[Sugar-devel] NPR story on OLPC in Peru

Sun Oct 14 11:41:59 EDT 2012

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 5:35 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Christoph Derndorfer
> <christoph.derndorfer at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 2:42 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito <
> gerald.ardito at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> I wanted to share that we have faced the same criticisms in our school
> >> regarding the XOs. For the last four years, the teachers and students
> have
> >> complained that the devices do not connect well or reliably to our
> wireless
> >> network.
> >>
> >> Obviously, in our case, we have a wireless network and essentially
> >> continuous access to the internet. But, what I have had to fight
> against is
> >> that this is the most basic use of any computing device.
> >>
> >> The only way I have been able to stem this tide is to come up with
> >> projects and programs that made use of the XOs as standalone or mesh
> >> networked devices. For example, we have done a lot with Memorize and
> Etoys
> >> and Scratch (and beginning to work with TurtleBlocks). I have found that
> >> once the students and teachers are involved with these activities, the
> >> internet stuff goes away.
> >>
> >> But the bigger point that is missed in the story, and the broader
> >> conversation, is that the XOs and Sugar tap into non-traditional
> methods of
> >> teaching and learning. When this invisible line is crossed, real magic
> >> happens. It is the conversations which illuminate this invisible line
> that
> >> is tough.
> >
> >
> > Gerald,
> >
> > please don't forget that very few of the teachers in Peru have the
> > affordances available to you when you worked against that tide and helped
> > your pupils reach that invisible line. You have received countless years
> of
> > professional training, have ready access to the world's and the
> community's
> > accumulated knowledge about using XOs and Sugar (thanks to the Internet),
> > deal with student bodies who generally don't go hungry, have a pyhsic and
> > social infrastructure that's available at very few Peruvian schools, etc.
> >
> > In short, I believe in the importance of crossing that invisible line
> and I
> > have been lucky enough to see some glimpses of that happening in the past
> > few years. However a significant number of pupils and teachers in Peru
> are
> > miles and miles away from that line and will need other ways of support
> to
> > even get them close to it.
> >
> > I also think it's odd to see how the role of the Internet and the
> > connectivity it enables between people is apparently deemphasized in this
> > conversation. I remember a time where Connectivity was one of the 5
> > principles of OLPC, and for good reasons I dare say. Due to the
> limitations
> > of the Mesh network (and similarly so the newer ad-hoc networking
> options)
> > and the lack of infrastructure components such as access points most
> pupils
> > and teachers in Peru barely have access to local connectivity and all the
> > affordances (incl. Sugar's collaboration features) and value it provides.
>
> No one is discounting the dire state of connectivity in Peru and as
> CJL pointed out, there are people activitly trying to do something
> about it, not just talk about it.

Point taken.

> >
> > Also I believe that people here will simply have to get used to bad news
> > (whether fully justified or not) coming out of Peru. The project there
> still
> > has potential but unless a lot of additional resources and brain power
> are
> > invested into its overall value proposition and usefulness will always
> > remain questionable at best.
>
> I think you are projecting your own agenda on this discussion.

And you're not? ;-)

> Again,
> no one is burying their head in the sand re short-comings, but at
> least some of us believe that lack of Internet access does not mean
> lack of opportunity to learn.
>

I'm not saying that a lack of Internet access equals a lack of learning
opportunities (and I agree with your fundamental criticism of the NPR
article there). At the same time there's no doubt that what is already an
*extremely* challenging thing to do under the best of circumstances
(getting across that line) is made even harder without Internet
connectivity or offline substitutes such as school servers.

Cheers,
Christoph

> regards.
>
> -walter
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Christoph
> >
> >>
> >> Just my two cents.
> >> Gerald
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Christoph Derndorfer
> >> <christoph.derndorfer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 2:21 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Alexandro Colorado <jza at oooes.org>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>> > On 10/13/12, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> >> Alexandro,
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> I think you are grossly underestimating the connectivity problem in
> >>>> >> Peru.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Yes maybe, but I understand most educational systems dont have
> enough
> >>>> > budget to acquire connectivity so getting connectivity from other
> >>>> > sources like public buildings, libraries, will allow other resource
> to
> >>>> > come through without needing to be funded by the educational budget.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Now if we are talking about, the whole town not having ways on
> >>>> > connecting, then the next option would be looking for alternative
> >>>> > sources, in Mexico they used Satelite modems.
> >>>> >
> >>>> >
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/10324524/Capacitacion-Para-Maestros-Uso-Del-Aula-Enciclomedia#page=15
> >>>> >
> >>>> > But other mediums like DSL modems attached to a wifi router will be
> >>>> > able to get some basic Internet for HTML/images, IRC, etc. The big
> >>>> > question is about the level of connectivity for copper phone lines.
> >>>> >
> >>>>
> >>>> It seems that a fair number of offline requirements will be served by
> >>>> the XS school server, but I don't see that show up in any of the
> >>>> conversations. Does any location in Peru use any version of the XS?
> >>>> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I'm not aware of any schools having school servers, at least they
> didn't
> >>> have them when I was there in 2010. The next best thing were USB
> drives with
> >>> some collections of offline materials compiled by DIGETE but as far as
> I can
> >>> tell only a certain percentage of teachers ever received theirs.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Christoph
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> cheers,
> >>>> Sameer
> >>>>
> >>>> >
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> regards.
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> -walter
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> --
> >>>> >> Walter Bender
> >>>> >> Sugar Labs
> >>>> >> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> >>>> >> _______________________________________________
> >>>> >> Devel mailing list
> >>>> >> Devel at lists.laptop.org
> >>>> >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >
> >>>> >
> >>>> > --
> >>>> > Alexandro Colorado
> >>>> > PPMC Apache OpenOffice
> >>>> > http://es.openoffice.org
> >>>> > _______________________________________________
> >>>> > Devel mailing list
> >>>> > Devel at lists.laptop.org
> >>>> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> >>>> >
> >>>> >
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
> >>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> >>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Christoph Derndorfer
> >>>
> >>> volunteer, OLPC (Austria) [www.olpc.at]
> >>> editor, OLPC News [www.olpcnews.com]
> >>> contributor, TechnikBasteln [www.technikbasteln.net]
> >>>
> >>> e-mail: christoph at derndorfer.eu
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Sugar-devel mailing list
> >>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> >>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Christoph Derndorfer
> >
> > volunteer, OLPC (Austria) [www.olpc.at]
> > editor, OLPC News [www.olpcnews.com]
> > contributor, TechnikBasteln [www.technikbasteln.net]
> >
> > e-mail: christoph at derndorfer.eu
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>

-- 
Christoph Derndorfer

volunteer, OLPC (Austria) [www.olpc.at]
editor, OLPC News [www.olpcnews.com]
contributor, TechnikBasteln [www.technikbasteln.net]

e-mail: christoph at derndorfer.eu
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