Malaysia BasecampTrek 2.015 in Pictures (Part 2)

We visited another deployment. There were report of non-working keyboards
.The children were taught to problem solve and repair the XOs themselves.

A video of a session is available here 

                                              Doing the repair himself and in group

First XO repaired by the proud 9 year old kid.

Malaysia BasecampTrek 2.015 in Pictures (Part 1)

 The basecampTrek2.015 visit. 10 XOs where left to the children few months prior.
 Children were asked to document their environment and home.

 

We visit again 2 weeks later for a review of progress on
what they done. Awesome photos with write-ups

 

We left  a digital resource wifi Rachel platform for them to manage.

Nov 16 2015

It has been 2 years since "olpc BaseCamp2013: The next journey" and months since I wrote here.

We can now look back over the 2 years to see what have change in the landscape of digital learning platform. The momentum is getting stronger with many new people and organisations doing what we hope to do in the past. This is a good sign indeed.

Today is Nov 16 and it is 10 years since the first XO laptop prototype was revealed. Happy 10 years birthday. Enjoy this shot clip of the past and don't blink towards the end.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hii3ih_XtTw

Over the next few days olpc BaseCampTrek2.015 will be active in Malaysia. Some of us will visit various mini deployments planted over the 2 years.  While personally I am not able to be there in person this time, I am fortunate however to have done Australia BaseCampTrek2.015. I visited One-Education (www.one-education.org) last week  and saw their great team in action.

I had a glimpse of their modular Infinity Laptop which will be launched soon in indiegogo kickstarter this month. You can win a infinity by going to this page:

http://www.one-education.org/pages/win-an-infinity

Keep the next journey alive and enjoy

T.K. Kang

We are not wasting our time (8 years for me) :-)

Not many people bother to read details of research data for some critical in-depth analysis. OLPC and the XO laptops were designed for children who have no computer access for joyful self-directed learning. I care about fluid intelligence which is important for young children who are growing up fast. The evidences I found so far support this impact when we sieve out other variables and as the right questions.

"There were positive impacts on the Raven's Progressive Matrices test among children who did not have a home computer before the intervention, but no significant effects for the sample as a whole" 
(http://www.nber.org/papers/w18818) 

Some positive effects are found, however, in general cognitive skills as measured by Raven’s Progressive Matrices, a verbal fluency test and a Coding test.
( http://www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/publication-details,3169.html?pub_id=IDB-WP-304)


This support my observations working with the poor children as a Psychologist who does intellectual evaluation on both rich and poor children. Learning/play tools make a difference in cognitive stimulation and learning.

On a personal note till today I have yet to see a better alternative to the XO laptops. There are many ways to cook something .... with different impact on our taste bugs. Perhaps something will be in preparation for basecamps olpc 2.015 if people are willing to dine, celebrate and work harder.

 XO4All as it will be 10 years this year in Nov :-)

Insights into XO usage

These are not assignments . Some work by children who shared XOs in a community. 

 English translation:

 " Thank you teacher because you gave us an opportunity to learn. We all wish you teacher ... thank you teacher"

and

EnglishTranslation: 

"Today I am very happy as I have a gathering of my friends. My friends name are ......and many more. I have forgotten their names. I wish them always healthy. bye2"

How true.....

"This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within -- within each child, within each scientist, scholar, or just plain citizen in the making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day." 

—Kofi Annan

XOs in Deployment

Packing (NOW in Malaysia and posting this) up for another trip to Malaysia. This time for a small urban micro-deployment in my hometown Malacca. It will serve children who are underprivileged  - a mix of refugees children and indigenous OA children. Again this is made possible through donations from my past Malaccan classmates. dLEAP2 will be launched on March 16-17. Getting help from the first dLEAP deployment - 4 children will be driven all the way down (4-5 hours) from their hostel in Tras, Pahang by their warden. They will bring extra XOs  to help in out for the 2 days training.

As much as I love the XO laptops there are two drawbacks. One is weight. In deployments be-careful not to break your back :-( if you have to transport them yourself. 

The other  issue is video playing. While tablets and smartphones are multimedia ready out of the box, the  XO  need some technical intervention for it to work right. Licensing issues with Flash and Codec make distribution of an integrated solution harder.

The "endless spin" is frustrating when children, teacher and end users expect pictures that moves.    

Issue two can change if we recognized that working video streaming capability in a laptop is MUST and not an addon. Let's unleash what the XO can do as it celebrate its 10 years in 2015.

XO4All

Now off to Malacca by car!

olpc 2.015: Year of the RAM

The XO has come a long way since its inception in November 2005 thanks to the hundreds of volunteers. This year 2015, will be 10 years since the 1st protoype was shown to the world. Let us celebrate how far we have come and not forget why we participated:

"This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within -- within each child, within each scientist, scholar, or just plain citizen in the making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day." 

—Kofi Annan

This is my first posting in 2015. Hope 2015 will bring another round of momentum to keep the spirit alive for olpc 2.015 and beyond. Perhaps a world-wide reunion and celebration!

Personally, it has been an incredible journey of learning for me when I got my G4G4 XOs and celebrated the Year of the OX in 2008. We had fun taking the XOs for rides in the Year of the Ox,Tiger, etc. The Year of the Dragon and Snake  followed.

olpc 2.015 will kickstart in the Year of the RAM.

 I still dream that XO4All will become a reality as I remained optimistic after all these years!