Dear Caroline,
What you are doing is exactly what our project is about.
We believe that a practical approach should be the way rather than fancy ideas
about One laptop per child for the developing countries. It isn't practical
even in developed countries much less developing countries.
It is in this direction that we have created a simple tool to create small
sized tutorials and exercises to enable such multimeda contents to be saved in
diskettes or Pen drives. Yes even diskettes can accommodate multimedia
contents. So in the end the entire extra financial need of the students would
be digitally connected would be the cost of a pen drive.
It can contain the entire contents for the whole life of the students.... that
is our aim.
Computers, students would know how to get access to for those students without
computers.
The good thing about OLPC project is the development of low cost units and its
low power needs with longer hours of operation. To use OLPC for each child in
developing countries... it would never come to pass.
An interesting article about our concept of Practical tech not high tech
www.paperlesshomework.com/surf
Currently we have tremendous response to our free for schools initiative in
Malaysia. We would extend it to other developing countries including China,
India and Indonesia which practically form nearly half the world's population.
If we succeed here , our job is done.
See videos of our contents here www.paperlesshomework.ning.com/video
Want to really close the digital divide? Join us. It is the ONLY such project
in the world.
Regards
Alan Foo
www.paperlesshomework.com
www.paperlesshomework.com
An elearning solution for rural areas where online/CDs cannot reach.
Get the latest happenings through paperlesshomework tool bar
www.paperlesshomework.communitytoolbars.com
--- On Thu, 9/18/08, Caroline Meeks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Caroline Meeks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [DDN] PhD research on OLPC
To: "The Digital Divide Network discussion group"
<digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net>
Date: Thursday, September 18, 2008, 8:20 AM
Thank you all for this interesting discussion.
As someone embarking on a project similar to OLPC I'm interested in what
advice you have on effective and ethical marketing and corporate
relationships.
School Key is "One KeyFob per Child". Basically, we question that
the best
way for children to have ubiquitous access to computers is to have them
carry laptops with them. Even if they did cost $100 in a city like Boston
kids are not safe carrying home computers. Instead we propose to give each
student a 1GB USB Key (currently $5 at Target, probably closer to $1 or $2
in bulk) and arrange for them to be able to boot every computer at school,
the library, the ICT center and at home with it.
When you buy one computer per student it will always be a compromise.
Instead, afterschool programs can have big color screens for art, High use
compuer labs can use low power computers, Science departments can have a
cart of sturdy laptop with cameras and sensors, and low-cost referbished
computers, that doen't even need a hard drives, could be supplied for home.
Content can be automatically downloaded when connected to the internet at
school letting students do homework offline if they don't have internet at
home, then automatically save thier work back to the server when they
reconnect at School.
Currently this is a Grad school project, developed with open source software
by me and Amy Bisiewicz, a Boston Public Schools IT professional, who
attended Harvard Grad School of Education last year thanks to a scholarship
program for Boston Public School employees. As an Internship for credit at
HGSE, I am doing very intial pilot work this fall at two Boston schools.
Right now we have no grants, no marketing, no corporate partners. Its seems
clear to me that we need to change that, so I'm interested in what you
think
OLPC and others have done right and wrong in these arenas.
Thanks!
Caroline
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