side, the team continued to work on the translation. They are all familiar with Pootle, and some of the team knows how to handle the administrative tasks. As Bastien was busy installing the latest version of Sugar (Joyride) the team wanted to do the same, so we requested developer keys and started to upgrade their XOs. There is a webpage explaining how to do this with a USB drive (see the link below).

“We continued to work on the online support. The website offers a very simple interface to submit bugs, questions, problems, suggestions, etc. When someone fills in an online form, an email is sent to the person in charge of pedagogy/software/hardware, and a wikipage is automagically created for further references. Part of the team is now familiar with the wiki and we're in the process of moving documentation there. Some were concerned about publishing something that wasn't perfect, but they were convinced that going collaborative is also a way of putting the burden of perfectibility on everyone’s shoulders.

“The building that houses the laptop team improves with each day. We now have a steady Internet connection, desks and a fan.” Guy Serge Pompilus and Bastien were invited to talk on a program at Radio Métropole, the largest station in Haiti. The discussion was very engaging, and focused on education, rather than on technology.

Mongolia: The Educational TV station is now committed to partnering with OLPC to produce an ongoing series of shows that will inspire more effective learning. Elana will supervise the production of three, five-minute proof of concept segments. The segments will feature footage from their experience with workshops in the countryside, kids working on the XO and core team teachers giving brief introductions to various applications. The segments will be aired during September. On the first, the president will appear on the station, where he’ll discuss the laptop initiative with the core team teachers and Elena. The segment will be broadcast nationally.

The Mongolian Linux community will support schools in UB, and introduce linux and programming concepts to certain classes. Some members will also create introductory videos for Linux terms, as well as other hello world introductory videos. They are currently looking for ways to support the IT needs of the project and are generating a list of low-cost technical solutions that would suit Mongolia. Their participation will be key for long term sustainability and success.

The core team teachers planned and led a training session for 120 teachers. They were able to introduce the idea of programmable objects, project-based learning and troubleshooting in 4 days. The UB teachers were skeptical of the XO on the first day but by the end of the fourth day they refused to return their computers! Next week they will work with teachers from the countryside as well as teacher trainers from Project Read. The minister of education has committed to having the computers in schools by September 1st. There was a fair in Sukhbataar Square, held by the educational television station. Everyone in the education sector, including schools and businesses, was invited to show their achievements. School 51 chose to feature the XO computer as a display of the good work done at their school. The students and core team teachers introduced the XOs on stage. There was a lot of enthusiasm from the crowd.

Minister of Education Bolermaa visiting School 51 booth, and the core team teacher showing Turtle Art-related exercise on paper.

The last of the amazing interns went home on Tuesday. They were a tremendous asset to OLPC and we could never have achieved all that we did on the learning and tech side without their hard work and dedication. I hope that they will continue to stay involved with OLPC and help us design a strong internship program for next year. Thanks to all of you!

Rwanda: Planning continues by the Rwandan coordinator, Richard, and Juliano, representing OLPC, and the Rwandan working group. The team prepared for the distribution of the laptops on September 2nd and also the OLPC Regional Workshop that will be held in Kigali from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2nd. The project team is very excited and every day dedicating more time and resources for it, since now it is clear that the laptop initiative is fully supported by high levels of the government. This Ministries of Finance and Education are currently working on a budget to order 50, 000 laptops next year.

Birmingham: On Saturday Birmingham held its XO eXpO to commemorate the accomplishments of the children and teachers working with XO laptops over the summer. A full report will appear next week.

Coming Events: Rwanda will host a regional laptop event in Kigali, September 29 through October 2.

The beginning of the week will provide a practical approach to learning and laptops for country teams, teacher developers, educational ministry teams, NGO and other partner organizations, university researchers, free software practitioners and other volunteers. We will work with the Rwandan team, teachers and children with laptops with a focus on powerful uses for learning. On October 1 the Rwandan government and OLPC will host a major regional event on laptops, learning and development. In addition to Rwandan government officials, Nicholas Negroponte and others from OLPC, Miguel Brechner of Uruguay, and others will attend. Development Brussels: Walter, Isobel and Justyna discussed possible XO deployments with representatives from Uganda, Namibia, Gambia and East Timor. AMD's Jens Drews visited the office to plan cooperation for an event in Dresden, which twins with Brazzaville in Congo. Also, Walter and Philippe van Cauteren, a director of the City Museum for Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent, discussed a "One Artist Per Child" project in association with Sotheby's.

