[OLPC-Philippines] questions

Mon May 11 13:17:42 EDT 2009

Just to continue this thread which is peeking my interest. I'd like to address the techiees and the XO's in the States.

My purpose as a teacher attempting to help there is to find a way to deliver both text and video based lessons to the schools there. I am especially intrigued by Adobe flash's .swf for the ability to make things interactive, high quality, scalable graphics with relatively small memory footprint. I can make a thousand of these on a DVD and send them free of copyright and have them used perpetually for the subjects.  I like these because I can take requests from the instructors there about what they would like and I could suggest sequence and lessons for teachers who need it.  

I can find hundreds of teachers who will help me to outline what is done here, how , why and in what sequence.  The pictures is worth more than a thousand words because of the language barriers. I certain the XO can show the pictures and that a gig is enough memory to hold quite a long presentation.  Most teachers will like to make PowerPoint shows and I don't know if we can show these but I can translate the shows into flash without too much effort if its' needed.  

If Mafe is going to Boston, let me be bold and suggest that the marketing of this program has been pretty bad so far.  The success has come from the installments but I have not seen a lot of good marketing on this one.  Techiees should know that they don't necessarily come out well on video when explaining things.  It would be really good to get an enthusiastic teacher to demonstrate what the XO can do and even better to show what it is doing.  That's why nearly any pilot would be great.   Even after reading and trying to see how to do this, its not evident to me what I could do other than to donate money.  

In my case, for example: I would like to see the program in Liloan, So leyte.  So what can I do?  I have spoken with the schools there, they are all for it.  How can I buy them the XO?  I know how to donate in general but I don't know how to make it happen there - even if I front all the money.  If I could buy them here - do I send them Balikbayan?  How much is that? Is there an install team in Manila that I could send there on Cebu pacific? Do I have to make another trip there to set up broadband?  How much will that cost?  I have a lot of unanswereds and I am trying to find the answers.  

As a guy that has written numerous grants for schools I can honestly say this would never get funding because of all the question marks.  We the people who want this to happen for the Filipinas must answer the questions.  

I am thinking that in August I will bring the high definition video Cameras there and produce a video to detail the need, the techniques used to fill that need, the costs and mechanism such as the ones questioned above.  I would take videos and pictures and use them to redesign the website so that benefactors looking to make real changes could have confidence that the installations will produce real results.  

Rick

________________________________

From: olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org on behalf of Marife Mago
Sent: Mon 5/11/2009 11:49 AM
To: OLPC Philippines/Pilipinas grassroots
Subject: Re: [OLPC-Philippines] questions

Hi,

This is so true..that part of the success of this program is how this can be  useful in a local setting and how this will be implemented to the users.  I agree on starting and keep this going and do a small deployment.  We can start piloting this to a small number of kids then eventually if it gain the attention of some then we can  dream for a bigger deployment.

The guys that I'm talking about are very much willing to work on exploring the XO activities, getting some of the educators create lesson plans that would make the activities easy for the kids and teachers to learn in the long run if we'll have major deployments in school.  In which addressing the 80% that Jerome is mentioning.

And from there we can we easily get feedback on how the kids find some of the activities in the XO and we can also solicit activity suggestion that could probably be a good project for our technical group here that can be implemented locally and suited for the needs and later on share globally.

I'll continue working in close contact with this group who are interested in coming up with lesson plan and curriculum for this program.  Also, if we can unleashed to both kids and teachers the many (OER) open educational resources available that would be great.

BTW: They're currently working  100 kids in their project site that they've been teaching them weekly. So, if there's anybody who would want to do the pilot on these group, please do let me know.

I'm inviting him also to join the mailing list, so he can introduce and talk more about what they're doing with these kids and where it is located.

Cheers,
Mafe

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Jerome Gotangco <jgotangco at gmail.com> wrote:

	Hi Rick,

	Thanks for the email. I'll split my replies in chunks. Let's see if we
	can start something from here.

	On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Hendricks, Rick

	<Rick.Hendricks at rcsdk12.org> wrote:
	> I have had roughly the same questions for some time now and I think we have spent too much time on internal organization and not enough on developing a working pilot.  I am both a teacher and engineer.  School dynamics are unpredictable each school has it own paradigm.   I think would help us to have a pilot created somewhere - anywhere! Doing something - anything! onto which we can expand and build.
	> This would allow organizations such as Janet's to see the type of laptop, how it is used and what its capabilities are.
	>
	> If we don't have a working unit to give them, I need to know why not.  I'll buy one for this purpose.  In fact I'd buy more if I knew what they would be used for.

