Evaluation of OLPC deployments
Pierre Varly , a specialist in evaluation of educational policies, describes the work in this post he is to perform for the Evaluation of OLPC deployments, especially for the evaluation of our deployment Nosy Komba.
A first draft of a note on the evaluation of OLPC deployments was conducted to OLPC France. This paper will be online soon. Two major sources were used as starting points:
Edward Bethel conducted a meta-analysis of the impact of One to One project he has kindly put online, see his presentation . Key results:
Frequency of deferred gains on 22 impact projects One to One - OLPC OUT
ACER (Australian Council for Education Research, not to be confused!) Conducted a literature review assessments OLPC .
The projects are mainly studied by Bethel North America. In developing countries, contexts deployments and therefore the results may be different. The first studies on OLPC show a reduction in absenteeism, lower repetition ( in Uruguay ), but the student learning outcomes have not been systematically measured.
Several studies are under evaluation including mobilizing technical impact assessment. The first results are expected late 2010. The issue of competence to be measured (such classics as reading, writing, arithmetic) or more complex is not resolved. The international consortium of experts have already positioned themselves on the issue of competency assessment called the twenty-first century: see here .
The amounts involved are $ 350 million!
The note and the proposed methodology is adapted to the problems of the South (dropout, languages of instruction vs. spoken language, repetition, absenteeism, basic skills ...). This work takes advantage of a measure of school performance by following as closely as the curriculum "official" in order to compare the results of schools in Nosy Komba (Madagascar) with or without XOs. Indeed, the volunteers and the OLPC team of teachers from the island have set a goal: "a 50% improvement in school performance of children." See here the deployment report.
You can support the provision of computers in Nosy Komba. Click here .
The idea would be to implement a simple protocol evaluation Nosy Komba from existing tools such as those of PASEC . This could help teachers and students to better adapt these technologies and also to assess more systematically the progress attributable to the XO's. To begin, a detailed analysis of students' journals give valuable information on the activities most frequently as a measure of the curricula implemented via the XO. How the XOs contribute to the acquisition of basic skills, while deviating from the curriculum based on traditional methods and knowledge very formal ?