Week of August 19

It was a proud moment for OLPC as tiny Uruguay rolled out its 100,000th computer - almost all of which are Internet enabled. The scene was the Villa García Elementary School near Montevideo. With more than a thousand pupils, it is one of the country’s largest primary schools. Chuck Kane, Claudia Urrea and Antonio Battro all looked on as President Tabaré Vázquez presented the 100,000th XO to a six-year-old student. Miguel Blechner of CEIBAL spoke briefly, too. The news media were everywhere. Many of the children captured the moment by turning their XOs around to take their own still pictures or video.

In the afternoon, Claudia and Antonio accompanied Mónica Baez and Graciela Rabajoli of CEIBAL on a visit to a school near Colonia. Over the next few days, CEIBAL presented several anti-smoking school initiatives, showing the work done by students and teachers with their laptops in their communities. The children discussed their work in a workshop. David Cavallo arrived from a long trip to Asia and Africa to participate in these meetings.

OLPC looks forward to the next wave of rollouts in Uruguay, which continues as a great example of a successful deployment. Sincere congratulations to the people of Uruguay from everyone at OLPC.

CEIBAL maintains an excellent Spanish-language website at: http://www.ladiaria.com.uy/files/ladiaria_20080814web.pdf.

Also Carla Gómez Monroy has documented the Uruguay deployment at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Uruguay/Ceibal

Haiti: The team was busy with teacher reports, the operations manual and Kreyol translation. They also worked on their practical guide for trainers and on some hand-outs for trainees, as well as designs for a few pedagogical activities and projects with and around the XO, trying to integrate existing curriculum when it makes sense.

All translations are complete, except eToys (65 percent) and Scratch (15 percent), which require special care. Next step is a linguistic review.

Mongolia: Teachers continue to create curriculum material online. Work continues to solidify local partnerships with both NGOs and governmental agencies.

The XO was featured in Mongolian Computer Timesmagazine this month. The article was generally positive although the writer questioned how Mongolia could afford to support the initiative. Elana Langer was interviewed on Eagle TV, a popular TV station. The questions reflected a concern from the Mongolian people about the criteria and process by which the government will choose to distribute the laptops.

Lastly, a Mongolian athlete has just won the country’s very first Olympic gold medal, in judo. There were street celebrations in UB. Many hope this sudden boost to national pride might galvanize the government into a functional organization.

Rwanda: The team is refining their strategic plan, looking past the initial rollout of 5000 laptops to create both a vision and a plan for a national laptops project.

Monday and Tuesday they participated in a series of meetings with Richard Niyonkuru, the project coordinator, and representatives of several other governmental agencies. During the rest of the week, a team formed by representatives of the main governmental agencies visited the three schools selected to receive the first 5000 machines in the provinces of Rwamagana, Gasabo and Kicukiro.

The visit was received enthusiastically by the students and teachers. The team did a basic site survey to isolate the main initial challenges. One will be the size of the schools and classrooms. The average Rwandan school is large, with 1500 students, and so are classrooms, which range to 70 students or more.

The Kagugu school in Gasabo province has 3105 students, and some classes with more than 100 children. Usually the classrooms have only one power outlet, which will make laptop charging a challenge. The sheer size of the schools and classes will also make for networking issues. Kagugu staff also raised interesting questions over how to define and implement the project policies, and ownership of the Xos.

Birmingham: This week the team worked with the instructional technology staff member who will be in charge of this project everyday to try to prepare documents requested by the executive director of IT. This included a learning manual that is briefer than the online version, and will help with the Just In Time Learning sessions to begin before teachers get the laptops. The team also worked with headquarters staff from the music, PE and Special Ed departments to introduce the laptops. The music department LOVED Tam Tam.

