For those of you who have not read the Inter-American Development
Bank's statement on its cooperation with the OLPC initiative, it is
worth reading. It is at:

http://www.iadb.org/news/articledetail.cfm?language=en&artid=3407

and contains "mixed news", some good and some bad. I quote:
The "mixed news" is:

"The agreement outlines the following strategic areas of common
interest for the IDB and OLPC, and which constitute the framework for
initiatives to be jointly developed: (a) regional and national policy
dialogue, aimed at exploring the implications of adopting a new
approach to the use of computers in education; (b) technical
assistance, to be provided to countries participating in the
exploration of such new approaches; (c) design and support for
evaluation activities, in order to insure rigorous follow up and
lessons learned from initiatives in this field;"

The good part is that the IDB is committed to the regional and
national dialogue. The mixed news is that this puts OLPC right in the
middle of that process, when the key players should have (a) come from
Latin America and the Caribbean, and (b) should not have had a vested
interest in one approach or solution.

The bad part is that OLPC has tilted the agenda in its direction. The
press release continues as follows:

"d) content development tailor-made to the 1 to 1 learning
environment; e) design of effective strategies to integrate
individual computer devices in the daily lives of children, both at
home and in school; and f) design of effective approaches to
supporting schools and teachers implementing 1 to 1 computing
programs."

It is one thing, whether I am right or wrong, for an outside voice
(mine) to raise these issues. It is extremely important that these
issues be discussed and debated within Latin America and the
Caribbean since that is where these experiments are going to be
tried, as considerable resource cost to the region, and now with the
OLPC backed by the IADB unless regional and national voices can make
sure that the IADB keeps the playing field level here.

One fear here is that only select voices will heard, all in support
the initiatives, but as much for their own personal gain as for the
welfare and benefit of poor children in the region.

Sam Lanfranco
York University
Nearby Tue Dec 19 05:08:06 2006