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[[Image:Student.png|thumb|400px|[[Image:Student.png|actual size]]|center|"My house" - Paint drawing by a a student from Vista Alegre Paso school, Huancavelica, Peru]]
[[Image:Student.png|thumb|400px|[[Image:Student.png|actual size]]|center|"My house" - Paint drawing by a a student from Vista Alegre Paso school, Huancavelica, Peru]]

= Preface =
From close up, Peru, like all countries, has enormous problems of many types, which we do not see from far away, or only like specks in its wonderful landscapes and achievements. Within Peru, however, they are aware of most of their problems and are working on them, nevertheless they always welcome an external point of view. Some of the most serious are communication and hierarchical issues.

I know that with or without me they will solve their problems, but maybe I can be of assistance by speeding something up a bit or simply getting some urgent work out of the way. However, I come looking for the most challenging places or issues to work with during my 10-day visit. And, knowing me, the OLPC Peru team deliberates on how best to take up my offer. They come up with two assignments for me.

Sometimes, I go about a mission differently than would the team, but if it works out, eventually someone will do something of the kind. When the consultants from the Ministry of Education were training the regional education and technology specialists, I would go to each of the groups and work with them for a few hours. Besides providing support when needed, getting involved directly with the work of each group, even if only for a few hours, allowed me the opportunity of sensing many of each group’s peculiarities, while obtaining a broader picture of how the whole project was developing and what still needed to be worked on. We would also meet at the end of the training session for feedback purposes. Now, whenever possible, every consultant does very much the same, by region.

The teachers’ preparation has finished in some areas, laptops have been distributed, and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program students (UROPs) will do follow-up work for a couple of months. Lots has been done so early on, but already there are important technical, political, educational, and logistics issues in many schools, which must be addressed with a small team from the Ministry of Education and the Regional sectors, soon.

After visiting four schools in the Huancavelica region and identifying many of the issues to be worked on, I learned that '''Communication Failures''' were the main problem. At times, the consultants of the Ministry of Education knew about a given problem, but felt ignored. On many other occasions, the information does not even get to the Ministry of Education in a timely fashion. The other notable elements that must be addressed are '''Distribution of Laptops, Training, School Follow-Ups, Fostering of National Documentation of the Project''', and most important for us, '''XO/OLPC Shortages''' because some features of the XO laptop and/or OLPC have fallen short of facilitating things around here.

'''Very Right:'''
In spite of all the drawbacks that Peru has experienced in this first stage, it is necessary to highlight, and foster, all the wonderful changes taking place in the lives of the OLPC Peruvian children. Unfortunately, I did not go into such a worthwhile topic due to lack of time.

The Ministry of Education is learning fast and welcomes feedback from the children, parents, teachers, ''UGELs (Unidades de Gestion Educativa Local'', Local-Education Fostering Units), DREs (Directorates of Regional Education), OLPC, and other sources, so as to make improvements.

After being here three times, I can appreciate how OLPC is taking shape and how it is evolving to improve Peru's education system. Even with limited resources, the willingness of the people who are leveraging OLPC will make of every challenge a new opportunity.


'''Note:'''
Before going on, I must clearly state that this document and the information in it gathered are the product of my own perceptions and experiences, during three short stays in Peru, and that it contains my own compilation, interpretation, and rendering of people’s comments and, finally, that every single person I have dealt with has been friendly, very supportive, and efficient, for which I am grateful.


= Approach =
The first OLPC implementation in Peru took place in June 2007. And after laying all the groundwork, Peru went nationwide by launching a program of supplying every teacher and student in penurious primary schools in the jungle, coast, and mountain-range regions with an OLPC laptop. These schools were mostly single teacher schools (one teacher works with all the grade levels in one classroom) and dual-grade teacher schools (one teacher works with two grade levels in one classroom). To that end, the Ministry of Education purchased 40,000 XOs. The laptops started to reach the schools in April 2008. Later, the Ministry of Education acquired some more XOs for the purpose, but since then a strong emphasis has prevailed to the effect that regional governments must make their own purchases of XOs. With this strategy, a fast growth of XO distribution throughout Peru is expected.


= Background =
Peru has a population of approximately 30 million people. The schools are widely dispersed in its vast territory. The topography of the country is a challenge in itself for the distribution of laptops, but more so for continual pedagogic and technical follow-ups. The laptops are reaching the remotest and least accessible schools, and, as is to be expected, most of these schools have no Internet connection. A welcome challenge is that a few schools with no electric power were also chosen to receive the laptops.


= Communication =
[[image:1structure.jpg|thumb|600px|[[Media:1structure.jpg|actual size]]|center|Illustration 1: DIGETE hierarchical structure]]


'''''Dirección General de Tecnologías Educativas''''' ('''''DIGETE''''') (General Directorate of Educational Technology). A simplified depiction of the hierarchical structure of the DIGETE appears in Illustration 1. People’s reports and information get filtered through a hierarchical structure. The projects and initiatives require cross-coordination and collaboration of different areas of the DIGETE. Each unit has specific responsibilities and specialties with which to contribute.

The staff at the lowest levels of the hierarchical structure are the ones with the closest, direct input from the field, be it from principals and teachers or from the ''DRE''s (Directorates of Regional Education) and ''UGEL''s (Units for the Promotion of Local Education). They are also the ones who, most of the times, need approval to take action when there is something to be worked on at the schools.

'''''Dirección de Información y Comunicación''''' (Directorate of Information and Communication) supports OLPC with connectivity and networking at the schools, with hardware and software support to the XOs and XSs, and they receive the new images and perform technical tests on them. They also support with the training workshops.

'''''Dirección Pedagógica''''' (Pedagogy Directorate) trains the trainers, who come from the ''UGEL''s and ''DRE''s, and these trainers, in turn, train the UROPs, teachers, and principals. Also, this Directorate is in charge of the follow-up work that will be done at the schools (in coordination with the UGELs), of developing the Guide to the Use of the XO, and of evaluating the content of the laptops, among many other responsibilities.

'''''Administración''''' (Management) does the logistics of trips and materials for the trainings, coordinates with the outsourced distributors of the laptops,...

'''''DRE & UGEL'''''
The Directorates of Regional Education (''DRE''s) are the entities which represent the Ministry of Education in the regional sectors. The ''Unidades de Gestion Educativa Local'' (''UGEL''s) (Units for the Promotion of Local Education) also represent the Ministry of Education but by provinces and are under the ''DRE''s.

So one DRE has many ''UGEL''s, and each ''UGEL'' is directly responsible for the schools in its province. The '''UGEL'''s will do the OLPC follow-up and supervision work at the schools. (coordinated by the Pedagogy Directorate). At present, they are also the ones in charge of the activation and distribution of the laptops.

== Not in the plan ==
Communication does not always flow as it should in the hierarchy of the DIGETE.

I visited four schools and listened to the teachers and principals express their concerns. When I asked them whether they had communicated those concerns to the DIGETE, most of the times, they said 'No.' I suppose that, out of custom, they consider it fruitless to communicate their concerns to DIGETE or that, in some cases, the communication channels are limited.

The Director of the Huancavelica DRE told me he had the same impression, that sometimes he did not know what problems the schools were facing, until he was asked to write a report for the Ministry of Education and had to go round asking for details.

I am not quite sure, but I have the feeling that the theft of the 60 laptops in Huancayo was made known first in an OLPC e-mail list and in the Huancayo region media before it was revealed to the Ministry of Education through formal means. Also, the Huancayo media and hearsay tell a different story from that of the Ministry of Education’s, since one claims the laptops were not activated and the other that they were. Informants could be misinformed, and the media, misconstruing the facts. Anyway, whoever did it stole from the poorest of the poor, to whom the XOs were targeted. They took the laptops knowing they would be of no use to them, that they get de-activated (in this case until January 2009) because people had been told about this, as well as of other security measures.

