No subject

to be trained on any new educational tools. The initial training is =
especially important to get off to a good start. They found it important =
to include the XO and its training in the normal structure of the =
educational system. There are a lot of traditions on how to do things, =
role of teacher, supervisor etc. and those need to be respected in order =
to avoid conflicts.

The training is done by the IT department and teachers with =
specialization in ICTs for education.=20

The emphasis is on how to teach with the XO, not the technical aspects =
of how the XO works. The teachers don't want to be technicians and are =
not comfortable with technology. That said, they have to be comfortable =
using the tool (XO).

The best way to train in technology is to start with small groups. After =
that they created working teams to visit school during class time.=20

The training workshops were repeated several times for each teacher. =
After a few training sessions, the teachers felt comfortable with the XO =
and didn't need further technical support. Teaming an educator and a =
technician was a great way get started. However, its a difficult model =
to scale. The target is one technician for each 1,000 children. That's a =
rough guess so we need to follow up to see how well that works.

There is a vision of school based portals and regional and national =
sites for collaboration. Its not final where they will be hosted but =
some may be cached or served from the school while others are served =
centrally. They also have issues with managing teacher accounts and =
needing too many passwords. The portal design work is ongoing.

There was a lot of interest in blogging but so far all Villa Cardal blog =
messages were given to a single technician who then posted them.

See the Villa Cardal blogs at:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/06134894806578234196=20

The kids want to keep on blogging!

However UI issues are a barrier. Pablo and I wrote up an overview of the =
challenge and a set of requirements to address them at: =
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Requiremientos_Para_XO=20

Please comment and add to it as needed.

They want help from the community to build new software to address these =
needs. I want to create a team of supporters for this deployment.=20

If you want to help, send me an e-mail or sign up at: =
http://groups.google.com/group/uruguay-XO-coordination=20

We need developers, project managers, artists, UI designers, Spanish =
speakers and anyone else interested in helping out.

If we can be responsive to this first request we can develop a close =
relationship and we can learn a lot from each other about how to make =
the XO a success around the world!

Other technical and infrastructure comments:

- School server must be the gateway for all internet traffic as for =
security (firewall/NAT and filtering). The filtering is done by =
Dansguardian.

- There is no web caching done on the school server right now.

- Each school in the project must have internet access. Most schools =
have 1 Mb/s. Cardal has 2 Mb/s. BW is set depending on size of the =
school. So far, no problems reported with internet access or bandwidth. =
That said, not all children can be connected at the same time. That =
problem was solved by teachers coordinating so that classes take turns =
using the WAN.

- The mesh was not worked well but it is getting better with each build. =
They just started to use some mesh capabilities but in general it has =
not been a critical need and they don't currently use activities that =
require a mesh.

- They have updated the laptops a few times using the automatic update. =
The updating system is not so easy... They're still working on it. Now, =
some updates are automatic, others not.

- There has been a lot of demand to support Flash.

Here are some other links on the XO roll out in Uruguay:

Main project blog: http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/ Main public project =
page: http://ceibal.edu.uy/ Uruguay based volunteers group working on =
the next roll out: http://www.rapceibal.blogspot.com/=20

Thanks,

Greg S