User:Jumpbean

Jennifer DeBoer

I am interested in investigating and evaluating the capacity of the OLPCs as educational tools. I am currently working on developing a health education intervention (HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases/hygiene) to go on the laptops and then serve as the treatment in a randomized field trial in rural Mozambique.

contact: jumpbean@alum.mit.edu or feel free to leave a message on my page

CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Last edit:Jumpbean 22:13, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Background

My Work

I am currently a PhD student in the International Education program in the Department of Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt University. Prior to my studies here, I spent two years doing varied work related to education. One of these positions was with the Hole-in-the-Wall project (link). I completed my undergraduate degrees in Foreign Languages and Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T.

The nexus of my experience and interests is in education innovations for development. Obviously, the OLPC model fits perfectly with my interests. Being in education research, my hope is to rigorously assess an aspect of this model in order to better illuminate any causal effects from this particular innovation and develop the machine to further serve its target population.

Motivation

Given that the XO laptops will be distributed to a large number of children in the developing world for them to “explore, experiment, and express themselves,” these machines provide the possibility of an added educational component for these users. It is necessary, therefore, to demonstrate the effectiveness of this technology as an educational tool. This project will demonstrate the existence, size, and scope of this effectiveness in the pressing area of HIV/AIDS/infectious disease knowledge and attitudes.

The researchers at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education will be able to contribute in multiple dimensions to this project. First, they will begin to model the causal relationship between this new educational technology and student outcomes. Second, they will be able to profoundly inform the pedagogical construction of the specific software for the intervention to increase the likelihood of its effectiveness. The OLPC machines offer unique capacities that could be exploited for the greatest educational impact.

Research Question: Does the presence of software related to HIV/AIDS/infectious diseases on the XO laptop have an effect on a child user/owner’s knowledge of and attitude towards HIV/AIDS?

• Does added educational software maximizing the peculiar capabilities of the OLPC machines have an effect significantly different from any effects of the standard OLPC machine?

• Does the effect vary with the amount of training the child’s teacher has received on the machine or the software?

• In the future, research can progress to studying changes in behavior that can be attributed to this intervention.

Intervention

Literature Review

Since I will be grounding my work in the previously established literature, I would like to point out some of the pieces I have found useful in the construction of this research.

Capacities of computers in health education

While traditional educational tools cannot be disputed as being useful, there are capabilities offered by newer technologies that are nearly impossible when using textbooks or classroom instruction. Laptops like the OLPC can be adapted in real time to the specific profiles of their users. Further,

Shegog et al. (2007) [1]

Specific needs of this area

The area Mulkeen (2007) [2]

Region

The area in which the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health has established an extensive partner network is Zambezia.

<googlemap lat="-16.130262" lon="37.155762" zoom="7"> -16.866667, 37.158333, Zambezia, Mozambique </googlemap>

The current structure of the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health in Mozambique is set up in six districts of the Zambezia province. The Institute works with provincial and district health authorities and is also connected to the Ministry of Health. The Vanderbilt Institute works through its affiliate Friends in Global Health and has offices in Maputo and in Quelimane, Zambezia. While no educational intervention has been conducted yet, the team is well-established locally. They will be able to provide the in-country support necessary to sustain this research project.

Research Design

Target Group: Vanderbilt’s Institute for Global Health has set up a working infrastructure through affiliates in Mozambique. With health and education challenges, including limited access to health care and teacher shortages , the rural province where the infrastructure is located is a prime target for such a health education intervention. A larger intervention is planned after initial pilot testing using the Institute for Global Health’s infrastructure. The students selected for the experiment will be of primary school age (5-12) and will be age-appropriate to the subject matter. The number of students in the pilot study will be dictated by the number of donated machines (200 projected), and the number of students in the extended field trial will be determined by power analyses based on our research design.

Sampling Frame: Our sampling frame will consist of the schools in the Zambezia province of Mozambique, where the Vanderbilt Institute of Global Health has set up clinics in six districts. We will sample from elementary-school-aged students (number determined based on statistical power needs and number of laptops available) and randomly assign schools to one of the three intervention categories.

Intervention: The three-part intervention for the larger field trial will divide subjects into the following three groups (see diagram below):

1. standard XO software (control group)

The intent of this project is not to assert the causal effects of the OLPC itself. Other pilot studies and ongoing research projects have this goal in mind, and our purpose is different here. (Refer to some of the aforementioned literature on the possible utility of independent use of computers, which is aside from the evaluative goal of this project.) The control group will serve to separate out baseline effects of the computer from the effect of the health education intervention itself.

2. health education software

Please refer to the section on the program for specifics on the intervention software. This intervention group will receive laptops with all the standard issue software and an added health education package--game-like software that will deal with HIV/AIDS specifically and hygiene/infectious disease protection in general.

3. health education software and additional teacher training on the software

To determine whether the utility of the health education program is at all mediated by teacher awareness/ability of the software. Group number 2 will serve as a control group for this second intervention group. Group number three will receive the same laptops

Program

The added health education component is a game-like program that will be available on the laptops along with the standard hardware for the two treatment groups (numbers 2 and 3). Its content will focus on HIV/AIDS awareness, education, and prevention and will also cover the related and important issues of hygiene and infectious diseases.

The intervention program has three important components--IDENTITY, LEARNING, and CONNECTION. Each of these components offers an educational tool that is possible through the OLPC system and not through other established educational technology (e.g. static paper textbooks).

The first, IDENTITY,

Links

OLPC Health Group

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/health/

Peabody School of Education

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/

Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health

http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/medschool/globalhealth/

Reference

1. ^  Shegog, R., Markham, C., Peskin, M., Dancel, M., Coton, C., & Tortolero, S. (2007). "It's Your Game": An Innovative Multimedia Virtual World to Prevent HIV/STI and Pregnancy in Middle School Youth. MEDINFO 2007.

2. ^ Mulkeen, A. (2007). What do we know about the Deployment, Utilization and management of Teachers: The case of Rural Schools in Africa. Paris: UNESCO. (October 3rd.)