Now, I will focus on the communication flow within the DIGETE, for which I have identified general and specific issues:

'''General'''
In Illustration 2, I marked three main areas (A, B, and C) to pay close attention to.

'''A'''
Some of the staff who are below this level feel they have no say. Others, because of the structure, do not find the direct way to have the end-user problems voiced and their proposed solutions heard by someone who will actually act on them right away.

Oscar is the Head of the DIGETE and thus is in charge of the educational technologies of the OLPC Peru project. He is very accessible, listens to people, and acts on each issue right away. However, going up the hierarchical structure, reports can take a long time before getting to Oscar's level, and then they may be lacking in clarity, detail or forcefulness and be less effective.
Here is the scenario of the latest training in Iquitos:
* The training started in Iquitos, as in all the other locations, on a Monday morning. Iquitos had not received the XO laptops for the training workshop because they had been shipped just a few days ago, even when the training workshop had been programed a couple of weeks in advance. The problem seemed to be with the airline cargo service. Regardless of the cause, people in Iquitos did not know when they were going to receive the XOs, if at all. I learned that constant calls to Lima to find out about the problem had found no luck. Meanwhile, they started the training with the emulator in the computer labs of secondary schools. Nevertheless, they encountered different issues with the emulator.<br /> According to the plans I had made, I was going to spend a few days in Huancavelica and then, on Wednesday, travel to Requena. On Wednesday morning, when I called to confirm with the team in Iquitos my arrival, they told me that they were still with no laptops and that the teachers were complaining bitterly and a lot, attributing to the lack of laptops that they were not learning. I must point out that many of these teachers came from very remote and inaccessible places and that they had traveled long distances –for more than two or three days– to get to Iquitos for proper training, and that, therefore, making up for inadequate training and providing timely follow-up was practically impossible. The gravity of the situation was greater, though, because (I was told) that the teachers working in the jungle had had very little teachers’ preparation and training. I offered to go get and bring the laptops with me. A consultant told me that I needed special paperwork done by the Ministry of Education and that the Ministry of Education people said that since almost the whole week had gone by, there was no need anymore of the laptops for the training. In my opinion: ‘Better late, than never,’ so I text messaged Oscar, who was in a conference. Maria, a consultant, called Victor, explaining that I wanted to take the laptops with me and that I needed help. I met with Hernan in the morning at the Ministry, who by then was trying to locate the Iquitos batch of laptops, of which nobody knew the whereabouts. Victor arrived and we suggested to Hernan to just give me another batch of laptops. The paperwork still had to be done and I had to leave for the airport by 1 p.m. A lot of people worked so fast and efficiently to get the laptops and all the paperwork cleared. By 1 p.m., lunch time, which we skipped, a transport from the Ministry of Education took me to the airport, accompanied by 3 consultants who were to help with the boxes in case something went wrong. I insisted on bringing the 45 laptops in 9 boxes with me, plus another box with the manuals, while I carried in my backpack the printed and signed certificates for the participants. The airline people claimed that so many boxes had to go by cargo, but I insisted that we could not risk that they fail to arrive together with me, that the other laptops were already stuck somewhere because of their ‘cargo’ status, so finally they accepted to consider all the boxes my check-in luggage. On Wednesday night, we gave the laptops to the teachers. Some of the laptops had not been checked by us because of the rush, and since they are constantly used for trainings, two of them did not work. But the teachers’ attitude immediately changed. I stayed in Iquitos to support with the training. I got to see that though the teachers had used the emulator, everything seemed really new to them, from the way Sugar works to the use of software-activities. We had to work really hard the last two days, encouraging the teachers to explore as much as they could on their own, during the training sessions and when not in the sessions. These wonderful teachers were, in general, shy and very new to this kind of technology, and especially to the use of laptops as a resource for their classes. They really tried hard, and their fascination and amazement were rekindled continually by the XOs’s capabilities. Finally, after the intense (super-)quality time spent on their hands-on laptop training, the teachers had to initiate the long journey back to their schools, taking with them their XO laptops and new knowledge, though not all that firm, as well as a new attitude, though not all the skill and confidence that only more immersion time can bring.<br /> <br /> '''The point is''': What happened on Wednesday that didn't happen Monday afternoon, or at least on Tuesday, when everybody realized the laptops still had not arrived in Iquitos? What led the people at the Ministry of Education (logistics and managerial levels) to understand that the whole point of the trainings is to have the teachers learn and experience all the potential of the laptops? With no laptops, how were the teachers supposed to learn how to disassemble them for a quick fix, to re-image and activate them, to share activities? And the list of questions can go on and on to stress the fundamental importance of having timely access to the XO laptops (and to the whole ICT set-up) to learn how to handle them, guided by more experienced users. <br /> OLPC laptops are designed for children and teachers to learn on their own by exploring them, but more importantly, so they can learn through live interaction and collaboration as well as through all the interconnectivity features of the XO’s; working with others, directly and/or interconnectedly is essential to the furthering of individual and shared learning, creativity, construction, development, and self-sufficiency. However, most of these schools are so far apart from each other, and with no Internet connection, that teachers, at present, have no chance of collaborating with their fellows at other schools on a daily or regular basis. <br /> <br /> In conclusion: <br /> 1.- Emulators are useful, but they simply do not compare to the real thing: the XOs. <br /> 2.- Everybody should be exposed to hands-on work with the actual XOs. 3.- <br /> Everybody, but especially neophytes, can benefit from working directly with opportune supportive guidance of facilitators, trainers, or more experienced users, or at least with other fellow learners. <br /> 4.- The duration of the training program should range from 5 days (8 hours a day) to 3 weeks (3 - 6 hours a day). <br /> 5.- The logistics of the Training Workshops should include follow-through mechanisms to monitor and make sure that everything and everybody is in place at every stage and to react efficiently they are not.


'''B'''

Some of the staff below this level are more in touch with the children, teachers, local communities, or with the end-user processes. Most of the times, they get the feedback from the schools or otherwise learn what has to be worked on, though solutions and actions have to be sought at upper levels.


'''C'''

Across areas, receiving last-minute news or feedback and taking timely collaborative action may not happen efficiently because it usually has to go upwards within a given area before it goes sideways at managerial levels to finally go back downwards to the right person. Except for a few areas, this is so in general. And there are some people who refuse to accede to a request coming from a person from another area if it does not come with an official approval or by their own boss, maybe because that is the way it has always been. However, some bosses directly get things done by people from different areas.

In some areas, I have noticed poor intercommunication. There are many issues that, for one or another reason, are not openly expressed. As an illustration for reflection I offer two example settings derived from the Fourth Training for Trainer Teachers (see Illustration 3 “One-Week Training Workshops”).
* In April, we got together with the technical and pedagogic consultants that had already come back to Lima, and, together with Victor Castillo, we had a feedback session about the training workshop that we all had participated in. Many of the consultants expressed personal comments, how they felt, how they perceived the trainees, and their overall appreciation of the training, all of which was great. Nonetheless, about matters that could be improved, the comments were minimal and scarce. They were more about logistical and material and technical issues than about methodological approaches, content and activities, mastery of the tools, and people's behaviors and attitudes; maybe because they are being careful of not hurting anybody’s feelings or of not putting anyone on the spot, including themselves. <br /> In June, a similar feedback session took place in Iquitos with the Specialists and the DIGETE consultants, and I was impressed by the honesty with which one of the specialists acknowledged that he did not feel sufficiently confident when working with the programming tools, especially with how teachers could use them to teach something to their students. At that moment I got the feeling that all of them had difficulty (including a few of the DIGETE consultants I was with in April), but that only one had ‘dared’ to mention it, clearly and distinctly. There were many issues that we had to work on, but, thanks to that specialist’s unashamed feedback, that issue took on greater priority, and the following day we provided the corresponding support, to him and the others. <br /> ––– That kind of communication is what we need, with or without feedback sessions, to together pinpoint the most relevant issues and do something about them. –––
* In April, while collaborating with the DIGETE consultants in the trainings, I noticed that on the Technical side, if in one group something went wrong or was not working as it should, and the technical consultant tried and could not fix it, he would call, on his cell phone, the co-worker he thought might know how to fix it. And if someone detected concurrent issues or learned how to solve one of them, he would inform all the others.

