Hello,
This is quite an interesting point. I write from Brazil, and I am also working on my dissertation, not exactly about OLPC but about how the use of ICT on education contributes for the change for new paradigms on education, the barriers for effective and scale innovation ( which relates to change on evaluation). Understanding that OLPCs mission is aligned with the change on education, I decided to write to share my point of view: - I see your question as a major global issue at the moment. We all want a better school, a student centered classroom, learning by doing, project based learning, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, skills but it so difficult change, and even more difficult to sustain and to scale the change, especially in locations were educators have limited education to teach. So, how technology can help us here? The problem is that we ( adults in charge of , or researching education at this moment) don´t know how to measure or to identify in a systemic way the success on the new education that we want, at least not with the resources available for education systems nowadays. There is research about it, but we are all babies on this process. For instance, take collaboration as a desired skill and an evidence of success on the new education paradigm, how do we evaluate collaboration? The educational systems are not ready for that. Thats why we are stuck on cases reported as anecdotes, because there is no school system valuing success on the development of collaboration on a systemic way (exception for some researches going on). An interesting research that can help us understand how challenging is this, and how this issue is part of a greater challenge, is the work from Yochai Benkler from Harvard, on his recent book The Penguin and The Leviathan - How cooperation triumphs over self-interest - he states that most human beans are naturally good cooperators, but our reward and punishment systems (including evaluation on education) don´t match with the development of cooperation. So far, cases of success are object of research, to evaluate them on a systemic way we still have many steps to go: first, the educational system must be willing to recognize and value the new achievements or evidences of child development ( or skills development), second, this educational system must develop a way to value the new achievements, and this is not going to happen through ordinary tests. In my point of view this will happen through a system that keeps versions of kids products and tracks kids actions. It is through the evaluation of kids progress through what they produce and how they interact with peers and teachers, that the technology will help us to evaluate, in a systemic way, the new evidences of success on the new education that we are all looking for. Marta De: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Em nome de Brian D. Moss Enviada em: quarta-feira, 25 de janeiro de 2012 00:07 Para: [email protected] Assunto: Re: [Olpc-open] Defining success I would like to echo Farhan's request for information on how OLPC defines success (aside from anecdotal stories). I'm currently writing my master's thesis on the OLPC program and why -- despite the most honorable of intentions -- it has largely failed to live up to the hype. Brian D. Moss, MLS Center for Global and International Studies University of Kansas <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] _____ From: "Ahmed, Farhan" <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 2:15 PM Subject: [Olpc-open] Defining success Hello, First of all, let me say that I love OLPC's mission of providing access to education for millions of underprivileged children across the globe. By empowering them to think critically and rationally, I believe it will usher an era of unprecedented progress for the participating regions. That being said, I wanted some thoughts on how OLPC defines and measures its impact. While I've watched videos of teachers and students expressing how the laptops have changes their lives, these stories are anecdotal at best. Is there a methodology through which OLPC tracks the concrete educational development a child goes through after he or she gets access to a laptop? It seems that tracking a child's progress over the years will allow OLPC to make substantial scientific claims about its impact. I haven't found any such data on the website. I do understand the limited effectiveness of quantifying "educational development", but I'm sure there's a well-researched methodology widely used. Furthermore, with regard to the Sugar interface, is it enabled to collect metrics on usage patterns (anonymized, of course)? Information on how often certain activities are enabled and used, the times of day a laptop sees most usage, the average data usage (mesh or the internet) and other such metrics would allow more targeted development and prioritization. Once again, I could not find any such data on the website. My motivation here is to understand how OLPC prioritizes it work and backs its claims on the impact. I am doing this as part of a research project I have undertaken at my university (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business). I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Farhan -- Farhan Ahmed [email protected] _______________________________________________ Olpc-open mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-open
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