An XO eXpO is scheduled for August 23. There will be attendees from many stakeholders in the community, so it should be an exciting event.

Week of August 12

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-August/000139.html

India: Nicholas and David Cavallo spent Monday in Mumbai with Satish Jha, president of OLPC India, under the aegis of Reliance. The day’s events included a national video conference, a meeting with Johny Joseph, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra and a lecture to the Asia Society. Maharashtra is huge, with 100 million people, or about 10 percent of India’s total population.

On Tuesday, Reliance and the Digital Bridge Foundation organized a one-day workshop for teachers, laptop donees and volunteers. The goal was to provide a basic understanding of the XO and the OLPC approach to learning in a saturated deployment. The program motivated many attendees to launch new XO deployments and also to improve existing XO sites in India.

On Wednesday a similar workshop was held in Goa, organized by Dr. Rita Paes, the director of a local teachers’ college, and sponsored by the Goa Chamber of Commerce. Just as in Mumbai, more people and sites were engaged. With the support of local business and the teachers’ college, they will pursue a statewide deployment initiative for Goa, which already is advanced in providing connectivity and computers to schools.

Nicholas, David, Satish, Manusheel Gupta and the Reliance team also visited the remote Vastishala Khairat-Dhangarvada School, 81 km from Mumbai, where Carla Gómez Monroy deployed XOs some months ago. The children sang for their visitors, and presented them with red roses. Sandeep Surve, Khairat’s single teacher, believes deeply in the OLPC program. “Education through XOs has completely solved educational problems like child absenteeism, parent-teacher interaction, and lack of interest towards education,” he said. “Children relish coming to school every day, and their interest towards education has risen dramatically.”

Haiti: It was a busy week at OLPC Haiti as the team wrapped up the summer camp at Republique de Chili. Every major television and radio station came out as well as several government officials, including the ministers of education and communication and public works. One of the second graders showed off her problem-solving skills to the minister of education. When her computer lost power as she was attempting to demonstrate her very impressive work in E-toys, the student ran to charge her laptop while a reporter held the minister's attention. Within five minutes she returned with a gentle tug on the minister’s sleeve, excited and determined to display her work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1hLfcy_xI

At the end of camp, the teachers wrote reports on their personal XOs for the Ministry of Education. They were uniformly enthusiastic about the program, and training team, and impressed with how the kids easily worked with one another. They thought the training period was too short, that the students’ parents should have been more involved and they asked for more content.

The team spent the rest of the week working on the operations manual. This was both a content-driven task and a team-building exercise, led by national coordinator Guy-Serge Pompilus, and organized into three parts - administration, technology and pedagogy.

The translation of Pootle is now 67 percent complete, and the core system is 97 percent finished. Translation of the Getting Started OLPC guide is in progress, and the team is double-checking the current translation because many volunteers did not use Haitian kryol. They also have started to translate Scratch, as well as finish Etoys.

Rwanda: This week saw the first teachers’ development workshop, conducted from Wednesday to Sunday in the Regional ICT Research and Training Center. Sixty-five teachers participated from the three launch schools in the districts of Kagugu, Nonki and Rwamagana.

The core team involved the teachers in simple XO activities, such as using the camera, text editor, and Speak. They explored mobility by taking activities outside the classroom. The main goal was to break any initial fear among the teachers, and to make them comfortable with exploring the laptop by themselves. They also used more complex tools such as Scratch, doing basic programming to create short dialogs in a very playful way.

The experience was valuable to the core team, too, for they will be the ones to provide long-term support as the deployment expands to more schools. The OLPC team feels they are gaining broader acceptance from other ministries and organizations. The national coordinator, the primary participants, the core team, and the OLPC team continue to develop a strong collaboration. People are very enthusiastic.