This may seem trivial at first sight because this kind of communication flow is common place on the Technical side, but on the Education side it is not so. Of course, I am not suggesting that this be done with cell phones or that immediately…, but then again, why not?

When someone needs support with how to go about introducing (trainer) teachers to ways of exploiting the XO's potential in the classroom, it would be great if they could simply express it.

Likewise, when something is going terribly wrong out there in the field (be it with deliveries, technical, or of any kind), it would be great if we could just send an SOS message out and be certain that opportune help will be on its way and be certain that whoever gets the message will promptly relay it directly to those who can and will take action immediately.

Easier said than done, however.
There exist complex social-network territories and borderlines, most of them subtle, intangible, unwritten, and what is worse, unfathomable. People cannot simply ask others for something. And, the ‘others’ cannot simply take a request at face value; they ask themselves ‘who is the requester’ and ‘with what right or authority is s/he making the request.’ Something is lacking in terms of ''esprit de corps'', which should be strengthened and extended, so as to hasten the passageway through necessary red tape, bureaucratic, or procedural steps, as well as to do away with all kinds of personal territorialities, obstacles, or attitudes that serve no other purpose than to hamper the fast paced maneuvering that OLPC requires.

So, what can be done if the trainers are out there in the field with the teachers who journeyed through the jungle (some, partly by foot, horse or boat) for hours and hours –and even days and days– and they have not received the laptops to work with, and there are immovable deadlines for the teachers’ departure?

What can be done?

It would be great if we could build two-way channels or, better said, two-way bridges through which we could bypass all superfluous red tape, and impediments of any kind.

''Passive'' possibilities are direct email addresses, direct cell phones and conventional phone numbers, maybe also carrying out ‘informative and motivational’ campaigns within the Education Ministry so that if anybody in the Ministry gets an OLPC SOS, they give it top priority, take detailed notes, and/or directly forward the email or route the call to those in charge of OLPC. I label these possibilities passive because, though they require thoughtful planning and preparation, they are limited to just waiting around until a message is received.

''Active'' possibilities may be of the kind used by modern day couriers who actively monitor what is going on with a package at every stage (and even the customers can monitor from their workplaces or homes the status or ‘exact’ whereabouts of their package). A similar process can be used by us. Outsourcing is one way, but there must still be active alternative plans and means to come in with immediate remedies in case the outsourcer fails to get to any stage in time.

This is just food for thought. Peru, as well as every other OLPC country, must look into these issues and come up with their own solutions. And OLPC, too, must look into these issues, because we usually become involved with schemes and timetables that very much resemble ‘Just in Time’ ideas.

''[All the areas (at all levels) –and all countries– should encourage regular feedback sessions, the fostering of collaboration, continual monitoring, and timely improvements, for everybody's benefit.]''



'''Specifics'''

Each subheading of this section is in Spanish, corresponding to the terms used in Peru’s Ministry of Education, and accompanied by approximate translations in parentheses.

'''''Asesor''''' (Adviser, Counselor). The title ''Asesor'' suggests that the Adviser just has to counsel or give advice to those who have specific responsibilities, to those who are in charge of getting things done. However, in reality much more is expected of the Adviser; he is more of the Project Manager, because it is expected that this person, besides being an always accessible great listener, should get things done, everything done. Hernan is the ''Asesor''. And Hernan gets blamed for everything, by everybody, from above, from below, and from afar. I do not think Hernan is to blame; I think it is an organizational problem and/or an expectations problem, and/or a traditional solution (that keeps everybody happy because they always have somebody to nag to, and to nag about). If we observe the organizational chart, the ''Asesor'' box is a lone appendage to the DIGETE box, the Director’s box. The ''Asesor'' box is just floating with no boxes connected to it underneath, that is, with no explicit subordinates and with no other explicit responsibilities other than to advice the Director. I think that whatever the Adviser’s role and responsibilities are, it would be convenient if they were made clear to all those involved.

'''''Monitoreo''''' (Monitoring) I assume that the staff of this section should be continuously on the look out, watching, listening and otherwise paying attention to what is going on, here, there, and everywhere, continuously working together with the other areas to guarantee efficiency in the processes and quality in the trainings and support to the teachers at the schools. However, I have not worked with this area, so I do not really know what they do.

'''''Dirección de Informática y Telecomunicaciones''''' (Informatics and Telecommunications Directorate). The technical team gives me the impression that the job gets done because communication flows very effectively, maybe because they are very task oriented, which nevertheless is outstanding. Some of the technical guys are very proactive, and even support the pedagogic area by helping out with the training during the workshops. A few of them just do what they are supposed to, but they do it right.

'''''Dirección Pedagógica''''' (Pedagogic Directorate) The impression I get from the Pedagogic Team is that each member is very efficient, but that they each do, rather independently, their work the best possible way. I cannot say I noticed a great spirit of teamwork or of learning from each other's experiences. And everything seemed more on the side of single-handed constructionism rather than collaborative constructionism, as we foster in the trainings to the teachers. I haven't seen their reports, but I suppose they are done methodically.

'''''Administración''''' (Management) I think that some people in this area are really efficient, while others are just very hard to contact when something goes wrong and they are the only ones that can solve the problem. Still, they claim it's everybody's fault but theirs.

''[Recognizing mistakes is essential to learn what went wrong, to find ad hoc solutions, and to prevent their recurrence.]''

The interaction between the Technical and Pedagogic areas seems smooth and well coordinated.

[[image:2communication.jpg|thumb|600px|[[Media:2communication.jpg|actual size]]|center|Illustration 2: Communication within the DIGETE hierarchical structure ]]


= Distribution =
The laptops arrived at a warehouse in Lima. At the warehouse they had to be re-imaged with build 703, and the serial numbers were scanned by school. The laptops were distributed by an outsource company to each of the receiving schools.

With the scanned numbers, the leases for activation were produced. The leases were placed in USB keys, which were sent separately from the laptops to each school, as OLPC had recommended.

Each school received the laptops and had to wait until they received the USB key to activate them. Once activated, the laptops were distributed to the children and teachers. Teachers should use the laptops as another teaching resource. Class plans must now incorporate the use of the laptops for developing the children's learning capabilities.

The children can take the laptops home every day. At the end of the school year, the children have to return the laptops to the school, and the school staff will re-distribute them the next school year to the students, who must be accompanied by their parents. Which means that at the end of the school year, the sixth grade students do not get to keep the laptops and that next year, the first graders will receive those XOs. The idea is that the Ministry of Education or the UGEL will not have to send a whole new batch for each new generation of students every year.


== Not in the plan ==
'''Leases'''
* Generating the leases took longer than expected because OLPC encountered problems.
* Very low quality processes were used for scanning the serial numbers and making the files for the generation of leases. The files were not done carefully, so they had many mistakes, which made the generation of leases very slow. Kim and Wad arrived in Peru (17 July) and, among other things, will look into this issue.
* The first USB keys sent to the schools had the activation lease file placed in a folder. This complicated matters because when the teachers introduced the USB key in the laptops, they would not activate.
''[Therefore, the laptops will be activated at the Lima warehouse and will then be distributed to the schools or UGELs.] ''
* The second set of USB keys was made in a PC that had a virus, which got into the USB keys and removed all the files. So, some schools received an empty USB key. As a remedy, the leases were sent to the UGELs and to the DREs, who then took them to the schools, a remedy that brought with it a different set of problems.
* Some of the UGEL and DRE specialists who received the Activation files by email, did not follow the directions precisely.
* In total, around 50% of the USBs presented issues.
* Separating the distribution of laptops and of USB keys provided a greater level of security. However, given the geography of Peru, having to make two separate deliveries to each school almost doubles the time and money required. And, as pointed out, it produced other serious problems, delays, or complications.


