Pilot Phase in Full Progress

In order for Ghana to provide quality education to its young citizens - and to propel itself from the ranks of the least-developed countries to a developing middle-income economy - reforms need to happen sooner rather than later, said Suzanne Fox Buchele from Ashesi University College, Accra, in her OLPC assessment report. From her point of view, the OLPC project obviously addresses both access to and quality of educational opportunities in Ghana. Ownership of a laptop would enable every student to have access to educational resources both at school and at home, via the laptop and interconnection network. And the aim is not just access for school children: as children teach their parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents how to use the machines, not only computer literacy, but - following constructionist learning theory up the age ladder - overall literacy and educational status would likely increase throughout the country. However, the assistant professor of mathematics and computer science also perceived the problem that a full-scale implementation of OLPC in Ghana would require an enormous amount of resources.

Kwesi Smith

Kwesi Smith is a member of the expert team charged with carrying out a pilot in two Ghanaian schools. The developer represents the Kofi Annan Centre on the OLPC Ghana implementation team. Other members come from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, Atheshesi University College and Ghana Information and Communications Technology Directorate (GICTeD). In the following, he speaks about his first impressions.

eLA: The projects have only been running for a few months. What is your general evaluation so far?

Kwesi Smith: Given that the project has only been running for a short period, it may be too early to express a general evaluation at this time. However, the kids and teachers have been enthusiastic about the project. Our experience shows that the laptop hardware is rugged, and thus suitable for the classroom environment. The laptops also have several educational tools and applications that the kids can work with. The pilot has been running temporarily without a school server, but once in place, the server will offer richer content, such as wikis, encyclopedia, ebooks, and eventually government prescribed e-textbooks. The server will also provide internet connectivity for the laptops but will be filtered to protect the kids. The pilots end in five months, after which we can give a better assessment of the impact on student learning using the laptops.

eLA: Could you briefly describe the schools and how they were selected?

Kwesi Smith: The two pilot schools, one urban and one rural, were selected by the Ministry of Education. Both schools are government run and are typical public schools in Ghana. Each pilot consists of one fourth-grade class of about forty children. The urban school is in the capital city of Accra and has basic infrastructure such as electricity, but no phone line or internet. The rural school is in a remote village in the Ashanti region, and the block the school in on has no electricity.

In Ghana there is a large number of rural and urban schools, so it was important that both types were tested during the pilot. The rural schools represent the more challenging implementation environment, and if this technology is to be adopted throughout Ghana, it must work well in the rural setting. The urban school was provided with electrical and network fittings and internet connectivity. The rural school will use solar panels as the main source of power for the laptops.

eLA: How are the laptops used in the classroom? Are there any pedagogical or instructional handouts showing how to work with the laptops effectively?

Kwesi Smith: Three teachers and the headmistress were given hands-on training before the laptops were distributed to the children. The implementation team developed a training document based on material from the internet and other OLPC pilots in countries such as Ethiopia. There are more teacher resources on the internet, and an ever-increasing number is currently being developed around the world. Hence we see the training manual as a work in progress.

This is a new technology being introduced to the children, so our approach has been to first introduce simpler programs like MS Paint, word processing and the built in camera. However, as the kids become familiar with the laptop, more advanced programs, like Etoys and Measure, will be introduced, although the more curious ones have already started exploring these applications.

eLA: Are you able to you say already if the XO can really help children “learn to learn” (Negroponte)?

Kwesi Smith: It is too early to tell if the XO laptops can help children “learn to learn”. What is already clear is that the introduction of these laptops has opened opportunities for learning that these kids would otherwise not have. Admittedly, not all children will take full advantage of this opportunity, but for the ones who will, the laptops can empower them to have real choices in their future.

eLA: Mr. Smith, many thanks for your time!

Further information
www.laptop.org/index.en_US.html

May 15, 2008

Newsportal: Technology Developments