Week of August 4

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-August/000138.html

Thailand: OLPC held a five-day regional workshop in Bangkok, with more than 50 participants from six countries. The goals of the workshop were to:

gain a deeper and more pragmatic familiarity with the ideas about laptops and learning from both a micro scale (child-level) and macro scale (national level)

form next steps for laptop introduction in participating countries

strengthen network among countries in the region

The workshop went extremely well. Special highlights included sharing of work in the rural areas in Thailand as exemplars of high-quality work, and integration of school and community; storytelling with the XO by Barbara Barry; computational uses of the XO by Roger Sipitakiat; Nicholas’s talk on Thursday evening; and the Ban Samkha children’s orchestra using their XOs to play traditional Thai music in TamTam. Along with the Thais, delegations from Bangla Desh and Malaysia both committed to purchase laptops.

Mongolia: The team returned on Monday afternoon from a two-week tour in northern Mongolia, where they ran workshops for local teachers, kids and parents. Together with the Mongolian core team, we worked in one city center and two small villages, introducing the XO and constructionist learning methodologies. The core team teachers designed and ran the last workshop on their own. They came up with some wonderful and surprising ideas, including a physical activity to teach angles and degrees to students, which they then try in turtle art and etoys. It was amazing to watch.

Tyler worked with the IT team to set up servers in two of the villages that will be receiving laptops. Neither location had school connectivity, but the network worked well.

Nicholas joined us in Khatgal, a small village in the Khuvsgul province on our last day of training. A sheep was slaughtered and cooked in his honor.

It was interesting to note the various dignitaries’ motivations for involvement in the project. The new head of ICTA, for example, was inspired by the XO’s open source environment. He wants the students in Mongolia to learn Linux and is working to get all government agencies and higher institutes to cross over to a Linux platform.

The prime minister mentioned how moved he was to see children from a poor district in UB receive their individual computers. He felt the project not only will change education, but also what he called the "mental" state of poor children who see their neighbors with the luxuries of life while they go hungry.

Rwanda: The 20-member core team is ready to initiate teacher development. The team discussed ways of introducing generative themes for children to use for developing projects. There also was considerable discussion on the issues of working with schools and communities.

Haiti: The team is currently wrapping up the pre-pilot Camp XO 2008 at Ecole Nationale Republique du Chili. As we entered this final full week we began to look at E-toys.

In our weekly meeting with the teachers, T1 teachers asked what type of assistance they would receive to better understand integration of the XOs into their curriculum. They are naturally concerned because the XO is such a novel tool, so different from their previous experience. The team has been trying to explain to the teachers that their goal shouldn't be to know the technology better than the students, but to seek ways to utilize the tools to further learning objectives and enhance the overall learning experience.

In the tech team meeting, we identified local sources of solar panels for each school that may need them. It is still difficult to determine which schools will receive decent internet connection because of Haiti's mountainous terrain.

Week of July 28

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-July/000136.html

Rwanda:Preparations continue for the distribution of the first five thousand laptops. The core team completed translation of Sugar and Scratch into Kinyarwanda, the Rwandan national language. They received digitized textbooks for most grades and started the scanning process for the remaining books. They also were able to reduce the PDF file size more than 16 times, making it possible to load several books inside the XOs. The school selection process goes on. It is a challenge to match community saturation with available electricity. Carine Umutesi from RITA and Eugene Karangwa from the ministry of education are searching hard for such a cluster of schools. The scheduled date for laptop distribution is August 11th.

Haiti: The core team is wrapping up Camp XO 2008 at Ecole Nationale Republique du Chile. On July 31st, the last day of camp, the kids will display their work and demonstrate their skills to several officials and the media. Thursday, August 1st, will be parents’ day.

The team also is running full speed in preparation for the start of school in September. They have decided to go with solar panels. This week, they will visit two schools in the region as part of the XO school selection process.

Mongolia: Nicholas visited the scenic Lake Khuvsgul region, where he met with the Mongolian team at the end of their latest rural swing - three stops in the north. The village/town has a population of 2000. The team includes six Mongolian teachers from Ulaanbaatar who are being trained to carry on the learning workshops as more laptops roll out at the beginning of the school year in September. Nicholas meets President Nambaryn Enkhbayar on Tuesday to press for full deployment, every child in the country, as in Uruguay.

