OLPC Peru/Arahuay

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Arahuay (in the Arahuay district) is Perú's pilot site.

School   : Institución Educativa Apóstol Santiago : Escuela
Since    :                2007-07-07              : Desde
Students :                  46                    : Estudiantes
Teachers :                   3                    : Docentes
Laptops  :                  60                    : Laptops
Tot.Pop. :                  742                   : Pob.Tot.
Feature  :             2600 m (alt)               : Característica

Chronicle 1

Carla Gomez Monroy, OLPC OLPC in Peru: 16 – 30 June 2007

[editorial note: the teacher's and student's names are fictitious.]

Arahuay is the town were the first OLPC project in Peru is being implemented.

Arahuay school break

Arahuay

Not far from Lima, relatively speaking, Arahuay is approximately 100 km away and about a 3-hour drive, of which 37 km are on a dirt road, which takes one hour or more, depending on the time of day and night. Transportation is limited to two buses during the day. One leaves Arahuay at 6 AM and the other at 3 PM. On their way back, the bus arrives in Araguay at 11.30 AM and 7 PM.

Arahuay is located in the Cordillera de la Viuda at 2600 meters above sea level, where mobile phone signals are only available in the mountains that have special antennas.

Arahuay is an agricultural and animal farming town of around 500 people. Education has become an important factor for the development of their children. Every child in town must attend school. The name of the school is I.E. Apóstol Santiago and it is a combination of primary and secondary school. I.E. stands for Institución Educativa, which translated is Educational Institution.

[set of images] Boy and chickens | The town's church | Local women and baby |Bus leaving

Primary school is a multi-grade school. 1st and 2nd grades are taught together by one teacher, A. And 3rd and 4th grades are taught by B, while 5th and 6th are taught by C. Secondary education is 5 years long, and the school has 4 secondary classrooms. The primary school has 46 students, 8 in first and second grades, 21 in third and fourth, and 17 in fifth and sixth. Secondary school has around 50 more students.

Education for all

Some students come from other towns and even from Lima, the Capital of Peru, to study in Arahuay. The town of Arahuay provides them with a boarding house during the week. The boarding house is the former primary school and it has a kindergarten in it. Meals are sponsored by the Nutrition Aid National Program (PRONAA). The CARITAS Catholic Association takes care of the children at the boarding house, and the cook is paid by the Parents Association. Children arrive on Sunday night in Arahuay and leave Friday afternoon, bound for their hometowns. Some of these children have to walk 5 hours to get home, and 5 hours back. This boarding house arrangement is uncommon in Peru, so this local effort is an outstanding initiative. The boarding house is for girls and boys, which makes it more interesting, since traditionally girls are not allowed to be away from home.

[image: ] Boarding house

The Huascarán Program

The Ministry of Education has the Huascarán Program, which promotes the application of Information and Communication Technologies to 3260 state schools in rural and marginalized urban areas in Peru. Including the alternative basic education system (for adults), special education (for handicapped children), and bilingual schools (a community’s mother-tongue and Spanish).

The Huascarán Program provides two kinds of services, depending on the geographic location and the local needs of the schools. 1) They provide teachers and principals with guidance on pedagogical aspects and on the application of ICT to their learning activities. 2) Also, in some places, Huascarán Program provides them with an Innovation classroom, which has about 5 to10 PCs, depending on the number of students. In some cases, Huascarán Program also provides them with a VSAT antenna when the cabled signal is not available. And the local person in charge of the classroom is trained technologically and pedagogically.

Huascarán Program in Arahuay

Arahuay town's Local Education Facilitation Unit (Unidad de gestion educativa local) provided 5 PCs, and Huascarán Program contributed with the VSAT, its installation, and the server configuration for the Internet. The Innovation classroom and the VSAT are in the town hall, which is halfway up the hill. The decision of setting up the Innovation classroom in the first floor of the town hall was for security reasons. The school is at the lowest part of the town.

Information dissemination

Information in towns like Arahuay and its surroundings spreads by word of mouth fast. Even the first day we came to town, just to look-see and to come back prepared, as well as to speak with the principal and teachers, when the afternoon bus came and a man got off, he asked the principal about the laptops. We just laughed.

Handing out the laptops

The teachers first encounter

The three primary female teachers live in town during weekdays, and Friday afternoon they go to Lima to visit their children and family. Sunday evening, they come back to town. B, one of them, has been teaching for 8 years in Arahuay already.

