OLPC Thailand/Ban Samkha/trial-200705
In March 2007, twenty B2 XO machines were given to a school in Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand. A selected group of students were given the computer, which they take home. The students and teachers have been working together to test the basic functionalities of the machine and observe how the XO can be integrated into the learning activities currently taking place in the school.
Upon given the machines to be used personally, all students were extremely excited. The typical question that we received in the first hour is "Am I really going to have this machine and I can take it home?" The schoolkids explore the machines and Sugar interface, and tried out everything by themselves. Sugar is not difficult for them and self exploration is apparently what they are good at. Taking photographs with the machine is intuitive, and it fits in with their normal "constructionism" way of learning here.
One other natural attachment to the new tool is music. Tam Tam is the most popular program which our kids play with. One girl quickly started playing the village's local tune within an hour of exploration. Another group of kids began to plan with their teacher, Khru Srinuan, for taking the machines out to the forest near the school in order to use the XO as an alternative to digital camera for taking photographs for their plant biodiversity program.
When Kids took the machines home, their parents were participating with the new exciting tool for education. It is the first time for many parents to really put their hands on the machine, and start browsing the web wirelessly from home. The mesh wireless network is doing great.
We asked the students to start writing about their experience on the XO and share the writing in school. THey sent some of their writing to the teachers, together with their imaginations, ideas and more and more questions. Is the learning taking place at a high speed? What did we learn from the experiment?
Photos
The first encounter with XO at Ban Samkha Village School. Navigating through Sugar and explore the machine.
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This little flower (ดอกกระเจียว) is so small, Can you catch it with your camera?
Students using the XO to take pictures of local vegetables, mushrooms and herbs.
Parents are intrigued by the machine, especially with the video camera.
Students showing an XO to a local monk.
Video
- Music with the XO - Students were quick to pickup the music application (Tam Tam) One student got started with a local Thai song.
Issues to be discussed
The authors compiled these issues from the user's own words.
- Camera issues: Instead of being just a web cam, we have found that students naturally use the built-in camera for general picture-taking purposes. But the XO's camera as it is now makes snapping pictures a bit awkward. XO is not a portable digital video camera or still camera. So the steps required are cumbersome. How can the XO be best used for taking photographs of field observations? Can we use a game-control button as a shutter-release button instead of moving the trackpad to point to the "capture" button on screen.
- Music is one of the most popular program on the XO. Students can carry out self-exploration on music and play simple music. A Parent came along and start to sang with the XO music player.
- Parents (and monks) are interested for the XO machines more than their desktop PCs at school. They were not intimidated by this green/white friendly toys. It is a lot better than the PC in school, where they could also register for the classes.
- Useful applications are required. Can we find an opensource project on small spreadsheet software? One school "constructionism" for kids to help parents at home is on the "household accounting". A spreadshet software is urgently required to place the OLPC in the hands of the children of Ban Samkha.
- There are some technical problems to be resolved:
- The mesh network seem to have limited signal within about 100m between two laptops
- Machine freezes when operating outdoor on a hot day (a rough environmental estimates: 40 Celsius ambient with 40%-60% relative humidity)
- Some batteries went dead (B2 software relase ...). We are testing whether they can be revived with new firmware that has a bug fix on the battery issues.