Perú: Kim Quirk visited the Chavalina School in Chincha, a poor community of 50,000 located about 200 km south of Lima. Chavalina and three other Chincha schools were selected by the ministry of education to receive XOs. Her report:

“Chincha was hit very hard by the earthquake last August, and they are still rebuilding the school and many homes in the town. The school we visited has 70 students, aged six to 12, in three classrooms with three teachers.

“The teachers are very excited about the laptops, the program, and the fact that their students were selected to participate. The kids are obviously excited about the laptops and showed us how they are using the machines - write, record, paint, puzzles, memory, and more.

“They received their XOs in late April, and already have had five or six problems with the 70 machines deployed, which has made it a little difficult for them. When a laptop breaks, the child goes without. It also takes a long time to charge the laptops as they only have one working electrical outlet, and one power strip. There is little direct sunlight in Chincha for four to five months out of the year, so solar is not a good option.

“They have no Internet connectivity, so this might be a good place for us to help get Telefonica involved.

“We discussed with them the formal process for submitting a repair or spare parts request, so they could do their own repairs. We also suggested that all the Chincha schools form one repair center.”

More details:http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Chincha

More pictures from Chincha:

http://flickr.com/photos/kentquirk/sets/72157606353435234/

India: Satish Jha, OLPC India’s CEO and president, has started working with Manusheel Gupta. Satish will be formally introduced locally be Nicholas on August 4 during OLPC India Day. (See poster below)

Satish already is discussing a customs duty exemption for the XO with government officials, and will pursue the subject in upcoming contacts with various agencies, including the Ministry of Finance.

Nepal: Rabi Karmacharya reports “the government of Nepal has allocated three million rupees in this year's budget for the One Laptop per Child project. It is not a huge amount, but it is a significant step by the government to indicate that they are seriously considering OLPC in Nepal. We are now insisting that the Department of Education seek more funding from donors to implement One Laptop per Child in two districts. We have told them that Open Learning Exchange Nepal will take care of piloting in three other districts.”

Week of July 21

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-July/000135.html

Haiti: The students at Republic de Chile School continue to have a great time exploring with their XOs. The fifth graders erupted with joy as they discovered

“YouTube” during their continued exploration of electricity. They ran around to the other kids and teachers to show off their discovery. The fifth grade teacher expressed concern whether her students fully understood all the information about electricity that they were getting online.

The fourth graders spent the first half of the week analyzing their video interviews of their family and community as part of their transportation study. Several of them were unable to complete their interviews because their parents, fearing for their safety, required the children to hide their XOs when outside of school. There was some discussion among the teachers whether parents are hindering learning in their efforts to protect their children.

The third and second graders spent the first half of the week learning how to create their own game in Memorize. Accustomed to old top-down pedagogy, it took some time for them to let their creative instincts take over. Not to be left out, the first graders showed off their writing and articulation skills (see image below).

During the second half of the week, the Haitian core team and Wanda Eugene of OLPC took a trip up the mountain to meet with the teachers, directors, and administrators in Jacmel, the next site where the XOs will be distributed. Thursday morning, they visited Cap Rouge, which is a wifi-ready city, in the region of Jacmel, where this is no electricity and whose public primary school has an enrollment of more than 700 students. The school itself is solar powered.

The teachers, directors and administrators were really receptive and asked some big questions, such as, How will the XOs transform education for everyone?

Rwanda: Juliano Bittencourt met with Théoneste Mutsindashyaka, the state secretary for primary and secondary education, who re-affirmed his commitment to the project and stated that Rwanda will be expanding its commitment next year. Mutsindashyaka also has decided that the deployment in Rwanda should start by saturation of Kigali, the capital city of the country where electricity is available.

Juliano also briefly met with Daphrosa Gahakwa, the minister of education, and Nkubito Manzi Bakuramutsa, executive director of the Rwanda Information Technology Authority - RITA. Mr. Nkubito shared his enthusiasm for hosting a regional OLPC workshop in the country and offered total support.

