[Technical] OLPC Australia education programme

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

Hello everyone,

You may be interested in a review I have written of the OLPC Australia
education programme:

http://www.dhanapalan.com/blog/2012/02/01/creating-an-education-programme/

It contains the video of a talk I gave at the linux.conf.au conference
in January, and a more detailed explanation of that talk.

Some of the key points:

  * We have a com­pre­hens­ive edu­ca­tion pro­gramme that highly
val­ues teacher empower­ment and com­munity engagement, with a focus
on building sustainability.
  * The invest­ment to provide a con­nec­ted learn­ing device to every
one of the 300 000 chil­dren in remote Aus­tralia is less than 0.1% of
the annual edu­ca­tion and con­nectiv­ity budgets.
  * For low socio-​​economic status schools, the cost is only $80 AUD per child.
  * Our pro­gramme is avail­able to any school in Aus­tralia, for $380
AUD per child.
  * Our programme is schools-centric, with a strong focus on the teacher.
  * A teacher must undergo training and earn a certification to
qualify to receive XOs for their class.
  * Training is conducted online, and hence scales very well.
  * We have an online community to provide peer-driven support,
assisted by OLPC Australia personnel.
  * Technology development and deployment is guided by the principle
that it must be manageable by non-technical personnel.
  * Our technology platform is open and not locked-down, providing
maximum opportunity for children to learn and empowering
schools/communities to own the deployment for themselves.
  * We are seeing real educational results from our efforts, and are
engaged in longitudinal and detailed evaluation.
  * Our supporters include corporations and members of parliament at
state and federal levels, but we can always use more help :)

Please have a read if you are interested, and contact OLPC Australia
if you would like to take part in our mission.

We will be releasing more information on this educational programme in
the coming months.


Sridhar


-- 
"Our mission is to enhance learning opportunities for the 300,000
primary school aged children, living in remote Australia, by providing
each one with a connected XO laptop as part of a sustainable training
and support program, by 2014."
 http://www.laptop.org.au/
 http://www.laptop.org.au/participate
 http://dev.laptop.org.au/participate