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

Sun Nov 2 01:51:29 EST 2008

Thanks Edward, Saurabh and Subbu for your kind comments and encouragement.

To answer Edward's question first:

The village has electricity supplied for 2 to 4 hours a day, mostly
at night (which the people there reportedly utlize for TV viewing). I tried
out the BSNL EVDO data card internet connection on my friend's lap top and
it failed miserably on that particular day. However I can access the net
through airtel on my pda mobile phone through which I could access google
images during the course of my discussion with one of the teachers who had a
particular medical problem (to illustrate/show him how the anatomical area
of his disease looked like - just type planter fascitis in google images and
see the anatomical diagrams that can be very useful in helping explain to
patients).

I have presently engaged more with the teachers than with the
students and plan to gradually engage more with them once I get their
collected parent's life stories (and their parents through them). I also
plan to make home visits if necessary in as much non intrusive a manner as
possible. Right now the principal has given this as a Diwali homework and I
hope to see some preliminary results soon on my weekly visits.

Edward it would be great if we could still have a computer or two for the
school. Perhaps the internet may work after all through the data card and we
could keep it charged during the time of day electricity appears. More
importantly it will encourage the teachers further.

I have collaborated on similar conceptual models for health care delivery
with Intel Innovation center KL, Malaysia where I was teaching for the last
two years and presently am collaborating for a grant proposal with NDRC,
Ireland in designing a similar conceptual model. Do let me know if any of
you are interested in reading about those models(already published).

In the meantime I felt I needed to try this out on my own in a small manner
even if it may remain paper based and not exactly an electronic health
record at the moment. It would be great to hear from your friends in the GIS
community if they want to get involved.

rakesh

On 11/1/08, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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 <email%3Arakesh7biswas 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
> >
> >
>
>
>
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