When we came to introduce the OLPC Project to their school, they weren’t expecting us. Nevertheless, they were interested in the idea of working with us in the afternoons when they were in town. In June, there are like 4 holidays which take place precisely during our implementation period. Since they leave town right after school on Maríays, we proposed working with them Maríays in the afternoon and one Saturday to take advantage of the little time the team was going to be in Arahuay. At first, they were enthusiastic about the schedule. However, every day that they work with the laptops, they become more acquainted with them and enjoy the teacher sessions increasingly.

The first time we came, we came for just one day. It was a Monday. We introduced the teachers to the project, and we had our first session with them. Since then, they kept their laptops. Due to procedural Ministry of Education reasons, we could not come back to town right after to start working with everybody everyday. However, we did come back the following Thursday to apply the evaluation tests and run the information and perspective surveys that had been prepared by the Huascarán Program Pedagogical Team, comprised of D and E, and by the Measurement of Quality Unit. That afternoon we worked with the teachers, and in the evening, we handed out the laptops to the parents and their children in a special meeting we held with them for the purpose.

[image] teachers

Children receiving their laptops

Thursday evening, we had set the meeting at 6 PM when parents start getting back from their chacras (where they farm). We started at 6.30, when more parents were around. The principal welcomed the OLPC in Peru team and spoke of how honored the town was to be the first one to receive the laptops and to participate in the development of the project i Peru. After him, the president of the parents association spoke, also welcoming us. Representing the Ministry of Education, D spoke, explaining the purpose and details of the project. I spoke about the OLPC Project and the importance of making it a community project.

[set of images] The principal speaking | Boy and his mother | Girl and her grandmother |All got a laptop

We handed out the laptops following the school lists. Each child came to the front with his or her representative to receive an XO laptop and to have a photo taken. Everybody was very excited, though to my surprise, none of the children opened their laptop.

The parents had cooked for the OLPC-Peru team a traditional pachamanca (goat meat cooked under ground), which we enjoyed a lot. Bringing back some of such delicious food to all the wonderful OLPC people in the world is impossible. But I can share the handmade posters they set up in the classroom where the ceremony took place... They were made for all of us:

[set of images] "Thank you for the computers" | "Thank you for supporting our children" | "Arahuay welcomes you" | "Welcome to I.E. Apóstol Santiago"

We left town too late and had to drive really slowly in the dangerous and super dark way back to the next town where we are staying. On the way, I asked why nobody had opened their laptop during the ceremony,...and I was told that out of respect to their parents. I was quite surprised, but looking forward to seeing the children’s reactions the following day at school.

The parents

Something the teachers told us afterwards, that also impressed us, was that every single parent came to the meeting, except for two of them, even when parents had to walk incredibly long distances to make it. Of the parents that didn’t show, three children are brothers who are fully registered in the school, and we also gave them their laptops. They will be able to use their laptops freely, as all the other children in Arahuay town, however, they will not be able to take their laptops back home on weekends until their parents come and approve that it's okay for them to take them home on weekends. Town authorities and OLPC-in-Peru are concerned that since they go so far, they may be hurt by someone trying to steal their laptops from them, since word has spread that they have laptops. Nevertheless, the Arahuay community has committed itself to making sure the children can freely and securely use their laptops around town.

A new student at school was transferred two weeks ago but had not been registered yet. Her father came, walking many hours, the day after the ceremony to finally register her daughter in the school, so she could also receive her laptop. For her own safety, she will not be able to take it with her on weekends.

The XOs' first day at Arahuay school

Early morning on Friday, all children were in their classrooms with their laptops charged. Most of them had already tried it at night, and it was a mix of discovering new things and sharing with others what they had already discovered. Teachers kept on teaching, letting children explore their new laptops and encouraging them to do the class work. The children did all the activities. Some would put away the laptop while writing on the notebooks. Some others would write quickly on the notebook and then start punching here and there on the laptop. Still others were totally into the laptop and so excited that they would be doing something totally unrelated to the class and calling the teacher to come and see what they had discovered.

