One Laptop Per Child (OPLC): New Pedagogy?
There are a lot of major news events in the world. In the Philippines, we have just finished our national elections which came our relatively peacefully compared to a few years back. In the world, Microsoft dangles a bunch of patents in from on Linux. Lots to talk about. But today, I would rather talk about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. Here is the Slashdot article.
The One Laptop Per Child project became a reality Thursday in Uruguay, as the 160 children of school number 24 in the humble town of Cardal received their XO computers. The learning tools came directly from the hands of president Tabaré Vazquez. It has become a matter of national pride that Uruguay is the first country to realize the project’s goal. The target is that by 2009, every school-age child in Uruguay will have one, and an initial 15 million dollars have already been allocated to the project.
Yes, it is finally out! The OLPC made its debut. I personally believe that grass-root efforts such as quality mass education is one of the main keys to a nation’s success. There are a lot of people who argue that money is better spent on basic needs such as food, water and shelter. I agree that these must be address. But, at the same time, measures must be taken to ensure that these people have the opportunity to stand-up on their own. Education is one of these opportunity makers.
In the Slashdot discussion, we see that there is a thread on the merits of the Classmate PC versus the OLPC XO. The Classmate PC is essentially a laptop for children project that uses commodity hardware and software (MS Windows and Linux). This is opposed to the OLPC XO that utilities specially designed hardware and software. Which method comes out better still has to be proven.
Giving laptops to children is essentially not the same as giving laptops to adults. Will they be able to use it productively given that most adults can’t even use computers productively? Will learning really be enhanced or will computers become a new distraction? Will there be enough education material? Will there be enough instructors capable of maximizing this technology? I believe there are many open research opportunity here. What would be interesting is somebody doing research on the Uruguay experience.
Proposal
If only I could get my hands on a few of these units… I believe the University will be willing to purchase a few (as long as the volume is a few and not in the million unit mark). I think the department can initiate a program that aims to compare teaching strategies between OLPC XO-enabled classes and non-OLPC XO-enabled classes.
We can probably identify two public elementary schools nearby with similar performance. A class can be picked from each school to be our sample populations for this experiment. One will be enabled. The other will not. This should be very interesting as we can quantify the effects on using an OLPC XO during instruction. The study can possibly also be implemented at various levels aiming to determine which level is optimal for laptop assignment. Another study can also focus on the “other” issues that will probably arise such as own damage, security and storage, power consumption, non-education use and many others.
After I got my hands on an OLPC XO a few months back, I have been wondering in the Philippines government would enter such a program. I am still wondering now. For more discussions on the status of the OLPC in the Philippines, please visit this wiki.