'''Re-imaging'''
* Many of the laptops were not re-imaged (current estimate: around 15,000). The only way to know which laptops have the old version is by turning them on one by one. ''[Reflashing all the laptops that have been distributed could be less time consuming if they were not activated.]''
* If the laptops were not re-imaged at the warehouse, re-imaging with a Kingston USB key is very time-consuming work because the firmware has to be installed first within the command line, to then install the image. ''[Thus, using a different brand is recommended.]'' However, the Ministry of Education has already purchased a great deal of Kingston USB keys, and that brand of keys is one of the most available in Peru. '''''[Could a piece of code be written for this brand of USB keys ?]'''''
* At ''Vista Alegre Paso'' school the children have done very nice work on the laptops, in spite of the short time they have had their laptops activated. But since the image of those laptops was not the correct one, the backing up of all the files the children and teacher had already worked on led us to a very time-consuming process, especially because by then we were short of USB keys. We had to back up a laptop in a USB-1, file by file from the Journal, then we re-imaged (USB-2) the laptop, activated it (USB-1), and finally we copied the files back into the Journal. The process was taking too long, and since I had to leave, I gave the teacher two USBs for him to finish. '''''[Can a script be made to back up the files before re-imaging, as it used to be in some of the previous images?]'''''
* The activation lease file and the image have to be in separate USB keys. '''''[Is there a way to do it from one USB key?]'''''

'''Delivery'''
* In Arahuay, the outsource company insisted on dropping off, there, all the laptops of the area. The same thing happened at another school, but the school principals are not authorized to take on that responsibility.
* Some schools received more or less laptops than they have children, either because of newcomers, drop-outs, unregistered students that are attending, or because of inaccuracies on the lists sent to the Ministry of Education.
* Laptops took longer than expected to arrive at the schools.

'''Servers'''
* There are no servers in any of the schools, but in one: Arahuay school. Besides, schools do not have a reliable mesh connection. Some schools may have Internet signal, and it may spread through the mesh. There is no security system in place to de-activate the laptops, other than the end date on the activation lease, which could be modified by changing the time on the clock.
''[The setting up of the servers was put out to tender. It will take at least three months before they start installing them in the schools.] ''

'''Teachers and principals'''
* Some of the teachers, but especially the principals, claim that parents do not want their children to take their laptops home because they consider it a huge responsibility, specifically, because, their children may damage the laptops. ''[Distributing directly to the parents would be recommendable. The school staff must inform and persuade the parents (The DREs & UGELs will support.)]''
* Some teachers and principals (at least in the Huancavelica region) were worried because the laptops had not been distributed quickly enough (because they were de-activated). They were worried they might be stolen, as it happened in Huancayo. In Churampi, the teachers gave out the de-activated laptops to the children for them to keep at their homes.
* Most teachers cannot afford a USB key.

'''DREs & UGELs'''
* The ''DRE''s & ''UGEL''s will play an important role doing the follow-up work, by visiting each school and providing them with the correct lease and image version. Also, they will support with the distribution of laptops to the parents, in case they do not understand the relevance for their children's education. Doing it directly can also discard the possibility that principals or teachers refuse to distribute the laptops as a means of putting pressure on the Ministry of Education so as to get their way with other issues. Nevertheless, numerically speaking, the ''DRE''s and ''UGEL''s cannot possibly distribute to every single child's parents.


= Training =

== The Training Plan ==
The plan for the first batch of XOs was as follows. For the forthcoming batches, more training will have to be set up. However, each regional government will be in charge of its own distribution, training, and follow ups, with DIGETE's support.

'''Pilots'''
* Arahuay, Lima Provincias, which started in June 2007 with 50 B-2 XOs.
* La Jota, Tumbes, with 17 XOs
* Purus, Ucayali, with 10 XOs
* Tambogrande, Piura, with 19 XOs

'''Training for Implementation'''

Illustration 3 titled "One-Week Training Workshops" shows the original 'cascade plan' for the trainings. The numbers in parentheses are the actual number of trained people, which are very close to the targeted number.

All the people that received training became, or will become, key players for the continuous Sustainability and Follow-Up efforts.

'''Simultaneous Trainings'''

The training of Training Teachers and Classroom Teachers takes place simultaneously in different locations, to which participants come from all the States of Peru. Every location had between 1 to 4 groups of teachers.

'''Participants’ Localities'''

The participants came from all the regions of Peru, including the jungle, seashore, mountainous areas, and borders, the most remote areas of Peru. Teachers came by airplane, bus, boat, and various other means of transportation. One teacher had to travel horseback for some hours to get to a town where she could take a motorized means of transportation. For others, it meant a one-way journey of three days by boat down or up the Amazon river. Climatic circumstances complicated things: several teachers did not make it to the workshop in April due to heavy rain falls that closed many roads, and there were those who at the end of the workshop had to stay in Lima until the roads to their towns were cleared.

'''Trainers'''

Each group is trained in the Educational and Technical areas, having a Pedagogic Consultant or a Regional Specialist in charge full time, but a Technical Consultant or Regional Technical Specialist also works either full time with each group or alternates among groups, depending on the number of groups per locality and technical consultants.

'''Agenda'''

The DIGETE consultants developed a one-week training plan called “agenda” (see Attachment 1: Training Plan). All the locations go through the same agenda. The training takes 5 days from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. with a two-hour break for lunch. In the agenda, it is outlined that during the 5-day week, the participants will go through most of the Software Activities of the XO by working on them by teams and designing Class Learning Sessions, as if they were planning a class for their students. The agenda places great emphasis on how to use the laptop to develop the children's learning capabilities, rather than on teaching them how to use the computer. Through the process of exploring and participating, teachers become familiarized with the laptop, its graphical user interface, and how to use the Software Activities in their everyday classes.

'''Manual'''

The manual is also made by the DIGETE consultants. It is about how to use the software activities and its technical aspects. The manuals are provided to the trainees for keeps. Participants can use it as a reference book once they are back in their own localities. For the trainers, the manual is used as a guide to introduce the participants to OLPC-Peru. After every training workshop, it gets revised and improved for the next training workshop.

'''Evaluation'''

When the participants first arrive at the workshop, they have to fill out an evaluation form about OLPC and the XO laptop, its activities and its pedagogic applications in class. At the end of the week when the workshop is over, participants have to answer the same evaluation. ''[At present, just a post-evaluation would be enough, and it could be improved by cutting down on the ‘memorization’ items and increasing the ‘classroom applicability’ items, of which there are very few.]''

'''XOs for the training'''
Laptops are lent to the participants for the week that the training lasts. They can take them everywhere with them. An added advantage is that most of the hotels were the participants stayed had wireless Internet connection, so participants are able to use the laptop at night and in their lunch breaks. At the end of the workshop, participants have to give the laptops back and they take with them a CD with the Sugar emulator. The laptops are only for the children and the teachers who will directly be working with the children. That is why the Regional Teacher Trainers and the Technical Specialists don't get one. However, they have access to PCs were they can practice with Sugar’s Graphical User Interface and Software Activities. The Classroom Teachers will receive theirs together with their students'.

'''Image'''

The laptops were upgraded early morning of the first session to Peru's build image 703 with the following Software Activities: Write, Xaos, Web, Paint, Calculator, Ruler, Distance, Geography, Tangram, Chat, Record, Scratch, StopWatch, TamTamMini, TamTamJam, TamTamEdit, TamTamSynthLab, TurtleArt with Sensors, eToys, Pippy, Scratch, Memorize, Implode, Connect, Maze, Jigsaw Puzzle, Slider Puzzle, Speak, Scaleboard, Sudoku, Measure, Terminal, Analyze, Log Viewer, Words, StarChart, News Reader, Clock, Chess_computer, Moon, and Watch & Listen.


