While Bryan Berry is too humble to say this himself, he has created the best synopsis of how to build a successful OLPC deployment in 5 easy steps in this quick presentation:
My favorite is his comment, "It only takes 15 months - what a breeze!" which if you know Bryan is the height of sarcasm. Deployments, of anything, especially something as complicated and ill-defined as OLPC, takes way more than 15 months and is anything but easy.
Wayan, thanks for posting this.
I didn't post the presentation to slideshare originally. It appears that the headlines of each page are missing. Anyone know an easy way to upload the presentation w/ out losing the headline of each slide?
Very helpful. On June 30 we return one year later to Kenya, East Africa. The first time we went we delivered six G1G1 and trained teachers for two weeks. This time we have more than three weeks.
An excellent description of the "human factor" of technology in education. Our 1:1 deployment from 2003 has taught us that you must always place the "human factor" as the lead condition to consider in any successful strategy to integrate technology into the classroom. Idealism does not trump the pragmatics of the classroom and the people learning and teaching within these walls.
Ron, could you elaborate on how to recruits / develop the right "human factor"? especially from this experience you mention? BTW, the question is open to all, also Bryan...
n our public school district in Quebec, Canada, we are one of the very few educational districts in North America that has pioneered a free 1:1 laptop deployment for all students/teachers from Grades 3-11. As I previously mentioned, since 2003. We have experienced everything, I believe, related to the "highs" and "lows" of integrating technology into the classroom. Our School Board, the Eastern Townships School Board, uses the provincial curriculum, socio-constructivism in approach, as the basis for integration. In almost all factors of successful deployment, we have found that one can always effectively deal with the technical issues and challenges. The area that needs constant and consistent support is in the area of Professional Development, for both teachers and students. It is a major mistake to assume that children will simply integrate technology into their learning patterns. The natural curiosity of a child allows for exploration without fear but it does not convey specific and intrinsic learning. They still need to be taught how the laptop can make a difference.
Moving towards the educators, fear of loss of control over the learning environment represents a major issue to contend with. Also, as we discovered in our support of teachers in Uruguay, the role and "status" of a teacher is very important and there is a level of discomfort in having students outpace the teachers in learning how to use technology. Our students do show our teachers how to problem solve in using technology and for some teachers, this brings them into a zone of discomfort. Some teachers respond well, others not as well.
I can go on for pages on this matter but I hope this illustrates my reference to the "Human Factor."
One last point, in our School Board, we are very saddened by the fact that we have offered to the folks at the OLPC our experiences and understanding but to no avail. It seems that the desire to hear from "others" is not well appreciated. Nicholas Negroponte has been very gracious and sent me the contacts to OLPC deployment persons in Africa and South America, with no responses back. But then again, in education, the sharing of Best Practices is talked about often but rarely done.