Laptops and Learning: is the Jury Still Out?Paul Woods Regional English Manager

British Council Argentina

Laptops in PeruThe Peruvian government spent $225m to supply and

support 850,000 One Laptop per Child (OLPC) laptops in

schools throughout the country

country.

“GIVING a child a computer does not seem to turn him or her into a future Bill Gates—indeed it does not accomplish anything in particular.”

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Report

Findings: • Children who received computers did not show any improvement in maths or reading. • No evidence that access to a laptop increased motivation, or time devoted to homework or reading.• Test scores remained dismal. • Only 13% of seven-year-olds were at the required level in maths • Only 30% reached required level in reading. • Some positive effects were found in general cognitive skills as measured by Raven’s Progressive Matrices, a verbal fluency test and a Coding test.

What they said

“Part of the problem is that students learn faster than

many of their teachers”

Lily Miranda, who runs a computer lab at a state school in San Borja, a middle-class area of Lima

“If teachers are telling kids to turn on computers and copy what is being written on the blackboard, then

we have invested in expensive notebooks,”

Sandro Marcone - in charge of educational technologies at the Ministry of Education

What is OLPC?

• The mission is to develop a low-cost laptop - the "$100 Laptop" - a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children.

• The goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves.

• The first notebook model, the OLPC XO, started to be rolled out to the first third-world countries in November 2007.

• Worldwideover 2.4 million children and teachers now have XO laptops

1:1 learning - OLPC classroom devices

“OLPC's mission is to empower the world's poorest children through education” Nicholas Negroponte, MIT

“As the pace of change in the world increases dramatically, the urgency to prepare all children to be full citizens of the emerging world also increases dramatically”.

“What children lack is not capability, it is opportunity and resources. In the first years of OLPC we have seen two million previously marginalized children learn, achieve and begin to transform their communities.”

Where are the OLPC laptops?

• Uruguay• Paraguay• Peru• Madagascar• India

• Nepal

• Gaza & Ramallah

• Kenya

• Afghanistan

• Rwanda

Nepal

Down Every Path

These young boys on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal work together at home. They spend as much time with their XOs there as they do at school, and parents embrace the change.

Uruguay

Students in Artigas

Every primary school student in Uruguay has an XO, and 98% of all students have Internet connectivity at home, provided through Plan Ceibal.

Kenya

This class of students in Takaungu, has been working with their XOs for a year.

They have an XO study hall, with seats rearranged in groups, to explore what interests them.

Gaza and Ramallah

UNRWA and OLPC have been working together in Gaza and the West Bank to implement community laptop programs this year. In many schools in such as this one in Ramallah, students use their XOs in class and out. These girls are on their way home.

Afghanistan

Half of the OLPC schools in Afghanistan are for girls. They and their teachers have been particularly eager to explore new ways to work with laptops in the classroom.

Madagascar

OLPC schools have started with the youngest children, who learn to read and type with their XOs. They are also learning how to use and maintain their machines with their own laptop hospital.

Peru

Peru's education system is built in part on project-based learning. When they decided to introduce OLPC across the country and digitize their classrooms, the Education Ministry developed dozens of longer projects and activities that could be done with nothing but an XO.

Nicaragua

The first activity the students learned was the Record activity, to take videos and photos. A report on their work was published in the regional newspaper.

Rwanda

Rwanda's deployment began in 2007, supported by donations and by President Paul Kagame's vision for the country that included universal access to the Web. In 2008 the XO was introduced to the first 10,000 students. Since then, 100,000 children and teachers have joined the program, supported by the telecom giants who are rolling out connectivity across the country.

India

Elementary students in Khairat, India, have kept their attendance near 100% since their school received XOs. Their teachers run weekly workshops inviting other teachers to come work with their students and share new ideas.

OLPC Laptops in Use in the Americas

North America Canada 5,000 laptops Mexico 50,000 laptops United States of America 16,500 laptops

Caribbean and Latin America Argentina 60,000 laptops Colombia 20,000 laptops Haiti 13,000 laptops Peru 870,000 laptops Uruguay 380,000 given to 1-6 students and

teachers, 90,000 high-school students

What are some of the criticisms?Lack of teacher training• OLPC gives underprivileged children laptops and "walks away". • This "drive-by" implementation model was the official strategy of the project. • Negroponte has said in response to this criticism that "You actually can" give children a connected laptop and walk away• Experiences with self-guided learning in India (Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall Project).

Lack of ongoing support• A former intern in Peru said "laptops are getting opened and turned on, but then kids and teachers are getting frustrated by hardware and software bugs, don't understand what to do, and promptly box them up to put back in the corner."

Intel Classmate

• Intel teamed up with the British Council to introduce computer-based language learning in Egypt

• Egypt’s National Strategic Plan for Education Reform is designed to deliver high-quality education to all citizens.

• The Ministry of Education ran a computer-learning pilot program, in collaboration with the British Council and Intel, in a school in Cairo.

• The pilot was based on Intel®-powered classmate PCs pre-loaded with English language learning software from the British Council.

AssessmentThe pilot had four assessment

areas: training implications for

teachers impact of technology on

student motivation impact of technology on

attitudes towards technology

relevance of computer-based English language material from the British Council to the school’s English syllabus.