[[Image:3training.jpg|thumb|600px|[[Image:3training.jpg|actual size]]|center|Illustration 3: One-week Training Workshops]]


== Training Workshop events ==

'''DIGETE Consultant Team'''
* The DIGETE Pedagogic consultants are very enthusiastic when training.
* The coordination between the technical consultants and the training consultants works well.
* All-around consultants. All of the Technical and of the Pedagogic consultants are of course good at their own area of specialization, but they are also rather well familiarized with the area of their counterparts’, that is, every one of them have an understanding of the pedagogic and the technical sides of an OLPC implementation. The purpose of these all-around consultants, other than being good role models for the teachers and future trainers, is to support each other whenever it is needed. Nevertheless, I think that there could be more support to the pedagogic side from the technical team, and vice-versa. If the technical consultants got better at the software activities, at least at the programming ones, they could work together with the pedagogic consultants on how to use them to develop the children's learning capabilities. Of course, some are more inclined than others. <br />
::Miguel, in Requena, is a case in point. Capability and willingness are a must for this kind of OLPC collaborator, and he has both. He is extremely eager to become better acquainted with and skilled at the pedagogic and technical aspects of the training, and he is always proactively providing support in every way possible.
* Re-allocation of resources. There is one DIGETE consultant per training location during the trainings, who plays a support role, rather than a trainer role. If these consultants are handy with the logistics of the whole operation, which means pedagogic and technical areas and other organizational matters, such as, paying the expenses of the trainees and trainers, they can do the work of three consultants. <br />
::e.g. In Iquitos, there were three DIGETE consultants: a pedagogic consultant, a technical consultant, and another person came to pay the attendees. While, in Requena, one DIGETE consultant played the three roles.
This kind of consultant is far more convenient, especially, since in each region there already are technical and pedagogic specialists that can be an active part of the team, which is locally more sustainable.
* The DIGETE Pedagogic consultants put in a lot of effort when they are doing the training workshops. These consultants responsibly follow the procedures, Training plan, and manual; they, as well, foster collaboration and add a personal touch when serving others with their know-how.
''[Internal team sessions are a must to reinforce the content and mastering of activities, as well as to discuss how they could be used by the teachers in the schools.]''

'''Training Technical Session'''
* Some XOs are not set up carefully at the technical training sessions and they do not work well afterwards.

'''Printed Forms, too many'''
* In April, the trainees had to fill or sign many forms, one for receiving a laptop, another for receiving the manual, still another was a double-duty attendance sheet which also had blanks to fill in with the info that would go in their XO Training Workshop Certificate, and there was a pre-evaluation form at the beginning of the workshop and a post-evaluation at the end.
''[It would be advisable to compile in one sheet or set everything possible and, at present, to evaluate them only at the end of the workshop.] ''

'''Trainees, pre-registered only'''
* In the trainings only the pre-selected participants are admitted, even if there are vacancies due to cancellations, no-shows, or miscalculations. Nobody else can sign up on the spot, even if it would not add any extra cost or other burden to what was already planned.

'''Trainers, feedback sessions'''
* The trainers should have trainer sessions in the evening to discuss what went well and what could be improved the following days.

'''Emulator'''
* The emulator they were using was not in Spanish, while the Sugar image they have in the XOs is. Participants insisted that they would prefer an XO to be able to practice more and be better prepared either to train other teachers or for working with their students.
In Arequipa (April) and Iquitos (June) the emulator was used at the beginning of the workshops since their laptops had not arrived in time. The use of the emulator familiarized the teachers with it and with how they could keep on practicing with the laptop interface after the training.

'''Specialists Training'''
* A DIGETE Pedagogic consultant and I supported three of the Region Specialists when they were training the classroom teachers.

* The specialists were enthusiastic and did a great job. Still, some details merit a little bit of polish.
* The specialists dedicated more time to introducing the software-activities that they were more familiar with, such as, Write, Paint, Camera, and Puzzles, which do have to be introduced, but not dwelled on because the teachers can continue exploring those on their own. Instead, they should dedicate more time to processes that require more collaborative work, like sharing software-activities through the Mesh, or that may require more guidance, like using the programming tools, or that may bring difficulties, like connecting to the Internet which quite often requires educated guesswork.
* If they noticed that a software-activity did not do what they expected it would do, the Specialists would not talk about it with the other Specialists or with the DIGETE consultants.
* During one of the sessions, a trainee asked one of the Specialists how something could be done, to which the Specialist said, “it cannot be done,” when in fact it could be done. It could be that the specialist did not really know whether it was possible or not, but since he did not know how to do it, he thought that it was not possible.
''[We should learn to constantly say things like, “I don’t know,” “Perhaps,” or “I’m not sure” because in our area we constantly find that we do not know or are not sure. If the circumstances call for it, we can be more explorative and think aloud with expressions such as, “Let’s find out. What happens if we click here?” Or, if we think it could be fruitful, we may want to mirror a student’s question, or come up with more, so the student does the exploring… and discovering. By learning together with the students, we foster learning attitudes, in them and in ourselves.]''
* The trainees in two groups tended to come to the session late, leave the room to answer the cell phone or do something else. A few of the local trainees would excuse themselves explaining that they had to carry out an important chore, and sometimes they would not come back to that session.
* The message given and the way the Specialists explain and introduce the OLPC project to the trainees is very important because there are some key issues that the trainees simply must not misunderstand, like one trainee (a teacher) who asked why undergo so much training if the laptops were only meant to be used at home.

'''Patterns '''
* The Specialists that were training in June had been trained in April in Huampani. Since, I was at the Huampani training in April, precisely the day programming tools were introduced, I thought I might find a relevant pattern if I backtracked to who trained who in Huampani. So, I asked them who had been the consultant that had trained each one of them. One of them was trained by Alex, who, from my point of view, had introduced TurtleArt in a simple and interesting way. The other two were trained by the two Juans (one from the technical team and the other from the pedagogic), who adequately introduced how to use the software-activity. I was looking for patterns: maybe the Specialists were replicating the training styles of those who trained them, since they brought to my mind the image of April in Huampani of a trainer who had only written on the whiteboard two not too basic block procedures and asked the teachers to figure out what was happening, which was a daunting task for most of them.
* So, there was no pattern there, no obvious replicating, no who-and-how pattern. After having gone such a long way around, we finally came to the conclusion that perhaps the only common thread was that the three of them were lacking in practice. The Specialists told me that they did not use the emulator in between trainings and that they studied from the manual and practiced only one day before the next session. Which is impressive because, taking into account such little practice, they were doing great. However, even when they introduced the logic of how to make things move with the turtle, they never mapped it to why it was useful for the teachers, other than for making individual geometric figures, which is an activity that some teachers do not find very interesting and prefer to explore some other software activities. ''[Trainers should train and train and train with the machine (preferably) or emulator, and also do collaborative work, collaborative exploring, and train as a team, at least in pairs. Furthermore, trainers must work directly with children, at least once in a while, as well as with the children's teachers in their own, real classroom settings, because otherwise they will be out of touch with the reality of the primary school classroom.]''

'''Trainees'''
* The participants had different levels of expertise in different areas, which fostered collaboration among participants. In fact, those with a high degree of understanding of Math and Chaos theories helped the others with how to introduce the Xaos Activity in primary classes.
* These trainees worked hard to introduce their peers to the activity and to how to use it in an easy and contextualized way.
* The trainees were interested, motivated, creative, inquisitive, and explorative.
* The participants felt that a week of intensive training was not enough and wanted to keep on going. Nevertheless, they said their understanding had reached the level from which they could work on their own and keep moving on.

'''Teachers at the Iquitos training'''
* The academic level of most of the teachers trained in Iquitos, which is in the jungle, was rather low.
* The teachers were afraid of breaking the laptop or damaging its software.
* To explore the software activities, most of the teachers waited until the trainer suggested it. They were shy and overly cautious when handling the XOs.

''[Would it not be better if in these Teacher trainings, the teachers received their own laptops instead of a provisional one for 5 days? This way, they could go home and continue to work with their laptops, and thus continue upwards with their learning curves, rather than abruptly interrupt their learning for an indefinite period of time.]''

