[LINK] One Laptop per Child program not improving math or language test scores, according to study

[Fernando Cassia]

On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 21:53, Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
> . The program may not be as successful as that number sounds, however: a new study of 319 primary schools in Peru over a course of 15 months from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has found that there is no evidence that it has had an effect on math and language test scores.

Well, gee, it surely depends from country to country. Why mention only
Peru, why not take a look at Uruguay, which AFAIK is the country where
OLPC has had more reach?.

And why the emphasis on math only? We´re talking about societies (like
Peru) where many people didn´t READ ...

http://www.indexmundi.com/peru/literacy.html
(11%+ of women illiterate)

"Over 40% of Peruvians are very poor, making transportation to
computer classes and Internet access out of reach for many. The
majority of the 27 million residents don’t use computers at all,
Carvajal said. There are some government efforts to put computers in
schools, but only 10% of k-12 schools currently have them. With 9
million k-12 students and over 50,000 schools in Peru, the ration of
students per PC is 250 to 1."

http://www.hotchalk.com/mydesk/index.php/editorial/108-global-literacy/281-global-literacy-peru

So suddenly you throw computers at them and want they to become math
whiz kids overnight?.

Be grateful that the literacy (read and write) skill WILL improve
thanks to OLPC, over time. *then* worry about math skills.

Down here in Argentina the OLPC effort was sabotaged by inaction and
bureaucracy (something as stupid as the OLPC XO not having its charger
units certified for electrical safety compliance, and thus OLPC
shipments stopped at customs), and business interests (Intel and
Microsoft campaigned for the "Classmate" concept which, not
surprisingly, creates a new generation of Windows users).

There´s a similar programme in Argentina where the government gives
out free netbooks, but it´s for secondary education students, and
those laptops are Intel Classmates, that come with Windows preloaded.
(And also Linux in a dual-boot configuration = useless, most will
stick to booting "the standard" rather than "that other complex thing"
-Linux-).

Back to the Argentina example, my conclusion is that "It all comes down to $$$."

OLPC = Inexpensive and for elementary education (Sugar)
Intel Classmate PCs = Windows license, anti-virus license, anti-theft
software (for windows) pre-loaded... + lucrative contracts for the
different netbook manufacturers that, in an OLPC XO programme, would
be left out of any business.

The OLPC programme should habe courted local hardware assembly firms,
and come out with different "brands" of the OLPC hardware that local
manufacturers could assemble. That would distribute the "business
opportunity" for local firms and thus the opposition to OLPC would
"magically disappear"... if you follow my drift.

Plus, it´s no surprise that the politician´s ignorance of tech topics
is rampant. Both on the rigth and on the left suddenly "Wi-Fi" and
"Netbooks" appeared as a way to make any politician "hip" and "modern"
and "keeping up with the times". So a sort of virtual competition was
started between local (municipal) governement and federal government
to see who gives out the most netbooks, and then which netbook had
"better hardware specs".

I had to explain them that a "160 gigabytes HD" in an educative
netbook is not actually better for them but WORSE than a 16 GB SSD,
because simply put, the ones with a 160GB Hard drive would only
survive a handful of drops to the floor, whereas one with a SSD has
better battery life. Yet, they (federal government advocates)
continued saying that the local government supplied computers
(Classmates with SSDs) were "inferior" than the ones given out by the
Federal government (Classmate netbooks with hard drives and Windows).

It´s as sad as that.

Again, if you want to see a OLPC success story, look at Uruguay,
which, as the rest of the countries in the so-called Southern Cone
region, has a more developed literacy rate to begin with.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cone
http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2010/10/26/blogging-since-infancy-ceibal-plan-is-a-success-story/

FC
-- 
During times of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
Durante épocas de Engaño Universal, decir la verdad se convierte en un
Acto Revolucionario
- George Orwell