	The first thing is that we're a loose group of enthusiasts at the
	start, and perhaps the most vocal (at least on this list) are the
	technically-inclined people, hence there are a lot of discussion on
	the technical merits rather than the more salient points that needs to
	be discussed. This is not the fault of the list per se, it just
	evolved as it is. Lately, we've been getting a good number of emails
	asking about OLPC as an organization, how it works, how is it
	happening locally, which we always say that its currently an interest
	group and I don't see anything wrong with that.

	But I think that's one reason why a local pilot isn't happening
	locally is that we haven't gone beyond that "interest group" mindset.
	Perhaps not everyone though, but the list in general. This is perhaps
	a valid reason why having local access to an XO-1 unit is like digging
	for gold in the desert.

	A few weeks ago me and Ryan met up at the mall to discuss stuff
	regarding this and one of the things he said to me was that he's just
	sad to see his XO-1 unit not doing anything. This is true, because the
	laptop is pretty much useless by itself and is only useful in a
	classroom. On my part, I only had access to an XO-1 production unit
	last year c/o Rowen and most of the stuff I did was either a) show it
	to someone how sturdy it is by dropping it intentionally and b)
	experimenting with alternative operating system setups that benefit
	primarily the hacker community.

	So I guess that shows where I am coming from with regards to the whole
	project in general. I know very well enough of the technology of the
	platform but I can guarantee I can say less than 20% of the
	educational aspect in terms of methodology and practice. And I'm more
	than happy to have people who can fill up that 80% of knowledge to
	help out.

	> As a teacher I am quite anxious to develop animations, video and benchmark lessons to supplement the 40 year old textbooks I saw in the classes in the provinces.  The schools in Manila have a bit more resources but most are pitiful.  We Throw Out 8 truck loads of book a year.  All of which are far more modern than the ones I saw there.  After trying to figure out for some time now how to ship those to Philippines, I realize the Holy Grail would be digital.  I can send this stuff for virtually nothing  and provide them with copyright free material in the venue of choice.  That is my interest in this project.

	> Lets' start by asking Janet where she would like to see the project work.  Lets get her and her boss a laptop - at my expense if necessary.  Lets get that school a class set and see what we can do to meet their needs.  Don't make the mistake of telling them what it can do, Ask them what they need it to do.  I know what I need it to do, but I won't speak for the school.  Lets ask the developers to make the software needed to display video, flash animations, textbooks or other materials.   Network them to internet so they can use it to see the rest of the world or allow teachers like me to send to them what they request.

	This is actually what I wanted to ask specifically to Janet but you
	beat me to it :-)

	> Even the provinces have microwave based broad band receivers.  In Manila I can get moderate speed out of a P999 Smart bro transmitter and I would not hesititate to ask SmartBro for a school based connect at discount or free.  I have a soft spot for Liloan in Southern Leyte because of my relatives there.  I have spoken with the principals there about what they have now and I would be willing to build a working pilot there.   I would evaluate the program based on teacher and students feedback.  Again my purpose was to replace 40year biology text that students were copying onto paper so that they didn't damage them.  They had no idea what the book said but the students were copying them because the teacher told them to.  As a teacher I can tell you that this means the teacher doesn't know what the book says either.  I found this at virtually all levels including junior college.  We need to change all that.

	Unfortunately, rote learning seems to be path when the system is
	degrading. I must admit, I am not an educator by profession (I am
	primarily a software developer) and my interest lies between cutting
	edge technology and pragmatic technology for teaching and where both
	could play (if possible) in a local setting.

	> Where the pilot is located is not so relevant as to get one going.  I know this is contrary to developer thought patterns because you like to see planning and structure - no single point of failure,etc.  When you work with children and schools, things will go wrong.  You can't plan for all of them and you shouldn't try.  The power is in now.  Lets trust a good reliable principal in a needy district to provide us with the feedback we need to continue and lets document what has been done and how so that we can answer more requests like the one from Janet.

	I agree on these points fully.

	> My question Immediately for Janet is : do you have a school in mind already?  My questions for  Jerome are: 1) how much for a class set of  20?  and 2) How long will it take to get Janet's organization one to evaluate?  (assume I will pay for it)

	Currently OLPC has no program for small deployments like these if we
	look at http://laptop.org/en/participate/ways-to-give.shtml but I'm
	sure we can find a way to get those laptops from other sources. This
	list has enough people upstream that can give info. But a small pilot
	like 20 would be ideal for a purely volunteer-driven effort.

	> I know that not everyone in the organization can get to the Philippines often.  But some are there and I get there every 3 months or so.  Lets get going on this.  In prior discussions, I think we are too concerned about legally structuring the group.  I think this is cart before horse.  Lets get the pilot and evaluate the program.   I have a lawyer there to handle any legal issues but its a donation to a school so I don't see much.

	Yeah I agree. I've told a lot off-list that I have very little
	interest in formalizing a group at the start if there is nothing to
	present at all. But I guess having a formal group has its benefits but
	I'll leave that to the legal people to check.

	Jerome

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