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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Greetings List,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> The question
is what kind of evaluation of OLPC usage do we want, and what is the most useful
educational measure. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2
face=Arial> </FONT></DIV>
<OL>
<LI><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Document Activity Usage: Are students
accessing the XOs, how often, which activities: this could be
answered by pulling the XO data to the school server and tablulating it.
Not hard to do, however the value as far as education isn't clear.
Possibly why no one has done that.</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Document Conventional School Testing for XO
students: This means measuring differences in the students performance
on conventional testing comparing students using XOs to those
without. These outcomes are useful for those of us making a
case for funding, but educationally only somewhat useful. Each
country organization might do this if they had sufficient funding to cover the
effort.</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Long term impact: Almost all sites are too
young to measure long term impact, which in the end is the best
measurement.</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT size=2 face=Arial>This program is learning through doing, through
solving problems. The change in attitude toward learning is the most
important factor. This can be measured by site visits, and inteviewing
students and teachers. </FONT></LI></OL>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> What we need is a
big grant to do some field research and get the data. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Sandra Thaxter<BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.smallsolutionsbigideas.org"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>www.smallsolutionsbigideas.org</FONT></A><BR><A
href="mailto:sandra@smallsolutionsbigideas.org"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>sandra@smallsolutionsbigideas.org</FONT></A><BR><FONT size=2
face=Arial>(617) 320-1098</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>----- Original Message ----- </FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>From: "Samuel Klein" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:meta.sj@gmail.com"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>meta.sj@gmail.com</FONT></A><FONT size=2 face=Arial>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>To: "olpc-open" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:olpc-open@lists.laptop.org"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>olpc-open@lists.laptop.org</FONT></A><FONT size=2 face=Arial>>;
"Ahmed, Farhan" <</FONT><A href="mailto:farhan.ahmed@chicagobooth.edu"><FONT
size=2 face=Arial>farhan.ahmed@chicagobooth.edu</FONT></A><FONT size=2
face=Arial>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Cc: <</FONT><A href="mailto:bdmoss@ku.edu"><FONT
size=2 face=Arial>bdmoss@ku.edu</FONT></A><FONT size=2
face=Arial>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2012 11:14
PM</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Subject: [Olpc-open] Fwd: Defining
success</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><BR><FONT size=2></FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT size=2
face=Arial>Replying to the list.<BR><BR>On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Samuel
Klein <</FONT><A href="mailto:meta.sj@gmail.com"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>meta.sj@gmail.com</FONT></A><FONT size=2 face=Arial>>
wrote:<BR>> Hello to you both.<BR>><BR>> On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 8:15
PM, Ahmed, Farhan<BR>> <</FONT><A
href="mailto:farhan.ahmed@chicagobooth.edu"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>farhan.ahmed@chicagobooth.edu</FONT></A><FONT size=2 face=Arial>>
wrote:<BR>><BR>>> Is there a methodology through which OLPC tracks the
concrete educational<BR>>> development a child goes through after he or
she gets access to a laptop? It<BR>>> seems that tracking a child's
progress over the years will allow OLPC to<BR>>> make substantial
scientific claims about its impact.<BR>><BR>> Agreed. There is no method
shared among all deployments; each<BR>> country/school system has their own
set of soft and hard measure of<BR>> development.<BR>><BR>>> I do
understand the limited effectiveness of<BR>>> quantifying "educational
development", but I'm sure there's a<BR>>> well-researched methodology
widely used.<BR>><BR>> I don't know that it is theoretically limited in
effectiveness;<BR>> however I am not aware of any single widely-used
methodology across<BR>> different cultures or systems.<BR>><BR>>>
Furthermore, with regard to the Sugar interface, is it enabled to
collect<BR>>> metrics on usage patterns (anonymized, of course)?
Information on how often<BR>>> certain activities are enabled and used,
the times of day a laptop sees most<BR>>> usage, the average data usage
(mesh or the internet) and other such metrics<BR>>> would allow more
targeted development and prioritization. Once again, I<BR>>> could not
find any such data on the website.<BR>><BR>> At a low technical level
there is some capability to gather data - for<BR>> instance all machines
'call home' once after they are turned on.<BR>> However beyond this it has
never been used to my knowledge to do so --<BR>> implementations so far have
privileged user privacy over research<BR>> efficacy. I would also love to see
(anonymized) collection of data as<BR>> you describe.<BR>><BR>> Uruguay
is the largest deployment that has gathered comprehensive data<BR>> on what
activities are used for how long.<BR>><BR>> You can see theirs and other
reports here:<BR>> </FONT><A
href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_research"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_research</FONT></A><BR><FONT size=2
face=Arial>><BR>>> My motivation here is to understand how OLPC
prioritizes it work and backs<BR>>> its claims on the impact. I am doing
this as part of a research project I<BR>>> have undertaken at my
university (The University of Chicago Booth School of<BR>>> Business). I'd
be happy to answer any questions.<BR><BR>Thanks for sharing. Can you tell
us more about your research?<BR><BR>Brian Moss writes:<BR>>> I'm currently
writing my master's thesis on the OLPC program and why --<BR>>> despite
the most honorable of intentions -- it has largely failed to live up
to<BR>>> the hype.<BR><BR>Ditto - can you elaborate on your view of what
this means?<BR><BR>Cheers,
Sam.<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Olpc-open mailing
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