The RITA team has translated 96 percent of Sugar into Kinyarwanda. They are now working to improve the quality of the translation. The Rwandan core team and the OLPC team began started to work with Scratch in order to give them a better understanding of the tool before beginning its translation. The team also gained access to the digital version of the text books used in Rwandan schools. Together with the staff from RITA, we are studying the best way to load this content inside the laptops

Birmingham: The team continued to work with youth at the Birmingham Public Library to learn about diagnosing problems with the laptops as well as experimenting with their disassembly.

They held meetings with the technical project manager to discuss a plan for bringing laptops to all the primary schools. They will meet with the city’s curriculum leader next week to continue to work on the professional development plan.

The summer camp is going well. Students have formed into groups and plan to create projects addressing health issues from diabetes to nutrition. They intend to make commercials and games in Scratch to help educate the community about their chosen healthcare topic.

Mongolia: The core team and the OLPC group went to the countryside in the north of Mongolia to begin delivering laptops and to work with children, teachers and parents. Due to lack of connectivity in the region, the full report will arrive in the next two weeks.

Cambridge': The group developed more materials for doing solid learning projects using the programming languages available on the XO for distribution to the countries.

Week of July 14

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-July/000134.html

Haiti: OLPC Haiti made significant progress with children and teachers using generative themes to guide beginning to develop projects on their laptops. What started as a simple discussion of a television show that several kids could not watch because they had no electricity at home, turned into a fifth graders’ project to explore electricity. Using the XOs, they developed thought-provoking questions about electricity. Then, armed with their laptops as recording devices, they went out into the community to interview residents.

Not to be outdone, the fourth graders tackled the question of transportation. They broke up into groups to explore a wide range of problems and solutions, including rising fuel costs.

The third graders began their exploration of music using TamTam. The focus on music allowed them a chance to express their favorite music styles, artists and instruments, which gave them a unique way to connect learning to their culture.

Mongolia: The week's work started off with an update from the core team members who’d joined the OLPC team in the Gobi. The team discussed the challenges that face deployment on logistical, educational and support levels. Having experienced the lack of electricity and connectivity first hand, these core team members were now in a better position to address those challenges.

The team noticed how quickly children were able to pick up the programs and how willing teachers and parents in the countryside were to learn from children. Everyone noted how the fears that teachers would be intimidated by the intelligence, pace, and openness of students was ungrounded in the rural areas. In fact, their experiences in the rural areas with children, teachers and parents all working well together and helping each other were liberating and enabled better planning for adoption.

On Monday afternoon the Gobi team prepared some exercises and project ideas based on what they learned from their teaching methodology. They went over the exercises and ideas with the rest of the core team.

The entire core team also worked together to deal with translation issues. Partly it was a team-building exercise, but also the goal was for the national team to take responsibility for the issue and its solution.

The teachers also were encouraged to design what they wanted to learn. Some teachers are quite adept at eToys, and were keen to get to know other programs like Tam Tam and Pippy/python. On Tuesday afternoon we had them break up into groups. Some of them worked with interns Tyler and Cris to learn Pippy.

Rwanda: Juliano Bittencourt and his wife Silvia arrived in country to support the development of the laptop sites and national team. In this first week, they met several times with Carine Umutesi from the Rwanda ICT Agency (RITA), and Eugene Karangwa from the ministry of education in order to create an action plan for the laptops in the schools. The plan covers points such teacher training, deployment logistics and development of community awareness. It also addresses the identification and selection of content to be loaded onto the XOs, as well as the need for a schedule for the start in the first schools.

The creation of a core team that will support schools in the roll out of the project was the most discussed topic, since it is essential for success and growth. RITA set up a team to translate Sugar and the main activities to Kinyarwanda. They started working on Wednesday and so far have translated most of the Sugar-XO and part of the Sugar-Buddle packages in Pootle.

Juliano and Carine Umutesi from RITA met with Desite Alex, from Rwanda National Curriculum Development Center - NCDC, in order to identify available digitized textbooks that can be loaded onto the laptops. Since major publishers do not create materials in most local languages, including Kinyarwanda, NCDC developed and retained copyrights on some textbooks of their own for students in the first through third grades.

