OLPC Madagascar/Nosy Komba

Drawn on Antintorona blackboard: OLPC logo

TALK & Slide Show!

2PM Sunday May 6th, 2012 near Toronto, Canada -- slide show & presentation in Elora, Ontario!

Preview / RSVP here: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/toronto-dev/2012-April/000135.html

OLPC France Blog post here: http://olpc-france.org/blog/2012/04/nosy-komba-au-canada-rendez-vous-le-6-mai/

Description

OLPC France is implementing 160 XOs laptops since 2009 in a small island called Nosy Komba, in the north west of Madagascar with a group of University Students from Paris Gducoeur.

Here we are : Nosy Komba (Madagascar) - olpcMAP

Each student of Antintorona's primary school has a laptop, as well as the teachers. We are working all year long to implement all necessary means to enable optimal use of the XO in the classroom and at home : teacher training, adapted content, energy solutions, working on lesson plans... Each year we spend one to three months on the field. The rest of the time is spent working from Paris - map

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Primary Language	,|x|Language spoken::x}}
Number of Laptops	Number of manufactured laptops::160
Keyboard Layout	Keyboard::OLPC English Keyboard
Build	{{#arraymap:8.2.1|,|x|Software release::x}}
Date(s) Arrived in Country	,|x|Has received laptops on date::x}}
School Server	{{#arraymap:0.5|,|x|School server status::x}}
Pilot Status	Pilot status::This summer 2012 the project will be 3 years old.

Background

• Location

Madagascar> Nosy Be> Nosy Komba

• Nosy Komba is a 172 square feet (16km ²) island located northwest of Madagascar in the region of Nosy Bé

This island is inhabited by a population of 5000 inhabitants spread over 6 main coastal villages

• Nosy Komba is exposed to the modern world at its expense

A minority in particular is enriched through tourism, but the reality remains precarious for the majority of the islanders. Madagascar is still ranked among the 50 least developed countries of the world's Human Development Index is 0543 against 0961 for France.

• Since 1992 a comprehensive project development assistance is conducted on the island by Stefano Palazzi

Step by step, the project helped to support the development of the village of Antintorona become "pilot village" for the island. It counts among its accomplishments: a distribution network of drinking water, roads, three schools, a health center, a grid ... and the foundation for meaningful economic development. For more information: [1]

• Since 2006 a student project development assistance is conducted on the island by an association of Parisian students

This project, hosted by the association since 2009 "G du Coeur" (charity students from the french business school "ESG" fits as it grows in the overall development program of Antintorona. for more information [2]

• Since 2009 the Association of "G du Coeur" and OLPC France have joined forces to produce a pilot deployment to Antintorona
  • In July 2009 100 XOs have been deployed, pictures: [3]project blog 2009: [4]
  • In May 2010 60 extra XOs have been deployed to saturate the primary school Antintorona. In addition an XS and an ebook in Madagascar have been added, project blog 2010: [5]
  • In the summer of 2011 three months of ongoing volunteer's work allowed us to build a long distance WiFi link brought the internet to students via the school server. The report is here. But also to install a library of 30 e-books in the laptop, to conduct an inventory, repair broken laptops, train regularly the teachers, to work with them with "The XO Laptop in The Classroom" manual that we translated in french, to provide XO sessions 7 days a week, discover new activities, work on the malagasy e-book and the Madagascar Activity ...

Project 2012: What's next ?

• Laptops :
  • Provide new XOs for the primary school to fill in the missing and broken laptops
  • Conduct annual inventory
  • Repair center
  • Update built and activities

• Teachers
  • Conduct a formal week of teacher training for new teachers and experimented teachers. This training wil also include the high school teachers (and all volunteers) and at the end, teachers will receive certification.
  • Provide documentation on paper and laptop : lesson plans aligning curriculum and machine use for the next scolar year.

This documentation will be presented as examples, and we will work with the teachers on new lesson plans for 2012-2013 school year

• Students
  • Provide open-school time where students can come to XO sessions with volunteers
  • Work on new projects with students: contests, outside work...
  • Encourage and train student teachers by giving them responsabilities and a chance to help others

• Network
  • Fix the school server
  • Internet Workshop with students and teachers : How to use the internet to learn and discover new things beyond the classroom?

• High School Pilote !

It's been a moment that we want to continue the OLPC program into Junior High School ( 12- 16 years old) . In our village, the Junior High School and Primary School are working closely. This year, we want to try the implementation of laptop into one volunteer classroom ( around 20-30 students). If this implementation goes well and the results are positives, we will then extend to all Junior High School (70 students). Any help - suggestion - critiques from other deployments having worked with older kids is more than welcome !

Pedagogy

• The school

Antintorona Elementary School

This school has 150 children at the beginning of October 2010 (126 in 2009) divided into five levels: CP1, CP2, EC, CM1 and CM2 (dual-class level). For information here is educational achievement (number students admitted to higher level) of the 2009-2010 school year:

• • Grade 1: 17/34
  • Grade 2: 20/36
  • Grade 3: 13/18
  • Grade 4: 14/19
  • Grade 5: 16/19

or 80/126

• Teachers

teachers at the school

Since we started the pilote in 2009, there were 4 professors in the School of Antintorona. However in order to help them, two additional teachers (director of college and the teacher of the nursery) joined that team. Meaning a total of 6 teachers who have been working with us since 2009.

Today, 3 have left the village and 3 new have arrived. This is why this year the teacher training is a key element of our work.

• Children:

2009 distribution ceremony

students of Antintorona school with their XOs

Contents

• Version of Sugar 27interface_Sugar%:

Sugar 802.1, BIOS Q2E41

• Activities available on Nosy Komba XOs:
  • Speak
  • Maze
  • TamTamSynthLab
  • TamTamJam
  • TamTamEdit
  • TamTamMini
  • Analyze
  • Ruler
  • Etoys
  • Moon
  • Browse
  • Scratch
  • Help
  • Record
  • Pippy
  • Terminal
  • Distance
  • Chat
  • TurleArt
  • Paint
  • WikipediaEN
  • Measure
  • Memorize
  • Implode
  • Log
  • Calculate
  • Write

• Ebooks Bookstore

At the 2nd visit to Nosy Komba (2010) "G du Coeur" volunteers brought a new version of Sugar that we have added a library of 12 eBooks in French and 1 in Madagascar.

Antintorona ebooks library

Teacher_Ephrem_with_the_malagasy_ebook

Network

• School server (XS)

[6] In 2010 we deployed an XS which allowed us to conduct 40 backups.

In 2011, we used the school server again for backupping the laptops, and more importantly, to set up our long distance WiFi link.

In 2012 we need to do some maintenance work on the school server and to start using Moodle for lesson plans and content.

• Web

In 2011 we installed a long distance WiFi link which is described here [R.C3.A9seaux] The English report is here.

Assessment

• We start a small evaluation in 2011.

It will be a formative evaluation, which will try to answer two questions:

• • Is that the project "takes"? balance / perspective 2 years after the start of deployment
  • How the project have been received by the inhabitants of Antintorona?

Contact

jonathan@olpc-france.org

Discussion / Comments

• Communication

With teachers / leaders present in the village during the presence of external teams and especially outside of these periods. Mada with olpc, olpc France, olpc "world", etc.. Infrastructure and communication channels to present and implement ... ...