Образовательная модель

Фонд OLPC основан на трех основных допущениях:

1. Обучение и высококачественное образование для всех - необходимы для существования справедливого, равноправного, экономически и социально жизнеспособного общества. 2. Доступ к мобильным ноутбукам в достаточно широком масштабе окажет реальный эффект на процесс обучения и значительно улучшит уровень образования на национальном уровне. 3. До тех пор, пока компьютеры остаются излишне дорогими, эти потенциальные выгоды остаются привилегией немногих избранных.

Наконец у нас появляется способ возможность приблизиться к решению столь закоренелых и одновременно критически важных образовательных проблем - через предоставление детям и их учителям нашего наиболее мощного инструмента для порождения и развития знаний и совершения интеллектуальных открытий, если им будет уделено достаточно времени и оказана достаточная поддержка, для того чтобы они научились пользоваться этим инструментом, и при обеспечении широкополосного доступа как технологического средства для создания полноценных образовательных сообществ.

План

Мы не просто раздаем обычный деловой компьютер, но мы разработали ноутбук OLPC специально для детей, учитывая, например, и его способность функционировать в трудных условиях. Это означает, что ноутбук: - предоставляет возможность создания ячеистой сети широкополосного соединения и таким образом объединяет дом, школу и местное сообщество - и тем самым все это местное сообщество соединяется с миром; - надежен, крепок, выдерживает воздействие самых разных климатических условий и содержит только безопасные и нетоксичные материалы; - потребляет минимальное количество электроэнергии, тем самым снижая расходы и в школе и дома и обладает возможностями для подзарядки батарей в местах, удаленных от электрических сетей; - использует бесплатное программное обеспечение, которое не только снижает его стоимость, но, что более важно, предоставляет основу для высококачественного, недорого программного обеспечения и создания учебных материалов всеми и отовсюду. Это позволяет всем обучающимся точно понимать, как программное обеспечение было создано и тем самым способствовать развитию местных сообществ в том смысле, когда они сами в состоянии создавать и программное обеспечение и учебные материалы. Хотя, конечно, не все будут этим заниматься, но даже если это будет лишь 1%, то это породит от 10 000 программистов в год при распространении одного миллиона компьютеров. Более того, благодаря этому процессу культура разработки программного обеспечения и создания учебных материалов распространится в сообществах, ранее ее совершенно лишенных. Потенциальный эффект - огромен.

While the technical aspects create a platform for change, the real benefits will come from improved educational practice enabled by immersive access to connected laptops. Existing school practice will be enhanced through electronic access to materials, content, software, expertise, and support. Content can be updated constantly at lower cost, with the ability for teachers to select appropriate materials for local needs, particular students, and even day to day developments since these materials are available digitally on the network. The laptops also enable support for ongoing teacher professional development, peer-to-peer support, the development of communities of learners and teachers, and local content creation and sharing.

While we have witnessed significant educational gains from computer labs in schools, they have inherent limitations because of insufficient time and materials available to substantively change school theory, practice, culture, and organization. A school typically has one lab, with an average of 10 computers per lab, which a class of average size of 40 attends for one 50-minute period per week, amounting to an average of 12.5 minutes per student per computer per week. Even still educators can achieve significant results. An immersive laptop program removes such barriers to access. Rather than only having a small number of minutes per week per class, the students and teachers always have the laptops available to them and can modify their classroom practice to take advantage of their presence.

However, while computers facilitate and improve presentation of material to students, their real, unique power is as a malleable tool for construction, expression, collaboration, design, modeling, visualization, reflection, and debugging. These are the capabilities that enabled the exponential growth of knowledge in the world, and children, given opportunity, freedom, and guidance, are the most capable to take advantage of these capabilities for growth and development. How children learn

Educators have long recognized that children learn best when they are active, when they pursue their own interests, and when they participate in cultures of knowledge and engagement. However, until now it has been logistically impossible, except for the elites, to create such learning environments. With 1-to-1 access to connected laptops, children actively engage in knowledge construction and are not limited to passive reception of information. Each child can pursue learning in areas of strong personal interest and the classroom is not limited to a pre-determined, one-size-fits-all approach.

With connected laptops, learners are liberated to actively engage with others with similar interests in cultures of learning by doing without being limited by time or space. In this way children can learn by teaching, actively assisting other learners and thereby liberating the teacher to focus her experience and expertise where most needed. Computers also facilitate appropriation of knowledge in domains difficult to comprehend with other static, non-connected materials. Domains that involve dynamics, complexity, high levels of abstraction, micro or macro size, and more become appropriable by children through expressive uses of computers. Teachers benefit as well as not only do they get to use the laptops at home for their own learning, but the connected laptop becomes a conduit for customized professional development enabling the teachers to gain access to expertise and colleagues, to pose and respond to practical questions.

Moreover, with mobile, connected laptops the walls of the classroom open and the entire community becomes the classroom and virtually the whole world enters on demand. The children carry the classrooms and teachers of the world with them through the community and into their homes. Children can participate in the study of global issues while simultaneously using local context for understanding. They can fully participate as producers of knowledge and not just as consumers of materials produced by others.

Prior 1-to-1 laptop experiences in other countries have demonstrated tremendous gains in learning, more time spent on schoolwork, development of technological fluency, and a stronger sense of inclusion among the students. While the majority of prior experiences have been in wealthier countries, the experience in a rural community of Costa Rica in 2006 exemplifies the potential. Not only did the children go far beyond the usual curriculum, but also they learned to care for and repair their computers. The difference in how they treated and learned about their own laptops compared to the computers in the school lab was astonishing. The parents made covers to protect the laptops. The children learned to repair them so that they would not be deprived of their use. The parents entered into adult education in highly increased numbers. The teacher went from being dubious to a strong supporter after participating in the children’s gains. The greatest testimony was that families moved to this community so that their children too could get laptops and the education they enabled. (See Claudia Urrea's wiki page for the CREATE project for more details.)

Connected laptops also provide a means for new models of growth. Rather than needing to rely on a centralized, standardized reform, we can develop high-quality, localized models of improved practice, and utilize the network and rich media to create mechanisms for spread. A foundation is thus created for three distinct, but overlapping, phases: enabling powerful learning in and out of school; the positive change to specific school practices; and the transformation of schools from funnels of received information to engines of knowledge construction and appropriation.

Laptops are the pencils for the digital age. The sooner we can provide high quality learning environments for all, the better and more cohesive our societies will become.

—David Cavallo See also

   * Constructionism
   * Learning parables