[Rwanda-learningteam] re-send

Juliano Bittencourt juliano.bittencourt at gmail.com
Wed Apr 28 10:59:02 EDT 2010


      Hi all,

      We apologize for writing this important message in such a hurry, but
Silvia and I are flying to Miami in a few hours and we would like to comment
about the retreat before leaving.

      Well, we think that all questions David raised are very important and
deserve our reflection. Although we think we also need to think what we want
to achieve with the retreat and how this is going to be made concrete. We
think that before inviting other people to participate, we should clarify
certain ideas among ourselves regarding the L&L center, OLPC/olpc mission,
olpc learning strategy, etc. We need to understand what are our principals
and the main ideas behind them.

      So we propose to divide the retreat in two parts. First we got
together just our group, discuss our questions, take decision and make our
definitions. After that, we took a few days to put those ideas into paper,
with very short documents just to make sure everybody is in the same page.
Them we send this to our partners and invite them into the discussion, on a
second phase of the retreat.

       Regarding our discussion, we think there are two different sides of
it. One is more abstract and theoretical about what we believe and what is
our working strategy. Up to know, our biggest reference to this is David's
paper "Models of Growth" and this is something we should discuss. We put
these question in such category:

•    What are the key activities we should foster in order to achieve these
goals?
•    How do we provide children with the best possible learning experiences
at scale?
•    How can we create the best exemplars for laptops and learning?
•    How do we best extend beyond where we can personally go in order to
provide powerful, meaningful experiences to children, their families, and
communities?
•    •    What should we do to help foster environments where people develop
true respect for the full human rights of others; learn to develop means to
avoid conflict; learn to understand the points of view of others, etc.?
•    How do we better help make true learning communities and places that
support them?
•    How can we get more and better learning materials into the hands of
children, teachers and families?
•    How do we better use social media?
•    How to better spread ideas about learning?
•    How should we use all media?
•    How do we better get the ideas for learning, the materials, and the
activities spread more broadly globally?

      We could add:


   - What are our main ideas about learning?
   - What is our implementation strategy to leverage transformation in
   learning/school that goes beyond simple use of laptop?
   - How to support other usages that are more "mundane" ? Should we do
   that?


      . After everybody is in the same page about what are our ideas and
principles, we can go ahead and discuss how to implement this into Rwanda's
context, what may require certain compromises. Those are questions for this
part:


   - What constitutes success for OLPC in Rwanda?
   - What goals should we have for this year?
   -   How can we better support the other countries in the region who are
   also beginning laptop initiatives?
   - How do we best help transform the learning environment so that Rwanda
   can achieve the goals of Vision 2020, poverty reduction, and truly take
   advantage of saturated access to laptops?
   -  How do we best build capacity in Rwanda and the region?
   - How can we best leverage the few resources we have in order to help
   create the greatest possible positive impact?
   - What do we need to do so that there can be real development and
   transformation beyond this year?
   -   How do we better get new ideas from others into our work?


        We think if everybody understand what is our role in Rwanda's
deployment, it is going to be easier for us and the government to work in
cooperation. We can even do things we aren't supposed to, but at least we
will know this is a concession, not an obligation.

        Look forward to meet you soon,


        Silvia and Juliano


On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 5:09 PM, David Cavallo <cavallo at laptop.org> wrote:

>  My first attempt at this was too big and needed moderator approval. I am
> pasting the text of the document into the email body.
>
> -email text:
> I want to have a retreat as soon as possible so that we can work
> effectively. The attached document explains the ideas and makes requests for
> contributions from the team. Let's use this list for discussion.
>
> Since Juliano and Silvia will arrive at the end of next week, I propose
> having the retreat on the week of May 3.
>
> Thanks and best wishes,
> dc
>
>
> document:
>
> OLPC Rwanda Retreat
>
> In order to best plan for the rest of the year, I think it would be useful
> for us to have a retreat in order to focus and go into sufficient depth on
> all the issues. I am thinking of a 3-day retreat where only the OLPC team
> participates the first day; the second day we add Nkubito and Richard (and
> any other people they advocate); and the third day we include potential NGO
> partners such as Partners in Health, Search for Common Ground; ESRI, and any
> other organization which we would hope to include.
>
> We need to emerge from the retreat will solid, concrete goals and plans for
> the year. While I do not want to spend money, I think being away together
> and able to spend informal time discussing issues is beneficial. If we can
> find somewhere reasonable to hold the retreat, we will do so. Otherwise, we
> will remain in Kigali but try to focus on the important task at hand.
>
> Questions for all of you to consider include (where possible answers
> include doing nothing so that we can best focus and not spread too thin and
> become ineffective):
>
> •    What constitutes success for OLPC in Rwanda?
> •    What goals should we have for this year?
> •    What are the key activities we should foster in order to achieve these
> goals?
> •    What do we need to do so that there can be real development and
> transformation beyond this year?
> •    How do we provide children with the best possible learning experiences
> at scale?
> •    How can we best leverage the few resources we have in order to help
> create the greatest possible positive impact?
> •    How do we best build capacity in Rwanda and the region?
> •    How can we create the best exemplars for laptops and learning?
> •    How do we best extend beyond where we can personally go in order to
> provide powerful, meaningful experiences to children, their families, and
> communities?
> •    How do we best help transform the learning environment so that Rwanda
> can achieve the goals of Vision 2020, poverty reduction, and truly take
> advantage of saturated access to laptops?
> •    What should we do to help foster environments where people develop
> true respect for the full human rights of others; learn to develop means to
> avoid conflict; learn to understand the points of view of others, etc.?
> •    How do we better help make true learning communities and places that
> support them?
> •    How can we get more and better learning materials into the hands of
> children, teachers and families?
> •    How do we better use social media?
> •    How to better spread ideas about learning?
> •    How should we use all media?
> •    How can we better support the other countries in the region who are
> also beginning laptop initiatives?
> •    How do we better get the ideas for learning, the materials, and the
> activities spread more broadly globally?
> •    How do we better get new ideas from others into our work?
>
> This already extensive list could continue. As I said, I want to make
> certain we both go deeply (and thus not too broadly) and end with shared
> understanding and concrete activities.
>
> Thus, my requests from all of you are to:
>
> •    Write some short pieces on ideas and activities within the scope of
> the retreat to lead to deeper discussion
> •    Add questions and topics that you believe essential that I did not
> include
> •    Suggest others we should invite
> •    Suggest an alternative framework for the retreat
>
> Let’s try to use the next few days to clarify the retreat, the topics, and
> begin the discussion electronically.
>
> Thanks as always to all of you for the effort and positive attitude.
> -David
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rwanda-learningteam mailing list
> Rwanda-learningteam at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/rwanda-learningteam
>
>
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