OLPC Korea
| 2007 status: orange | ||||
| orange | ||||
This text is in English. 영어로 작성된 페이지입니다. 한국어로 보실 수도 있습니다. 한국어로 보기
Welcome to OLPC Korea. We are a few Koreans participating in applying a derivative OLPC Project to Korea (first South, then North also).
Introduction
Of course, the aim of OLPC Korea is to persuade the Korean government to participate in the OLPC project, but we take some different approaches. Because the IT infrastructure of South Korea is in a status somewhat different from most of under-developed nations, we (some Koreans) are now localizing the OLPC project to be proper to the current IT environments of South Korea.
See South Korea for details about the nation.
Because the economical, political, educational and IT environments of South Korea is rather different from those nations which OLPC will be applied soon, and because the Korean government has established a kind of national reformation plan, Vision 2030, and the plan encompasses educational informatization, we need to adjust the OLPC project to harmonize with the Vision2030 plan. Major adjustments are as below.
Local Adjustments
- OLPC should be supplied to not only elementary school children, but pre-primary, secondary and college level students also.
- Because the Korean government wants to establish a national-wide information superhighway connecting all organizations each other(connecting not only among schools but governments, corporations and other organizations all together), we need to supply OLPC-like machines to other social sections also (such as governmental organizations or corporations).
- Because the Korean government wants to apply FEA to all social sections in Korea, we need to establish a kind of localized FEA, that is Open Enterprise Architecture, harmonized with the OLPC project.
Yes, it's quite different from the original concept or goals of OLPC, but we already did a lot of adjustments necessary. We hope our trial be a good reference model to some advanced nations such as USA or Japan.
Some derivatives of OLPC
We are now making some prototypes based on OLPC. We hope OLPC to be used for childern (3~12 years old Koreans, because the primary educations for most of Korean children begin from 3~4 years old, due to some peculiar (or notorious) educational eager of Korean parents. So, we think OLPC is most appropriate for those ages, 3~12 years old.
As you know, from IT infra aspects, South Korea is one of the highly developed nations and almost all students connect to the Web almost every day, at schools, at homes and at PC bangs. Therefore, we make three derivatives of OLPC.
- Larger OLPC for students in secondary educations.
- OLPC Smartphone for college students.
- Korean Mesh Network for all students in Korea.
A larger OLPC: Type II OLPC
We design a larger OLPC proper to the hand size of students, 13~18 years old. It's quite easy work, just enlarging the display and keyboard panels of the original OLPC.
Summary of a lager OLPC
- All the same software/hardware architecture with OLPC, except;
- 11.1" display panel
- 274× 195.1 × 27mm
- 1.25 kg
- 800~1,200 Mhz CPU Clock
- Mouse as IP Phone
See Larger OLPC or Type II OLPC for details.
OLPC Smartphone
The second derivative of OLPC is a smartphone type, designed for college students and others. Because more than 80% of college students have cellular phones, we think OLPC of cellular phone type is proper to the daily lives of those college students. Of course, by substituting their mobile phones with OLPC-based smartphone, the spread of OLPC may be more widened.
Summary of an OLPC Smartphone
- All the same software/hardware architecture with OLPC, except;
- 3.5" display panel
- additional input/output device, a set of display and keyboard.
- 300~350g
- 700~800Mhz CPU Clock
See OLPC Smartphone.
Korean Mesh Network
We hope all educational facilities adopt OLPC or one of its derivatives. Then those OLPCs shall establish a natural communication network because of the population density of South Korea.
Furthermore, because the missions of OLPC are somewhat different from those of current laptops, the mesh network had better be managed by a kind of NGO, consisting of governmental divisions, NGOs, educational organizations and others.
Summary of Korean Mesh Network
It Provides;
- seamless Internet connection, faster than 512kbps
- VoIP
- monitoring the appropriateness of educational contents for each age
See Korean Mesh Network for details.
Progress
Pre-primary schools
Due to governmental interests on national-wide kindergarten system, the educational process in South Korea is expected to begin from 3 years old in a near future. So, we plan to distribute OLPC to those pre-primary educational facilities first of all. See the list of those facilities and contact information in Korean pre-primary schools.
Because of some economical and political issues, the Korean government hesitates to accept OLPC as it is. So, we made some adjustments to the original OLPC plan. That is, we start a pilot program of applying OLPC to kindergarten level. Visit a pilot kindergarten program for details.
Primary schools
Secondary Schools
Undergraduate and graduate schools
Governmental organization
Business Sections
To Do List of OLPC Korea
user:php5 in OLPC Korea team takes the role of translating the OLPC-related articles of wko.in onto this OLPC wiki. Those articles include;
- results and progress of contacting schools in South Korea
- results and progress of contacting governmental organizations
- results and progress of contacting OLPC
- results and progress of making hardware prototypes
- results and progress of establishing software architecture
- results and progress of composing Korean Mesh Network