OLPC and Policy Recommendations

[Robert Kozma]

Hi all,

 

My latest contribution to OLPC News is attached below.  Please go to the
OLPC News website to add your own comments and policy suggestions:

 

http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/education/olpc_policy_recommendations.html

 

Regards,

 

Bob

 

 


 <http://www.olpcnews.com/> One Laptop Per Child News


Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of
One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine
XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte. 


OLPC and Policy Recommendations
<http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/education/olpc_policy_recommendations.htm
l> 


Posted on September 14, 2007 by Robert B. Kozma in Commentary
<http://www.olpcnews.com/commentary/> : Academia
<http://www.olpcnews.com/commentary/academia/> , Use Cases
<http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/> : Education
<http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/education/> , Implementation
<http://www.olpcnews.com/implementation/> : Plan
<http://www.olpcnews.com/implementation/plan/>  


I have been critical of OLPC in this column previously but I want to express
now that I support the ultimate goal of the program. And while I do not
believe that One Laptop Per Child is appropriate for all countries and I
have serious reservations about their implementation model, I would like to
provide some recommendations to policy makers, based on research and my own
consulting experience around the world, that I believe will help make OLPC a
success in those countries that choose to adopt it.

First, I believe along with the OLPC program that all students, as well as a
nation's society and economy more generally, can benefit from an educational
system that prepares students to be problem solvers, knowledge creators, and
self-learners. 

This is a profoundly different educational goal from that of most of the
world's education systems that aspire (if that is the appropriate word) to
produce students who are proficient at recalling established facts and
accurately applying standard procedures. 

While such a goal may have been sufficient (if that, too, is the appropriate
word) for simpler times and for a manufacture-based economy built on
standard procedures and unskilled or semi-skilled labor, the world today is
a much different place that calls for a fundamental transformation in
educational systems. 

The set of social, economic, and environmental challenges that confront us
today are significantly more complex than in previous decades and requires
an education system that can develop a nation's citizenry and workforce to
its full creative and productive capacity. 

While I share the goal of the OLPC, it is not at all clear to me that giving
each child a computer is the only or even best way of accomplishing this
goal. Indeed, there is significant evidence that merely distributing
computers in schools will have little effect on education. 

But if policy makers decide to buy into the OLPC, what can they do to
increase the return on the significant investment that their participation
requires? I have five recommendations: 

1.	Align education policy goals and programs with other social and
economic policy goals. The OLPC finesses the need to change education
policies, programs and structures. The program seeks to transform the
education system in a covert way by distributing XO hardware and software
that will, presumably, change how it is that students learn and, in turn,
change education without directly addressing the policies and structures of
the education system. 

First, there is no evidence that this approach to educational change is
effective. Second, there is considerable evidence that educational systems
are extremely resilient and if perturbed will merely absorb an intervention
into the current system without affecting change or will reject the
intervention altogether. On the other hand, there are a number of countries
(such as Finland, Chile, Singapore, Ireland, Korea) that have directly
addressed educational change as a central vehicle for dramatic social and
economic development. These countries have shown that computers can be used
to launch, foster, and support significant educational change if they are
used as part of a broader vision of social and economic improvement. 

Consequently, policymakers who are joining OLPC in order to provide students
with new skills that are needed to address the challenges of the 21st
century should not only introduce computers but look at the broad range of
educational policies, programs and structures that must also be changed if
the introduction of computers is going to contribute to social and economic
development.

2.	Revise the curriculum and school pedagogy. One the corollary changes
that will be needed to produce students with skills, attitudes, and
propensities needed to address 21st century challenges is a revision of the
curriculum. 

Beyond the memorization of established facts and the reproduction of
standard procedures, students will need to be able to apply school subject
knowledge to solve complex, real world problems. They will need to be able
to work in teams on extended projects that cut across subject matter lines.
They will need to be able use technology to search for, organize, evaluate
and create knowledge. And they will be able to set their own learning goals,
evaluate their progress and the quality of their products, and continuously
revise and refine what it is that they know. 