Birmingham: The summer workshop at the Glen Iris School has begun with 40 students, who will create projects along the generative theme of educating the community about health issues.

Eighty elementary school teachers went through the first phase of professional development. They responded positively. The next step for them is to work with children in parallel with their own continued learning.

The Birmingham schools received their remaining 14,000 laptops. The city began information sessions at the public library. Various community groups and businesses have joined forces to help students, parents and other community members learn more about the laptops, as well as learn how to do the more straightforward repairs. Plans continue for a large public Expo at the end of the summer term to demonstrate the possibilities, heighten awareness, and build towards citywide impact.

Week of July 6

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-July/000133.html

Rollout Update: Since November 2007, OLPC has shipped nearly 400,000 laptops. Better than a quarter of those machines went to donors who participated in the G1G1 program. Simultaneously, OLPC has been working with countries to prepare for their donee XOs, many of which already have been received. The two largest rollouts, Peru and Uruguay, account for nearly half of all units shipped to date, but have yet to receive the bulk of their orders.

Papua New Guinea: From June 16tht hrough the 20th, OLPC Oceania made its second PNG deployment (Weekend, June 15) of 47 XOs at the Dreikikir Elementary School in East Sepik Province. Dreikikir is about a four-hour drive inland from Wewak, the provincial capital. The machines were all updated to build 703/G1G1 activity pack with Speak and Flash added before the deployment to the school’s first graders.

Tony Aimo, PNG’s acting minister of education, attended the official launch ceremonies, and repeated the government’s support for the XO program. Aimo announced the government’s commitment to a full saturation deployment of XOs at the school, which has about 500 students.

Acting Minister Aimo arrives for the launch ceremony.

David Leeming and his team spent a day in teacher training. He reports that videos from the deployments in Peru and the Solomon Islands were very helpful. Each teacher who took part in training also received a signed certificate.

[...]

Week of June 30

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-June/000132.html

Week of June 23

Mongolia

Elana Langer and her team of interns arrived in Ulanbataar on Monday June 16th to join Enky Zurgaanjin and other Mongolian interns. Several immediately began testing and registering computers, while those who speak the local language began assisting in the immense task of translating the interface into Mongolian.

Wonderful partnerships with local organizations such Project Read, the Peace Corps and the local university computer science program were solidified. Each of the organizations has committed two or more people to join our core team for intensive training this summer.

They in turn will build capacity within their organizations to help bring the powerful, effective and enjoyable uses of laptops for learning to children in rural areas. Project Read will soon purchase an additional 2000 computers with grant money from the World Bank.

On Friday there were two official ceremonies at UB schools receiving the laptops. A workshop for 240 teachers is scheduled to begin in the capital on Monday morning.

It is presidential election season in Mongolia and the XO and OLPC figure prominently in the campaign. All candidates support one laptop per child.

Haiti

On Monday the first laptops were distributed to the children of the Republique do Chile school in Port-au-Prince. The children were excited and extremely enthusiastic. They shared activities spontaneously and explored by themselves. They asked many questions of the teachers, of the people from the technical/pedagogical team, and of each other. While waiting for their machines, they formed themselves into an XO.

The spirit among the adults is great. Some of the teachers really “get it,” and we know we can count on them. Bastien Guerry, who has represented OLPC in Haiti, returns to France for a couple of weeks to publish a book. Wanda Eugene will arrive in Haiti at the end of the month, to be joined by Bastien in mid-July.

Nepal

In what its sponsor, the World Food Program, calls the most successful women’s mountaineering expedition in history, a multi-caste team of Nepalese women (Weekend, April 6) carried an XO apiece up to base camp on Mount Everest late last month. At 17,700 feet, this is believed to be a new non-airborne altitude record for the laptop. Before scaling the summit, the women demonstrated their XOs at base camp, where they also formed a mesh network with the machines, which were powered by portable solar arrays.

Press

More articles can be found here.