'''Technical'''
* Some workshop locations had no (wireless) Internet connectivity set up for the training, e.g. in Iquitos. I do not know if all the locations had connectivity at the hotels. The ones that did, proved to be very useful during the immersion week, among other reasons, because of increased exposure time to the XOs.

'''Rotation'''
* Some of the teachers and DRE or UGEL specialists get rotated. ''[Give some OLPC manuals to the UGELs and/or DREs to somehow introduce them to the project while they get trained with an emulator or an XO laptop, so they start exploring on their own.]''

'''Training Teachers Feedback'''
* In a feedback session in April, where the Training Teachers were the trainees and the DIGETE consultants the trainers.
* It was time to leave, but the trainees would not leave the classroom since they were so engaged in the activities they were working on.
* The trainees felt that they had lots of responsibility to learn as much as they could within a week to be able to prepare the teachers who would be working with the laptops in class with the children. Also they were interested in the continuous support provided to them by the MinEdu.
* The best approach was to start from the basics and to escalate from there.
* They found it important to introduce the teachers to how to select their own activities, which should be relevant to their class level and class subject.
For the maintenance, they needed the structure set up and the logistics made clear to everybody. As for available spare parts, ....???

= At schools =
For continuous sustainability and follow-up efforts, all the people who were trained will take part in providing constant support and input to the schools. The support will be both pedagogic and technical. On the pedagogic side, the DIGETE consultants, DRE and UGEL specialists, and university UROPs, in addition to on-line training, forums, and available materials, will support the teachers working directly with the children in the schools. On the technical side, the DIGETE consultants and the DRE and UGEL Technology Support Teachers will provide continuous support to schools.

== Not in the plan ==

* The places in Peru where the teachers have been trained and the schools received the laptops, which have had the greatest amount of problems with the logistics, technical issues, or people are Huancavelica, Pasco, Huánuco, Junín, Cajamarca, Piura. Many of the problems are mentioned in the previous sections of this document.

'''Logistics'''
* Long delays between having received the laptops and receiving the USB keys to activate them. In some cases it has been more than a month.

'''Technical'''
* The XOs were not upgraded in the warehouse
* The USB keys did not work by just inserting them in the XOs and turning them on, either because the key contained no files at all or because the files were in a folder that the laptop could not see.

'''People'''
* '''XOs in boxes'''. In Luquia, where the president Alan García inaugurated the OLPC initiative, only some of the laptops were activated. Teachers use them with the older children, and after using them, they place the laptops back in their boxes. The boxes were marked by levels. Each teacher would take the boxes of his students when they were going to use the laptops. The teachers took their laptops home everyday, but not the children. The teachers said that they work 1 or 2 days a week for 1 or 2 hours with the laptops in class. ''[We upgraded and activated all the laptops while we were there. I spoke with the teachers and the principal, insisting that they give the laptops for keeps to the children, that they talk to their parents, and that it was of great importance that they use them as much as possible. However, as we were leaving, we noticed that the teachers were putting the laptops back into their boxes.]''
* '''XO as a learning tool'''. Many teachers, principals and parents do not see the great opportunities that they now have with the laptops, for the children and for them. They do not see the immediate value of using the laptop on a daily basis as another resource.
* '''Not enough training''' (or Hard to bootstrap). Some teachers feel they need more training before integrating them to their classes.
* '''Rotation'''. Some of the teachers or Regional Specialists get frequently rotated from one school to another and/or from one position to another, thus leaving the school or the region without support.
* ''Travel Expenses''. DRE said they do not have enough resources for the expenses needed to travel to the schools in order to support them.
* '''Electricity'''. At every school, the DIGETE has fixed the main electric power box and has cabled one classroom with many sockets around it to plug in the laptops while working with them in class. My understanding is that the school will have to do the other classrooms, and in many cases the principals and parents have said that they do not have the means, or that they are waiting for the harvest season to get some cash. ''[Charging at home can be encouraged, though as a partial solution.]''
* Not responsible. Some parents do not want their children to take the laptops home, since they do not want to be responsible for the laptop.

=In the field =
'''Direct support to the schools'''

:Ashley and Amos are two students from the USA spending their Summer in Peru. They are traveling to different locations and visiting schools that have either received or have not received the laptops. They work with teachers and students. Sometimes their XO laptops are the only ones to work with.

'''UROPs'''

:OLPC sponsors Peruvian UROPs to travel to remote schools to support the teachers in the use of the laptops in class. The students will travel in pairs, one technical and one pedagogic in background. The students, who are in their last year of university, will receive credits for the support provided.

'''60 XOs stolen'''

:60 XOs were stolen from a school close to Huancayo City. Which is not good news for any one.

'''Trainings'''

{photos} P1060609 P1060695 P1060732 P1100777 P1100929 P1100914

:During the teachers' or specialists’ trainings, the school children wander around the training classroom to see what is going on in there.


==Huancavelica==
==Huancavelica==
Line 358: Line 15:
As soon as I made it to Huancavelica, I called Teodocio, the DRE Technical Specialist I was told to contact. We met later on to discuss the purpose of my visit. It was Sunday morning, so we sat in the lobby of the hotel for tourists, and he contacted other people and teachers, who soon showed up. I explained that the purpose of my visit was to support as many schools as we could visit before I had to head back to Lima on Tuesday night.
As soon as I made it to Huancavelica, I called Teodocio, the DRE Technical Specialist I was told to contact. We met later on to discuss the purpose of my visit. It was Sunday morning, so we sat in the lobby of the hotel for tourists, and he contacted other people and teachers, who soon showed up. I explained that the purpose of my visit was to support as many schools as we could visit before I had to head back to Lima on Tuesday night.
We went to the DRE to meet the head of the Huancavelica DRE. Beforehand, one of the teachers who was with us went to his house to look for him. We talked with him for a while. Monday morning, he was going to go to Lima to a meeting at the Ministry of Education in relation to how much the XOs were being used at the schools. He told us that it was not until he began to compile information for such a meeting that he found out that many schools had not yet activated their laptops.
We went to the DRE to meet the head of the Huancavelica DRE. Beforehand, one of the teachers who was with us went to his house to look for him. We talked with him for a while. Monday morning, he was going to go to Lima to a meeting at the Ministry of Education in relation to how much the XOs were being used at the schools. He told us that it was not until he began to compile information for such a meeting that he found out that many schools had not yet activated their laptops.

Not surprisingly, Huancayo's 60 stolen laptops were the talk of the town and a topic sure to come up in the meetings and talks we had with people in the region.


We planned to visit 2 schools on Monday and 2 more on Tuesday, which required that Teodocio and I leave Huancavelica city at 4.30 a.m. on Monday, come back and spend the night in Huancayo, and then on Tuesday make a similar journey to the other side of the State of Huancavelica, and we did.
We planned to visit 2 schools on Monday and 2 more on Tuesday, which required that Teodocio and I leave Huancavelica city at 4.30 a.m. on Monday, come back and spend the night in Huancayo, and then on Tuesday make a similar journey to the other side of the State of Huancavelica, and we did.
Line 421: Line 76:
We made it safely again to Huancayo, and by midnight I was traveling back to Lima, from where I would head to the jungle in Iquitos for the Teacher Training Workshops.
We made it safely again to Huancayo, and by midnight I was traveling back to Lima, from where I would head to the jungle in Iquitos for the Teacher Training Workshops.


One main aim of this report is to highlight the remoteness in distance, time, and traveling conditions of the schools. We visited the most accessible schools that had laptops in Huancavelica State, and even so we could only visit four of them in two full days. It is of equal importance to point out that even when the laptops were already at the schools we visited, half of them (50%) could not be used because the activation key hadn't arrived. One school was using them partially (25%) with the older children only because, we were told, that just their laptops were activated. And another school was using part (25%) of the laptops in a very nice way with all the children.
One main aim of this report is to highlight the remoteness in distance, time, and traveling conditions of the schools. We visited the most accessible schools that had laptops in Huancavelica State, and even so we could only visit four of them in two full days.
Unquestionably, providing technical and pedagogic support to all of the schools in timely and significant ways is a challenge that will require a great deal of resources, organization, good will, time, and continuous learning.

