Replying to the list. On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Samuel Klein <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello to you both. > > On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Ahmed, Farhan > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> 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. > > Agreed. There is no method shared among all deployments; each > country/school system has their own set of soft and hard measure of > development. > >> I do understand the limited effectiveness of >> quantifying "educational development", but I'm sure there's a >> well-researched methodology widely used. > > I don't know that it is theoretically limited in effectiveness; > however I am not aware of any single widely-used methodology across > different cultures or systems. > >> 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. > > At a low technical level there is some capability to gather data - for > instance all machines 'call home' once after they are turned on. > However beyond this it has never been used to my knowledge to do so -- > implementations so far have privileged user privacy over research > efficacy. I would also love to see (anonymized) collection of data as > you describe. > > Uruguay is the largest deployment that has gathered comprehensive data > on what activities are used for how long. > > You can see theirs and other reports here: > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_research > >> 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.
Thanks for sharing. Can you tell us more about your research? Brian Moss writes: >> 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. Ditto - can you elaborate on your view of what this means? Cheers, Sam. _______________________________________________ Olpc-open mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-open
