OLPC research/Evaluations review 2009-2010

Evaluations of OLPC projects: A review of 2009-2010 reports

This review was presented at the Innovation in Evaluation workshop on April 4th and 5th, 2011 at OLPC Cambridge, MA.

We conducted a review of the evaluations to projects that implement the One Laptop per Child’s 1:1 educational computing model across the region. For each evaluation report we describe the indicators measured and tools used for data collection. The indicators are divided into two groups: social impacts and impacts related to learning. Some reports also measure aspects related to program implementation. We also include a summary of the key findings from each report. Finally we summarize the most common indicators measured throughout the eight reports as well as most common tools used for data collection. The second part of the document includes two overview reports, followed by a summary of the main conclusions obtained from the evaluations analyzed.

Educational Monitoring and Evaluation of Plan Ceibal

Report date: 2009 Country: Uruguay Author: Plan Ceibal Evaluation Department http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_research#Official_overviews.2C_December_2009

Plan Ceibal was launched in 2008 with the vision of bridging the digital divide as a factor of inequity in the country, through universal access to computers and Internet. In 2009, the distribution of 395,000 XO was completed to children in public primary schools in the country.

Indicators related to Social Impacts	Program Implementation	Indicators related to Learning Impacts	Tools
Locations for internet Access Frequency of use of XO by children	Operating status of XO Teachers’ opinion on training Evaluation of Plan Ceibal Problems at school level	Activities preferred by children Activities used for homework Time needed to learn to use the XO (children) Uses of XO Motivation to use the XO in class Teachers: Instructional planning	Self-administered surveys for children, teachers, principals and parents Computer based text production by children Individual and group interviews

Key Findings:

• The internet sites have changed from cyber cafes (65% in 2006 to 25% in 2008 in the country side), to school (32% in 2006 to 67% in 2008).
• The teachers believe that most children take less than two weeks to learn to handle the XO, and most learned by individual exploration.
• Over 50% of teachers report they include the XO in instructional planning at least once a week, and up to 21% almost daily.
• 92% of children reported using the XO for homework.
• Browse activity is the mostly preferred activity of children of all ages, a preference that increases with grade. The same pattern occurs with Etoys, and Record activities.
• Activities such as Write, Paint, and Memorize tend to be less preferred by children as they advance in grades.
• About 90% of teachers have used Browse and Write activities mostly for teaching purposes. Browse is mostly used in higher grades and Write activity in lower grades. Half of teachers at schools without connectivity opt to use the writing activity, and secondly -1 in 5 - the browser to search for content on the XO digital library. Finally, 1 in 10 used to chat and recording of photos and videos as alternatives for use in school.
• 77% of children said they like to work more with the XO in the classroom.
• Access to the XO not only closes the gap in access to computers and the Internet but also its use levels the students who don’t have a computer at home with the ones who do.