[OLPC-Jamaica] Bryan Berry's interview on FLOSSWeekly

[Gunjan Mansingh]

Maurice,

This is where MIS and computing science can help develop OLPC content. We
can get either masters students or undergrad students to come together and
develop content for different objectives.

gunjan 
-----Original Message-----
From: olpc-jamaica-bounces at lists.laptop.org
[mailto:olpc-jamaica-bounces at lists.laptop.org] On Behalf Of Sameer Verma
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 12:27 PM
To: Maurice McNaughton
Cc: One Laptop per Child Jamaica
Subject: Re: [OLPC-Jamaica] Bryan Berry's interview on FLOSSWeekly

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 5:23 AM, Maurice McNaughton
<mlmcnaughton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Very interesting.. I like the idea of the Open Learning Exchange to
> facilitate the development/sharing of content.. We would do well to
> replicate some of the Nepal efforts/approaches in our own efforts..
>

+1

> The interesting point made in the interview is that the easiest part of
the
> initiative is getting the Laptops funded, building content and separating
> the OLPC community effort from politics were much bigger challenges.

Indeed. In another conversation I had with a colleague yesterday, the
same question came up in the context of Bangladesh. Where will the
bulk of the work be, in a deployment? Well, after the laptops ship and
get delivered to children, what happens then? There needs to be a
critical mass of content that can help the teachers, children and
parents ease into a computer-based learning environment.

Interestingly, this is no different than what happened in my classes
when I switched from chalkboards and transparencies to Moodle. The
computer environment did enhance communications, but the experience
needed a lot of effort in getting content "digital ready".

Creating content locally also gives local communities a sense of
ownership. After all, who would know better about appropriate content,
both its flavor and depth, than the local community?

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/

>
> Mlm
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Interesting interview. Bryan Berry is CTO at OLE Nepal.
>> http://www.olenepal.org/ Listen to the interview at
>> http://twit.tv/floss66
>>
>> 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/
>> _______________________________________________
>> OLPC-Jamaica mailing list
>> OLPC-Jamaica at lists.laptop.org
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-jamaica
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