[OLPC India] Beginning a rural school experiment inspired by OLPC

Sat Nov 1 14:22:20 EDT 2008

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 3:08 AM, Rakesh Biswas <rakesh7biswas at gmail.com> wrote:
> If we can create threads around specific issues faced by village schools,
> school committees and NGOs and how ICT solved them, then we could make some
> real progress towards building world-class learning environment for every
> child.
> Thanks Subbu for raising this.
>
> I am not sure if this is the issue you had in mind but I would just like to
> mention how I was inspired by the OLPC idea to try out a rural school
> experiment.
>
> I am a physician teacher presently involved in trying to create a system of
> "User driven health care" in rural India by utilizing rural school children
> to interview their parents and create their basic electronic health records
> ( to start with in the form of a story of their parent's lives) as a part of
> their co curricular activity.

Earth Treasury has proposed similar projects for children to gather
data on health, weather, environment, and other subjects over wide
areas that could be brought together for analysis and mapping. We have
friends in the GIS community (Geographic Information Systems). NASA
and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) who would
like to get involved.

http://www.globe.org.uk/ is doing this for weather around the world.

> At present although the rural school where I visit doesn't have a single
> computer I feel if we just made a beginning using paper and then follow up
> these parents/patients utilizing a weekly evaluation of the data the
> students gather from their parents (again on paper to begin with) we could
> eventually create a record base that would definitely create patient
> awareness and improve health care outcomes (particularly as at present we
> have very little foreground information on the patients we get to interview
> only for a few minutes in a busy outpatient department). It would off course
> be also useful for health education at a primary school level (where
> students learn from their parents experiences on health).
>
> I have been lucky in finding a rural school principal who has been giving
> full support to the idea and we soon hope to see how it develops.

How much information do you propose to gather? Would students taking
turns on one computer be able to handle it all? If so, I'm sure we can
get you one. Or more than one, if necessary.

Does the school have adequate electricity? Can it get an Internet connection?

> Hope to hear from others who may be interested to see if it can be developed
> in their own schools for which I would be glad to provide details on
> operational strategies.
>
> rakesh
>
> Rakesh Biswas MD
> Professor,
> Department of Medicine,
> People's college of medical sciences,
> Bhanpur, Bypass road,
> Bhopal-462010 (M.P.) India
> Office Tel: +91 - 755 - 4005210
> Office Fax: 91 - 755 - 4005112
> Residence:+91-755-2682502
> Mob:9755619861
> email:rakesh7biswas at gmail.com
>
>
> On 11/1/08, K. K. Subramaniam <subbukk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Saturday 01 Nov 2008 10:38:34 am Satish Jha wrote:
>> > How do banks finance education? It did not exist in the country just a
>> > few
>> > years ago.. Now the banks finance @$50,000 per year for students who can
>> > get admission overseas.. How did that happen??
>> Not a good example because it deals with students who have completed basic
>> education. Even assuming they did, this scheme will not scale to hundreds
>> of
>> millions of children.
>>
>> > Rs 15,000 can be a huge thing and can be a small thing..
>> It is way beyond affordability by rural communities. The current
>> per-capita
>> income of land-holding farmers in Karnataka is about INR 10,500 [1]. The
>> Education Department in Karnataka allocates INR 7,500 per child with INR
>> 450
>> going towards learning environment.
>>
>> [1] http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/01/stories/2008020154340600.htm
>>
>> > I spoke to the IT minister of another country and suggested they should
>> > go
>> > to IDA and raise funds at low interest rates with a 12 year moratorium.
>> > They are moving in that direction. Will the Indian education minister or
>> > IT
>> > minister think along those lines?
>> Primary education interventions are best done at state level due to the
>> large
>> variations in language, culture and education infrastructure.
>>
>> BTW, I would prefer if we can get back to discussing possible deployment
>> scenarios rather than broad economics. Because of the huge variations in
>> educational infrastructure, aggregation tends to gloss over show stoppers
>> at
>> community level.
>>
>> If we can create threads around specific issues faced by village schools,
>> school committees and NGOs and how ICT solved them, then we could make
>> some
>> real progress towards building world-class learning environment for every
>> child.
>>
>> Subbu
>> _______________________________________________
>> India mailing list
>> India at lists.laptop.org
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> India mailing list
> India at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india
>
>

-- 
Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams
http://www.obamapedia.org/page/polls
In landslide territory!
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children

Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai
Give One, Get One, from Nov. 17
http://www.amazon.com/xo
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_Giving/International