Since most of them had tried it at night and also during the morning, the batteries started running down, and everybody wanted to plug and charge theirs. So some moved closer to the outlets and started working from there. A student in grade 3-4 stood up and unintentionally pulled the charger cable, and his laptop fall down. He was really worried that it was not going to work any more. In fact the keyboard stopped working and he was really concerned about it. I was called out from another classroom to come and see it. I went in and then out of the classroom with the child and his laptop, telling him that we were going to fix it. He kept on asking when he would have it back. We sat in the garden, and I helped him get it open, and we quickly fixed the keyboard. Some of the secondary students stopped by to look, and they found it interesting. When we were going to start it, he was still worried that it was not going to work anymore. Once it started, and when the keyboard was actually working nicely again, he was so happy.

On the first day, we also discovered that children started punching all the keys as soon as the laptop starts. And on that first day we had four laptops that were all confused for being typed on while the OS was booting. One worked after simply being re-started, though three of them had to have their NAND re-installed.

[set image] Between the XO & the notebook | Closer to the power & classmates | Trying it outside | Fixing the first keyboard

On the technical side

Electricity, charging, alternative powering solutions

Plugging in the laptops is an issue that has to be looked into soon. The school electricity set up is for handling only one light bulb per room, so having many laptops charging at the same time is not safe. Also, because all the children want to plug in their laptops at the same time. We are encouraging them to bring their laptops fully charged from home, though the battery takes too long to get fully charged and around 2 to 3 hours to get discharged.

Children found that the chargers get too hot for them, so they have been instructed to turn off the power strip before lacing or removing their charger.

We have two children with no power at home, so they will be given preference, charging their laptops early morning and before leaving school.

Today, July 1st, I was told that the Ministry of Education authorized moving the Innovation classroom into the principal's office, appropriately wired. The school and the parents probably will have to look into the wiring of the classrooms. I have requested some solar panels to make the battery charging safer for children.

[images: power]

Network configuration

When the OLPC servers and access points had not arrived in town, the configuration was as follows. There was a server providing connectivity to the 4 PCs that are in the Innovation classroom. An access point was placed on the outside balcony of the second floor, from where the school can be seen. The existing wireless access goes from that access point to part of the school, including the houses in the way, the patio of the school, and the 5 & 6 grade classroom.

A wired connection was run through town, in a straight line from the access point at the top, setting two switches in two different houses along the way. Another access point was placed in the principal's office, giving a strong wireless signal to the entire school.

[images] VSAT and digging | Access point on the balcony of the second floor | (photos by Eduardo:)First house with a switch | Through the light poles

The physical distribution of the network connectivity in Arahuay is unusual, and it was not considered by the OLPC server developers, however the technical team is putting in a lot of effort to provide the strongest signal possible to the school and nearby places. I made a little painting of the Arahuay setting.

[image - drawing] Arahuay town

The secondary students

The secondary students had made comments that the laptops should not be given to the primary students because "they don't know how to use laptops." However, they have been very keen and helpful running the cable through town, climbing high up on the light posts, house roofs, and all along the way, helping with the wiring. They also helped, together with the assistant teacher, to dig the hole to ground the VSAT antenna (which means a 1 meter deep and a 3 meter long dig) behind the Innovation classroom. Some of them are also interested in learning how to fix the XOs or learning how to work with them in case something goes wrong, to aid the primary students. Secondary students that have siblings in primary school borrowed their XOs to play with them and to access the Internet.

[image]

Chronicle 2

Carla Gomez Monroy, OLPC

OLPC in Peru: 21 June – 10 July 2007

[image] Teacher and student intent on the XO

Introduction

When I'm asked how we are measuring the benefits for children of the OLPC Educational Project and what kind of parameters and evaluation methods we are using, it is hard for me to figure out what people really expect to hear: That the moment children got their laptop they became smarter? That at the end of the period between moment x and moment y, the children in the laptop group performed better than those in the placebo and the no-treatment groups? Well, in Arahuay School the Peru Ministry of Education is running a short term pre-test and post-test pilot study, with an OLPC group only, to see what light can be obtained regarding what actually happens and how it happens in terms of knowledge, performance, and skill development variables. We are going to have the fully analyzed data and results by the end of November.

Meanwhile, many events, which may or may not have made children smarter, are worth highlighting. The OLPC project gave place to an environment, created by and for the child, which fostered learning in a more motivating and significant way than had previously been the case. I present a few observations regarding some people, events, and experiences of the month we spent in Arahuay implementing the project. They have to do with personal motivation, inter-personal relationships, and community impact, with a positive influence on the children, teachers, school, and the whole community, as well as on us, the implementing team.

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