These are the skills that will propel students - along with a nation's
social and economic structures - into the 21st century. Contrary to
Professor Negroponte's assertion, these skills are extremely complex and -
unlike learning one's mother tongue - they do not come automatically through
interaction with other students and with powerful machines. These new skills
require new curricular goals, new classroom content and activities, and new
pedagogical structures. 

Policy makers should plan for these changes as part of the introduction of
XO machines, if this investment is to pay off.

3.	Redesign assessments. Whatever changes may be made in the formal
curriculum, they will be undone in the classroom if corresponding changes do
not occur in assessments. Current assessments have been refined over the
decades to measure the individual performance of students on the recall of
facts and the application of simple procedures. 

Educational policy makers who are serious about the introduction of new
skills into the curriculum must create assessments that provide students
with ongoing opportunities to apply their knowledge in complex, real world
settings, to work in teams, and to assess themselves and each other with
challenging standards for success. Without these changes, teachers and
students who faithfully use XO machines and materials as intended will most
certainly generate disappointing results, because traditional assessments
are not designed to measure the learning goals of OLPC. 

More likely, teachers will subvert the goals of OLPC and either squeeze the
use of the XO into the standard education model for which the traditional
assessments are designed or reject the use of the XO as irrelevant to their
educational goals.

4.	Provide extensive teacher professional development. The biggest
disagreement that I have with the OLPC implementation model is its total
disregard for the role that the teacher plays in student classroom success.
Evaluation studies (primarily in the U.S.) that show successful
implementation of laptop programs demonstrate the important role that
teachers play in structuring the students' use of the computer. The training
of teachers - and even parents - is an essential component to this success. 

This professional development includes more than training in equipment
operation. New pedagogical models are required, if the laptop programs are
going to result in the constuctivist and constructionist learning outcomes
envisioned by OLPC. Teachers need training and practice in these pedagogical
techniques. Policy makers implementing OLPC are advised to design an
extensive program and supportive structure for teacher professional
development. This training is often most effectively administered by other
teachers who have already implemented and are currently using the techniques
in their classes. 

Consequently, the most effective professional development programs involve
communities of teachers who are engaged in collaboration and mutual support.
These efforts often involve extensive partnerships between government
agencies, professional organizations, and the private sector.

5.	Provide technical support. The OLPC program also underestimates the
magnitude of effort needed for the large-scale installation and maintenance
of hardware, software, and networking equipment. Children and teachers can
not maintain the system. An extensive network of skilled technicians must be
developed to support schools, teachers, parents, and children.

All of this is to say that the job of educational transformation is much
harder and more complex than the OLPC programs suggests. But in many cases,
the effort is vital to a country's future, nonetheless. The investment in
OLPC should involve a thoughtful, multi-year plan which involves building
the policies, programs, structures and capacities that are needed to make
the investment pay off. 

I recommend starting with a number of lead schools that represent the broad
range of demographic conditions in the country. The initial implementations
- pilot projects, if you will - allow the country to build an experiential
base for subsequent scaling, create a core of lead principals and teachers
who can support this scaling, and provide evidence that can aid in
fine-tuning the program and justify its scaling. 

At the same time, initial implementations provide a phase-in period in which
national agencies can revise the curriculum and redesign assessments. While
this process will take far longer than that envisioned by OLPC, it is more
realistic and the changes are just as dramatic and more likely to occur -
that is, if the political will is there.

Tags: Constructionist
<http://www.technorati.com/tag/Constructionist%20Learning>  Learning | OLPC
<http://www.technorati.com/tag/OLPC%20Implementation>  Implementation | OLPC
<http://www.technorati.com/tag/OLPC%20Policy>  Policy | Robert
<http://www.technorati.com/tag/Robert%20Kozma>  Kozma | School
<http://www.technorati.com/tag/School%20Pedagogy>  Pedagogy | XO
<http://www.technorati.com/tag/XO%20Hardware>  Hardware | 

 

 

 

____________________

 

Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D.

Emeritus Director and Principal Scientist

Center for Technology in Learning

SRI International

2151 Filbert St.

San Francisco, CA 94123

USA

 

CTL Website:  <http://ctl.sri.com> http://ctl.sri.com

Personal Website: http://robertkozma.com

 

Phone +1 415 292 2471

Mobile +1 415 623 4340

Fax: +1 415 651 9954

 

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