[OLPC-SF] Links Peer-reviews or independent assessments of Ethiopia tablet deployment?

Mike Lee curiouslee at gmail.com
Tue Apr 30 01:16:47 EDT 2013


Mark,

Too true about Maryanne's relationship. It's kind of moot now that
Nicholas is quickly winding down his already minimal involvement with
OLPC to take on the X-Prize full time. I imagine the Ethiopia tablet
deployment will have to go on life support as he suggested in that
audio recording.

I think the lack of documentation is just based on the fact that they
were working fast and loose. Like with a lot of OLPC information,
there's a fair amount "hidden in plain sight."

One of the former developers at OLPC posted a detailed entry on his
personal blog about some of the software installed, most
significantly, the use of the Funf logging framework for Android.
Scott also links to a some archived Livestreams where the tech team
went into extreme detail on how the Xoom tablets were provisioned and
managed. I saw those talks in person at the OLPC SF summit, but didn't
manage to take notes.

http://cananian.livejournal.com/67703.html

The Xoom tablet was passed around and I managed to get some photos of
the home screens where you can see some of the installed apps:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/sets/72157631821883809/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/sets/72157631841452526/

A search of the OLPC Wiki turns up some interesting meeting notes and
a mention that all the code is on a private repository on Github.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Special:Search?search=xoom&fulltext=y

It might be worth asking Nicholas (or whomever is in charge of
engineering) if the repo can be opened up. The wiki note says to ask
"David," which I assume is Nicholas' assistant.

Mike

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:44 AM, Mark Summer <mark.summer at inveneo.org> wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> Thanks a lot for forwarding the links and even pointing to the specific
> timestamps on the audio. I'll certainly be looking forward to seeing if
> Maryanne Wolf will release some report - but something that might be of
> concern is that she is a scientific advisor to OLPC and therefor would
> usually not be considered completely unbiased.
>
> What surprises me the most is that there is so little information out there
> to validate the results reported by Negroponte. Also I'm looking for exactly
> what software was/is installed on these tablets and what software/tools are
> being use to take the usage. Negroponte talks about how much they track
> "every movement" on the screen and every interaction but I can't seem to
> locate any more then these references - no clear publishing on the data....
> (around 55:00 in the audio). If you know of any any more interesting links
> I'd very much appreciate  that.
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> Mark
>
> ...............................................................
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>
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 7:39 PM, Mike Lee <curiouslee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Mark,
>>
>> Here's the one non-media outsider visit that I recall:
>>
>> https://evanszablowski.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/one-laptop-per-child/
>>
>> In his talk recently at the AAAS, Nicholas says that Maryanne Wolf of
>> Tufts visited the deployment about two months ago. So she would be a
>> person to watch for public statements or publications. Much of the
>> talk either rehashes OLPC history or addresses the new X-Prize. The
>> mention of her is at 29:20 in this audio recording:
>>
>> https://soundcloud.com/mike-lee-11/nicholas-negroponte-at-aaas
>>
>> Q&A begins at 37:30 with a question about Maryanne's visit. Related
>> discussion at 41:10, 44:10, 47:20 and maybe useful nuggets after that.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 2:20 PM, Mark Summer <mark.summer at inveneo.org>
>> wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > I'm trying to find out if there are any assessments / peer-reviews or
>> > any
>> > other even simple visit reports of the deployment of Motorola tablets in
>> > Ethiopia by MIT/OLPC and others from last year. It was extensively
>> > discussed
>> > in the media shortly after the press announcement in November. Does
>> > anyone
>> > on the list have any pointers?
>> >
>> > I'm trying to identify outsider reports of how successful this
>> > deployment
>> > was, if the devices are still in use and what may be observed after an
>> > additional 6 month of use.... Any resource of be of great interest.
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > Mark
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > OLPC-SF mailing list
>> > OLPC-SF at lists.laptop.org
>> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sf
>> >
>
>


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