OLE Nepal

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Open Learning Exchange Nepal

Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal is a non-profit organization registered in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was founded in July of 2007 by Rabi Karmacharya, Bryan Berry, and Mahabir Pun. All three had been working on the One Laptop Per Child project for over one year's time. Mahabir Pun, in particular, has been connecting remote Nepali villages to the Internet for the last 7 years. OLE Nepal has signed an agreement with the government of Nepal to help implement Nepal's pilot of OLPC in 2008. As part of that, we are creating fully open-source digital content for the Nepal government's OLPC pilot in spring 2008.

We have a full-time staff of 21 that includes two full-time volunteers. Our content development team has 2 graphic designers, six programmers, and a full-time educator. For the present, we are focusing on developing learning activities in Squeak and Flash.

OLE Nepal resources

• Our FAQ.
• OLE Projects on Redmine project management tool (user account needed)
• OLE Nepal Deployment Guide
• OLE Nepal Presentation at 1cc - Rabi Karmacharya came to Boston to share insights on what's been happening in Nepal so far.
• More about the OLE Nepal Community.
• Our Blog which is pretty darn active
• Mailing list for OLPC in Nepal
• Our IRC chatroom: #olenepal
• How you can get involved

Projects

E-Paath

E-Paath is a set of interactive learning activities developed in squeak and flash and integrated with the curriculum developed under the Ministry of Education. It was created in the spirit that technology must demonstrate a clear and immediate benefit to both teachers and students in order to be widely adopted or consistently used. While working with the One Laptop Per Child project, E-Pathi is part of OLE Nepal's larger effort to develop and implement high-quality, open-source, digital learning materials for schools.

E-Pustakalaya

Following the principle that the availability of freely accessible teaching-learning materials along with an education-centred electronic library (e-library) would be a transformative step in addressing the problems of quality, access, and disparity in education in Nepal, OLE Nepal has been working on its digital library, E-Pustakalaya, since summer 2008. E-Pustakalaya (www.pustakalaya.org) is now up and running with some basic features and content.

Deployments and Trials

Current Deployments

OLENepal deployed nearly 2500 laptops to 26 schools in 6 districts in Nepal as of April 26, 2009. Complete information on these sites can be found on OLE's deployment sites page of the Redmine project management tool.

OLE Nepal in Bashuki and Bishwamitra schools

OLPC launched at Bashuki and Bishwamitra schools on April 25th, 2008. Open Learning Exchange Nepal (OLE Nepal) distributed a total of 135 OLPC laptops to grade 2 and 6 students from two schools in the outskirts of Kathmandu Valley. These were addition to the 22 laptops that were handed out to teachers from the schools during the teacher preparation program held a month earlier. The laptop project was undertaken in partnership with Nepal government’s Department of Education (DoE). This project is part of OLE Nepal’s mission to increase quality of education while reducing current disparity in access and quality between school types, regions, and population groups by integrating ICT-based education in daily teaching-learning process. The laptops for the project were donated by the Danish IT Society in Copenhagen.

These pilots focus on integrating laptops into the Nepali educational system and measuring their impact. The laptops and relevant software have been integrated into the Nepali curriculum and teaching process for grades two and six, subjects Mathematics and English. We at OLE Nepal believe that the central challenge of this project is not to get children to use the constructionist tools within the XO, but to utilize the XO to fill gaps, providing previously unavailable tools such as a virtual science lab.

Also see: Evaluation of OLPC Project Nepal: A Summary

Further Resources

Deployment

Many planning documents were produced for the early deployment. Some of these were incorporated in later documents for general deployments.

The current Deployment Guide OLE_Nepal:_Deployment_guide

Older Documents:

• Pilot Sites, including selection process, target, and deployment teams
• Jamirkot (Lalitpur), Bishwamitra Ganesh school pilot, including technical planning
• Lakuri Bhanjyang (Lalitpur), Shree Bashuki school pilot, including technical planning
• Teacher Training
• Content Development
  • Content Development Principles
  • EPaath (Etoys) - suite of educational software for grades 2 and 6 developed by OLE Nepal
  • Scratch - A great, intuitive programming language in which students can easily create all sorts of content
• Program Evaluation (to be created)
• Technical Aspects of the Deployment
  • Testing and QA + some non-technical logistics
  • Power Systems -- currently power distribution, hopefully will later encompass power distribution
  • Networking

OLE Nepal Blog

The OLE Nepal Blog is used to document in real-time, the actions and progress of OLE Nepal. Here are some past stories, with information relevant to the deployment of the XO.

• The OLE Nepal Blog Archive for current blog entries please see the OLE Nepal Blog.
  • Announcements The Announcements category includes general announcements pertaining to OLE Nepal.
  • Development The Development category includes documentation and discussion of software development.
  • News and Events The News category catalogues general news items, and information about OLE Nepal events.
  • Testing The Testing category includes information on software and system testing.
  • Uncategorized The Uncategorized category includes general information updates about OLE Nepal.

OLE Nepal Community

The community is accomplishing much. Read through these link to learn about the people and their projects. Additionally, there are some resources such as what projects need help, intern projects, and an intern manual.Please read all this.

• Our Community More about the OLE Nepal Community.
  • OLE Nepal Projects
  • OLE Nepal Interns

OLE Nepal Development

This is a stub for pages relating to the XO/XS software development and deployment activity.

1. Use Traditional Nepali unicode in your XO
2. Procedure to build NEXS form OLPC XS
3. OLE_Nepal:Testing
4. OLE_Nepal:Schoolserver

See also

• Nepal-Austria Cooperation (still a stub)