[Olpc-open] OLPC Afghanistan Briefing Note

[Mike Dawson]

Dear Edward,

Thank you very for the response.  The current curriculum is relatively
well designed to meet needs as they are - the problem as we outline in
the briefing note is there is insufficient capacity to deliver it as
one would want at the moment (in terms of time on task and in terms of
feedback, and the way that content is delivered in the class quite
often through rote learning).

There isn't that much in English on the Afghan curriculum to be
honest.  The digital interactive books will be made available through
the olpc.af website so that one can get some idea.  Google hash a
Persian -> English translator that would give a very rough translation
of the content from Dari.

The way that we are transforming the books is based mostly on
exelearning with additional game / interactive devices that I am
programming.  We take a variety of ways to interact and template them
so that they can be rapidly produced (e.g. matching activity, hangman,
word search, mini simulator).

The mini sim is the code that I am currently working on to try and
finish by next Monday.  It has some resemblence to Scratch however is
more specifically designed for creation of simulators defining
template objects, making it easy to define when an object should be
spawned into the system (e.g. when object one and object two are close
enough create object three).  And that's all in Javascript / HTML5.

The theme that I think would be consistent between developing
countries is the high student to teacher time ratio (e.g. having two
or three classes per day), this is then reducing the time for
learning.  Also from this is a reduced amount of feedback for the
students to enable them to verify their understanding of the learning.
 And finally greatly reduced access to further resources.

However IMO the first thing is to take care of the core curriculum.
If one has the feeling that we can't even take care of the basics (not
enough time in the classroom, not enough feedback / checks) it is not
always typical to have the drive to go beyond and look for further
resources.

In addition to the sites below I also noted OER Commons as being
pretty nice.  I am planning where appropriate to use those sites to
write additional exercise questions, games etc.

Regards,

-Mike


On 6 April 2010 02:26, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 01:13, Mike Dawson <mikeofmanchester at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Here in Afghanistan we have worked over the last couple months to put
>> together a thorough briefing note on the state of education here; the
>> barriers to effective education as they are understood through
>> conventional research and how OLPC can rapidly change the input
>> variables to effective education.
>
> I love your work. What sorts of research do you plan? You can't get
> useful answers if you don't ask the appropriate questions. For
> example, is the current curriculum designed on the basis of what the
> country needs right now, or are parts of it inherited from the various
> earlier systems under British, Russian, Taliban, and US rule?
>
>> I'm quite sure that a lot of the challenges mentioned in the Briefing
>> Note in Afghanistan are applicable to quite a few other countries.
>
> Even the US there are issues of poverty, community violence, ideology,
> and lack of funding.
>
>> Just to be clear here in Afghanistan we and I'm sure no one else is
>> arguing against the need to improve conventional educational systems
>> like school buildings, teacher training, etc.  But unfortunately
>> Afghanistan doesn't have the luxury of waiting as long as this might
>> take.
>>
>> http://www.paiwastoon.af/olpcbn/
>>
>> Any comments/ discussions more than welcome.
>
> What is available in English on the Afghan education system,
> particularly on curriculum?
>
> http://english.moe.gov.af/
>
> is rather sparse.
>
>> Please feel free to
>> reference / quote the document / use it to construct new arguments;
>> just we ask for attribution.  If anyone is interested in helping out
>> here in any way (advocacy, software, etc) please do email info at olpc.af
>> .
>
> How are you planning to transform The Ministry of Education standard
> curriculum into interactive books with support materials for teachers?
> I am working on a similar project with a school system in Indiana, and
> there are many other such projects.
>
> http://www.earthtreasury.org/wiki.cgi?ReplacingTextbooks
>
> Here is one in California.
>
> http://www.clrn.org/fdti/
> Free Digital Textbook Initiative
> Review Results
>
> 16 math and science texts are available from the California FDTI. Many
> others on many subjects are listed at
>
> http://www.librarianchick.com/
> free and open educational resources
>
>> Regards,
>>
>> -Mike
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
> http://www.earthtreasury.org/
>