Nevertheless, all the problems I here point out only make all past, present, and future efforts of the people of Peru all the more commendable.... and this is just the beginning.



=XO Shortages =

==The plan ==
That the XO laptops would come from the manufacturer without any hardware issues.


==Not in the plan ==
'''Batteries'''
Many batteries have been causing problems. They do not work at all. We already had to replace some in some laptops since they were dead. Also, they do not charge, even after charging them all night long. A question is whether it is OK to leave the batteries inside the laptop when the laptop is not being used for a long period of time. The biggest problem is when in some schools the exact number of laptops, adapters and batteries were shipped and one or more batteries don't work. Also, delivering the new batteries can take a while, given the geography of Peru and the dispersion of the schools.

'''Clock'''
The internal clock of some laptops gets re-set to a date in '99, which de-activates the laptops. The teachers and trainers learned how to change the time, which opens the possibility of losing all the security of the laptop.

'''Touch pad'''
The touch pad gets de-calibrated very quickly and in some machines it does not re-calibrate, not even by turning it off and on.
The touch pad does not respond to the movements of the fingers. It either gets stuck in a particular location or only moves up and down.
[Some children are considering buying an external mouse]

'''Software related issues'''
Reported previously in my weekly reports or directly on the Bug Tracking System.



=Acknowledgments =

'''Peru'''
* All my gratitude and admiration to Arahuay’s and all of Peru’s children, teachers, principals, specialists, and communities who are learning and building OLPC Peru.
* My deep gratefulness to the team who implemented OLPC in Arahuay, to those who were up there with me and to the ones supporting us from Lima, and to María, Lalo, Hernán, and Rocío, who are always eager to provide needed information and to find solutions to problems, for the sake of Peru's children.
* My appreciation to the Minister of Education, José Antonio Chang, as well as Oscar Becerra, Carlos Pizano, Manuel Cock, Mochis, and all the other great persons who work day and night to make OLPC possible in Peru, and who… ‘have been there’ for me with their assistance and friendship, making me part of the team.


'''OLPC'''
* Thanks to all those OLPC people who have provided prompt support for Peru, from the first implementation to today’s trainings, implementations, and deployments.


Nevertheless, all the problems I here point out only make all past, present, and future efforts of the people of Peru all the more commendable.... and this is just the beginning.
While traveling to the schools in Huancavelica, for hours and hours of unpaved roads with two fellows of the region (who I didn’t know and were new to the procedures), I would wonder: "What if the leases are incorrect? What if we can't re-image the laptops? What if...? Which can always happen..., and so far away with no Internet or cell phone access." I was relying only on the files that the technical people from the Ministry of Education had provided me with and on the work that the OLPC team had put into making them. The result, however, in the 4 schools we had time to visit, was that we managed to re-image all the laptops and to activate them, and we taught teachers how to change the clock in case it got de-activated again,... and nothing went wrong. Congratulations to all the OLPC people involved in creating such fine files and such fine machines.

Revision as of 18:30, 29 July 2008

Text and Photos by Carla Gomez Monroy, OLPC

April & June 2008 revisits


"My house" - Paint drawing by a a student from Vista Alegre Paso school, Huancavelica, Peru


Huancavelica

On a Saturday, I traveled overnight by bus from Lima to Huancayo. When I arrived at about 6 a.m. in Huancayo, I took a taxi to the other bus station to head to Huancavelica. On the bus, the lady who had the seat next to mine was trying to squeeze her backpack onto the overhead rack, without much luck. I suggested putting it under the seat as I had just done with mine. She looked at my backpack, then at me and said, “I wouldn't recommend such a thing, especially because the ladies tend to get sick quite often.” I did not understand the statement and was soon asleep, with my head against the window. I would frequently wake up only to immediately fall asleep again. The bus made a lot of stops and all the aisle was now packed with talkative local people, who were transporting large quantities of fresh vegetables and big sacks in the underneath compartments of the bus. The bus kept on stopping and starting, and I saw through my window that we were going up and down lots of hilly areas and through small villages once in a while. I opened my eyes, saw and heard, and fell asleep again. We were traveling at a very high altitude and the motor roared and hummed and coughed and the brakes screeched and rattled, shaking the bus. It was a really winding road, and the people in the bus and the views outside, so beautiful, and I would wake and go back to sleep. Then I heard and woke, “A bag, a bag,” loud and clear, but sort of hollow was the voice in the front, not too far from me. “Another here.” “Here.” “Another here,” came voice after voice from the back. I was alarmed, but just then I discovered what was going on, the older sister of two who were sharing a seat, was vomiting, repeatedly, as were many other women on the bus, and then the woman’s statement hit me, I reached down for my backpack and pulled it up, expecting the worst, but no, I was in time. I carried it on my lap for the rest of the journey, as my neighbor was doing since the journey began.


As soon as I made it to Huancavelica, I called Teodocio, the DRE Technical Specialist I was told to contact. We met later on to discuss the purpose of my visit. It was Sunday morning, so we sat in the lobby of the hotel for tourists, and he contacted other people and teachers, who soon showed up. I explained that the purpose of my visit was to support as many schools as we could visit before I had to head back to Lima on Tuesday night. We went to the DRE to meet the head of the Huancavelica DRE. Beforehand, one of the teachers who was with us went to his house to look for him. We talked with him for a while. Monday morning, he was going to go to Lima to a meeting at the Ministry of Education in relation to how much the XOs were being used at the schools. He told us that it was not until he began to compile information for such a meeting that he found out that many schools had not yet activated their laptops.

We planned to visit 2 schools on Monday and 2 more on Tuesday, which required that Teodocio and I leave Huancavelica city at 4.30 a.m. on Monday, come back and spend the night in Huancayo, and then on Tuesday make a similar journey to the other side of the State of Huancavelica, and we did.

Luquia

Our journey was by bus until Izcuchaca, where we had breakfast. I had local cream cheese with white bread and tea, while the others ate a heavy, full meal with rice, chicken, bread, and coffee. If I had known that I would not be able to  eat a thing until 8 p.m., I probably would have eaten as much as the others. We set out walking because the road to Luquia was being repaired. A little after we crossed the roadwork section, the principal of Luquia came to pick us up in a taxi. Since in Luquia there is no cell phone reception, Richard, one of the teachers we had met on Sunday, had taken the 1 a.m. bus to Luquia and gone the roundabout route because of the roadwork, to be able to arrive before us to tell the principal to go pick us up, the principal told us. Later, when I expressed my deep gratitude –and deeper astonishment– for all the trouble he had gone through, Richard said it wasn't such a big deal.

It is an unpaved road, the one to Luquia, and our car ride was full of curves and fine dust that permeated the air we were breathing and adhered to our clothes, hair, and every pore of our bare skins. After two hours of seeing dreamlike hilly areas, spotted with tiny villages, and of identifying all the schools in the area, we made it to Luquia, the only school in that region with XO laptops. Children start classes late in the morning this time of the year, since it is winter for them, and up there in the heights it is quite cold.

Children were playing around while we met the teachers. They had the laptops stored in their boxes in the principal’s office. They had just received the USB key the previous day. Since this was the school were the president of Peru had inaugurated the countrywide OLPC project, some of the laptops were already activated. The teachers, however, had not distributed those laptops to the children. They said they used them in their classes one or two times a week, for an hour or two, and that after that, they placed the laptops back in their boxes until the next lesson with laptops. We started working with the teachers and the principal, first upgrading the laptops, and then activating them. Meanwhile we talked at length with the teachers about the importance of using them more often, of letting the children take the laptops home as the teachers were doing, of talking to the parents, and of many other issues that came up. We were in the schoolyard, and they expressed their concern about their laptops being stolen, as in Huancayo. My reaction was to look around; besides the few houses that surrounded the schools, there was nothing else but hills and their animals. They said that at night nobody was at the school, so someone could come and steal them. I told them that would be no problem if each child had its own laptop. 

