You just gave me 10 more acronyms to remember.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Sameer Verma <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sverma@sfsu.edu">sverma@sfsu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Hello!<br>
<br>
I was on sabbatical leave at the University of the West Indies (UWI)<br>
in Fall 2008. There, I helped start the Center of Excellence (CoE) at<br>
the Mona School of Business at UWI. Through the CoE<br>
(<a href="http://coe-msb.org" target="_blank">http://coe-msb.org</a>), we started the OLPC Jamaica project on September<br>
5, 2008. Its been three and a half years since then, of an uphill<br>
battle to get the project going to fulfill its goals of early<br>
childhood education, technology in remote and rural places and<br>
community outreach and impact, not to mention supporting IT<br>
infrastructure (server, wireless LAN, content filtering, traffic<br>
management) remotely over a VPN for 5 year olds :-)<br>
<br>
Last year, we implemented 115 OLPC XO 1.5 laptops in two schools, and<br>
the results have been amazing. I was on a data collection trip over<br>
the break, and what we are finding through the initial analyses is<br>
impressive. An increase in numeracy by 12% ! The most sought-after<br>
program is TuxMath. Other results will be interesting as well, we<br>
hope.<br>
<br>
This is a brief on the project and a video clip (well worth the 12<br>
minutes, I think) of what we have done so far. I think you Linuxers<br>
will enjoy the beginning :-)<br>
<br>
<a href="http://myspot.mona.uwi.edu/msb/news/olpc-jamaica-evolving-story" target="_blank">http://myspot.mona.uwi.edu/msb/news/olpc-jamaica-evolving-story</a><br>
<br>
These are *my* children :-)<br>
<br>
cheers,<br>
Sameer<br>
--<br>
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.<br>
Professor, Information Systems<br>
San Francisco State University<br>
<a href="http://verma.sfsu.edu/" target="_blank">http://verma.sfsu.edu/</a><br>
<a href="http://commons.sfsu.edu/" target="_blank">http://commons.sfsu.edu/</a><br>
<a href="http://olpcsf.org/" target="_blank">http://olpcsf.org/</a><br>
<a href="http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/" target="_blank">http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>