[OLPC India] Use of XOs for Vocational Training & Back Office Support

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 8:49 AM,  <Asksst at aol.com> wrote:
> Hi Marc & Ankur,
> Thanks for your response; sorry, I got tied up with some pressing issues of
> our foundation.
>
> We are thinking about dual boot XOs for RK College, because:
> 1. Besides using them in grades (6-12), we also want to use them for
> vocation training of those who pass high school and 12th grades.
> 2. We are also thinking about initiating Gram IT activity with help of
> Byrraju Foundation. For convenience, I'm attaching a document giving some
> articles about GramIT..
>
> We will like to know:
> 1. Can XOs be used for vocational training and production support of GramIT?

The age group you are talking about may have trouble with keyboard
size, but that can be easily remedied by a USB keyboard and mouse. Not
having seen the vocational side of the XO (i.e. Microsoft XP +
Microsoft Office on the XO) I don't know how acceptable its
performance will be. There was a video somewhere of XP running on the
XO, but it was XP only, not Microsoft Office. To add to that, there
will be an overhead of an anti-virus package (I hope!), so that will
add to the runtime load.

Maybe try to get hold of an old 500 ish MHz computer with 256 MB RAM,
and put MS XP + MS Office + Anti-Virus suite and see how it works...

> If this is true, we can start with 20-30 XOs at RK Girls College. We are
> thinking about ordering a few to understand their functionality and
> appropriateness for the above purposes. Any advice?
> 2. Since our school is Hindi medium in UP, we are curious if anyone has
>     a) Obtained or planning to obtain the latest syllabus or worked on UP
> curriculum. If not, can OLPC India help in this?

Work in this area will help a lot of other projects as well. NCERT
material is available at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/India_NCERT_eBooks

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

>     b) Details of Board requirements for Computer as a subject for High
> School & Inter classes
>     c) Qualification & experience requirements for Computer teachers for
> Computer as a subject etc.
>     d) Has OLPC thought about any coordinated plan for content development
> for North India in these areas?
> Will greatly appreciate your help & suggestions,
> -- Sheel
>
> In a message dated 9/18/2008 6:08:56 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> mvalentin at abeditions.com writes:
>
> Hi Sheel,
> For some reason, I didn't get your mail in the indian list. I just saw
> it by chance browsing the archives...
> We are using XO with the sugar interface and we are certainly not
> going to switch to Windows+Office, that is the biggest mistake to do.
> We want to educate the children not to create small "clerks". MSOffice
> should not be used in primary education, it is a complete non-sense.
> From class 6 to 12 maybe they can, however we have not yet reached
> that level, the bigger children we have are in class 5.
> We never tried to use the XO in Hindi  because our school is an
> English Medium school.
> To get teachers from south to come to north you have to offer double
> that salary + accommodation. But still, it is not easy to find them.
> However, the parents like to have teachers from south and it is good
> to bring the level up as teachers in north are usually not very
> committed to their work.
> -marc-
> http://www.oeuvredespains.org
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Dear Marc,
> We are also planning to get XO laptops (with Windows & Office) in our
> school, which is in Fatehpur district, about 80 km from Kanpur. We
> have  grades 6-12
> (Hindi medium) and can provide living quarters to the teachers.The
> principal
> and one computer teacher live on campus, however, their salaries are  low
> (Rs. 3000-3500), as the tuition we charge ranges between Rs. 50-100/mo
> only.
>
> What salary does your school pay to computer teachers? Can we get any
> teachers from south to teach at our school. We are also planning to give a
> "Certificate in Computers" to those who pass high school (grade 10)
> and  Intermediate
> (grade 12) and additional vocational computer courses, to  community youth.
> However, getting qualified teachers is a major hurdle.
>
> Will greatly appreciate any help & advise.
> Thanks ........... Sheel Thakur
> _sst38 at columbia.edu_ (mailto:sst38 at columbia.edu)
>
>
>
>
>
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