Luquia received 68 laptops, of which the president gave 5 to 5 children who were not from Luquia but had come that day to witness the event. Luquia School has 44 children currently attending and 3 teachers. Lots of children have dropped out because their whole families are leaving town to seek better opportunities. The left-over laptops will be taken by the UGEL.

On the technical side, there were two dead batteries, which we marked and left there at the school for the UGEL to pick up, too.

The children were called to come and type their names in when their machines were activated. Before coming into the classroom to enter their names, all the children were asked to go wash their hands before touching their laptops. They came with humid and cold hands. We had to leave as soon as we finished upgrading and activating all the laptops, otherwise, we were not going to make it to the other school before the teachers finished their school day.

Vilca

After Luquia, the principal drove us to Vilca, which was about 2 hours away down the shortcut he took. In some parts, we had to go really slowly because the path was not used much; rarely do cars go through those roads. The scenery was amazing, full of mountains and valleys, sunlit there, foggy over there.

We arrived at Vilca school when classes were finishing. The laptops were in the principal's office, still in their boxes since the USB key had not arrived. Vilca had 55 laptops, exactly for 51 students and 4 teachers. We carried the boxes to the classroom that had all the power outlets the Ministry of Education had set up, and we started unpacking, upgrading, activating and changing the clock to the current date. Three of the teachers helped throughout the process; they labeled each laptop with a child’s name on a strip of masking tape and typed on the screen and wrote down the serial numbers of the laptops, batteries and chargers corresponding to each child. When we finished, we were going to take a local taxi back to Huancayo, however the only taxi in town was already full of people, and packages were hanging on the sides and tied on the top and back. So, we convinced Luquia's principal to take us to Huancayo, and continue with us on the following day’s journey, since he knew the area and the roads perfectly well.

We spent the night in Huancayo and started early next morning. We left before any store or restaurant opened, so no breakfast,...and judging from the previous day's experience we guessed we had little chance of finding a place to eat. People live from what they grow in these areas.

Vista Alegre Paso

When we got to Vista Alegre Paso, we had to wait inside the car for all the dust uplifted by the car to settle down a bit. The school had two classrooms, 47 laptops, and 52 students. It used to have a teacher besides the principal, but it so happens that the teacher –just trained at an OLPC Laptop Workshop– was transferred to another school. The children who did not have a laptop were new.

We went into the school to look for the principal, and the first thing we saw was a classroom with children grouped by level. The 6th and 5th graders were seated around two clusters of tables and the only 4th grader was at another table by himself. Most of them were working on their laptops. They showed us their Journal with the different activities they had been working on.

In the other classroom were the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade children, also clustered by grades, and they were working with the principal and their laptops.

They had received the activation key a week before we arrived. I was told by the UGEL technical specialist that the Vista Alegre Paso school principal did not want to leave his school unattended for a whole week to go to the training workshop and requested that the laptops be sent to his school instead because he would learn on his own how to work with the children and their laptops. Later, however, he did attend the one-week workshop.

They did not have the upgraded version of the software on their XOs, and since they had done many activities on their laptops, we had to make backups of each laptop, as well as upgrade, activate, check the clock and re-place the files. And, the backup had to be done by copying file by file of the Journal and reversing this procedure once the activation was done. And of course, the more the children had worked on their laptops, the more files we had to backup.

Since by then, we only had 4 USB sticks, we had to work with the principal in such a way that he could do all of the steps mentioned above with only two USB sticks because the activation file cannot be on the same stick as the upgrading files. The process required our complete concentration at every step. We had to do one machine at a time, which took a long time. Basically, what we did was to backup the files on the activation USB stick, then switch to the upgrade stick, upgrade and switch sticks again and activate the machine, and once activated, on the same stick, we had to re-allocate the backed up files, and finally delete them all (except for the lease) not to confuse those files with the next child's. We went through the whole process with a few XOs until the principal could do it all by himself.

It was so gratifying to walk into a really remote and isolated school and see children in their classrooms concentrated on their OLPC projects –which were very collaborative– and with the principal, who was very much an autodidact, handling 2 different multi-level classrooms in an exemplary fashion.

In their Journal, they had photos, and almost everyone of them had a very colorful drawing of their home, (typically, an adobe house with tiled or tin roofs and almost no windows). They had typed a lengthy news article and formatted it with a newspaper layout, and they had Speak reading it out to them. They had some multiplication tables and other things, depending on the level of the children. It might seem like rather basic stuff, but taking into account that they had just received their XOs one week ago, they had all achieved a high degree of proficiency at handling the laptops.

We had started the upgrading and activation process in Luquia with 8 USBs and had left a couple at each school, so the last two schools took much longer, and the teachers, who had been working with us on the task, had to finish the remaining laptops after we left.

Churampi

We again were on the road for a while until we reached Churampi. The Churampi kiosk looked beautiful and the school, too, which was run by two female teachers, and a young, new, teacher who had just joined them. The school felt big and nicely taken care of. The principal and the teacher told us that since they had not received the activation key and were so concerned that the laptops might be stolen, they had given them to the older children to take home.

We started by taking the ones in the principal's office to the classroom that had the outlets while the older children ran home to bring their laptops. Some children helped us by separating the laptops that had been activated and keeping control, so one by one of the children entered his or her name (each laptop had a sticker with the owner’s name), while we, the adults, did the upgrading, updating, and changing of the clock’s time.

The teachers were very hospitable and quickly got organized to bring us lunch. What we ate while we kept on upgrading machines was certainly delicious, but we were doubly appreciative because it was around 4 p.m. and it was our first meal of the day.

The younger teacher was chosen to be the first to learn each procedure. Once she learned one, the older teachers would sit by her and also learn it, and they did it many times until they mastered it. Afterwards, they would learn the next one. Together, we did about half of the laptops with only two USB keys. The other half would be done by the teachers later, since it was getting late and we had to head back.

Every child was called in to type their name. At the beginning the teachers or one of us would stand by the child and encourage them to write their name and choose the color of their XO person. Some children would start doing it right away, others had to be encouraged for several minutes before they punched a key. The laptop was very new to them, so finding a letter of their name on the keyboard, took them a while. We, who had used computers for so long, took that for granted, likewise with the touch pad or the mouse. Especially with the jumpy touch pads that some XOs have. After a while, some of the children took over and called one by one of their classmates by their name when their machine was ready and (usually more than one child) would stand by his or her side to assist him/her in the process, and everybody would help find the right keys. Extra care and support was provided to the first graders who didn't know how to spell their names.

The teachers who seemed very new to technology too, even when they had participated in the training workshop, were eager to learn everything they could and did not want to miss anything. They had their notebook with them and wrote down relevant information, like linux commands to change the time and the children's name in case there was a misspelling on the children's names that were entered.

We left Churampi and gave a ride to the construction worker who was fixing some things at the school and needed some more materials from Huancayo. We were also on a dirt road on our way back, and we got stopped at a roadwork. Going back in reverse was really risky. The sunset was breathtaking, but the feeling that it was getting dark –and that soon night would fall– prevailed, because being on those roads, where cold gets terribly intense as the hours go by, is rather dangerous if the car happens to break down, because the nearest town is many miles away, and because no other cars would go by.

We made it safely again to Huancayo, and by midnight I was traveling back to Lima, from where I would head to the jungle in Iquitos for the Teacher Training Workshops.

One main aim of this report is to highlight the remoteness in distance, time, and traveling conditions of the schools. We visited the most accessible schools that had laptops in Huancavelica State, and even so we could only visit four of them in two full days.

Nevertheless, all the problems I here point out only make all past, present, and future efforts of the people of Peru all the more commendable.... and this is just the beginning.

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