Impact

• Highly engaged learning: the children and teachers readily engaged with the classmate -pilot evaluations highlighted increased levels of enjoyment and engagement

• Greater learner satisfaction: teachers and students reported higher levels of motivation and commitment

• British Council has now teamed up with Intel to pre-load LearnEnglish materials onto Classmates – 150 million by 2015

You also need Materials - The LearnEnglish Website

Country/Territory Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Time on Site

% New Visits Bounce Rate

Colombia 292,160 7.64 09:32 53.02% 31.51%

Brazil 242,977 6.41 07:55 53.62% 34.20%

Argentina 206,374 7.54 09:01 52.12% 30.28%

Chile 146,285 7.78 09:26 56.40% 30.51%

Peru 56,916 6.91 08:43 62.03% 33.99%

Ecuador 19,397 6.15 08:08 62.27% 37.32%

Uruguay 18,880 7 08:38 49.54% 32.00%

Venezuela 17,253 6.19 08:22 59.10% 36.31%

Paraguay 2,800 5.96 08:31 53.07% 33.07%

Bolivia 2,301 5.72 08:54 63.23% 37.24%

French Guiana 614 6.55 08:29 45.28% 37.13%

Guyana 304 5.3 08:04 68.75% 44.41%

Suriname 240 4.78 06:10 69.58% 45.00%

  1,006,502 7.23 08:54 54.22% 32.14%

Users Non-Users Mixed

Kids Youth Teachers Kids KidsYouth YouthTeachers Teachers

Argentina

Mexico

Venezuela

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2 1

1

1

--

--

--

--

--

--

--

--

-- --

Total number of groups: 18

Research – Jan/Feb 2012

Datos Claros organised 18 focus groups with website users and non-users in Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela. All groups were coordinated by specialists in motivational techniques and recorded for subsequent analysis

Traditional

Textbooks provide a theoretical framework along

with an audio CD, in work guided by a teacher.

A learning space that often replaces face-to-face

encounters.Some students participate in

blogs for practice.

Activities that go beyond formal learning methods.

Songs, movies and TV series. .

Online

Study Methodology: What Young People Think

“I have a teaching book called Total English”

“…I try to practice by watching movies with subtitles in English.” “My teachers recommend

books.”

“At Wall Street, almost everything is online. You have a user name and password and you connect to class with earphones and a mike.” “I like watching movies, first

without the subtitles and then with.” “On the BRITISH COUNCIL

website, you can download all the podcasts and print out the lessons.”

“The music… I hear them in English and try to understand them and then I search for the lyrics.”

“We have a book with different lessons.”

“We have a blog and all the posts have to be in English.”

“I take classes… twice a week and the teacher gives the actual class.”

“I use the game section of LEARN ENGLISH when they ask use to do writing.

“Through repetition. I have been assigned tongue twisters in English.”

Fun

Tools for Young People

All use books, workbooks, CDs, PCs to study

“I connect to Internet… to the BBC, radio 2… and the truth is, that’s how to train your ear.

“I always go to the BRITISH LEARN ENGLISH website or the BBC.”

“If I’m busy, I choose music on Channel 3”

“I use Internet more than I did five years ago, when I used books.”

Websites, online materials, radio and e-books arereplacing traditional printed textbooks.

Doubts: Where Young People Get Answers

“Yo le pregunto a mi abuela.” (V M)All use Internet for content and grammar, and to look up wordsthey don’t know.

Some use Google translate but have doubts about its accuracy.

Teachers are often consulted as well.

“When I don’t understand something… I visit the websites of the BRITISH COUNCIL, CAMBRIDGE, BBC… A few good ones are WORDREFERENCE, YAHOO ANSWERS”

“I use the Google translator… It’s bad, really bad.”

”If I’m at home, I get out the dictionary but I prefer Internet. I don’t have a specific website, I use the Google translator”

“Le pregunto al profesor on line” (M V U)

“”We do a page in the group and we fill in all our questions and everyone provides the answers… It’s a facebook page where you ask a questions and people answer it and correct you”

The selection of tools is sufficient to respond to their questions.

They combine traditional instruction with technologies and spaces where they can meet to practice

Study Methodology – Young People

“Sometime they tell me what website to visit… I don’t

remember the name of the site, but all the words are

there… It’s like a dictionary.”

“Always Internet. I look for games and sometimes I look

up words I don’t know.”

“Websites with games. The British Council website has

games and songs… puzzles. I always use Internet as a

translator, the Google Chrome translator.”

“It has word searches.”

“Memory games, number and letter games. It was a lot of fun

because we would compete against one another.”

“I watch the series.”

“The books are fun. They have funny comics and a lot of

colours.”

“They put on music in English.”

“Movies.”

“We have to draw in my book.”

Traditional

Focussed on the use of books, workbooks and CDs

that go with the texts.

An additional space for learning among older children.

They use Internet to find answers and for fun.

Activities used to supplement traditional tools Songs, movies

and series. Memory exercises.

Fun Online

“Doing exercises in the books”

“Sometimes we work at the blackboard”

“Using photocopies, reading”

“We have a practice book for reading and another book for exercises”“The dictionary. To learn new words”

“There are exercises where you have to listen and answer”

How young people like to study

Expectations related to the studying process are covered and students find answers in both traditional and fun spaces.

The Internet is not generally considered an option for studying.

“I would like to study with games, songs and comics.”

“Playing, word searches, crosswords.”

“Games.” “Dancing.”

“I like listening… Because it’s easy to learn… It’s easier to imitate the pronunciation… Develop my ear.”

“With my English book. It has exercises and I like to do them.” “Writing, reading.”

“I like books”“Reading, because I like to read.”

Where students go to find out

“Sometime I use the computer… I search for a word… I almost always use Google because there’s this thing that translates from Spanish to English.”

“The computer because it’s smart even though it doesn’t have a brain.”

“I prefer the Google translator”

“When I have questions, I ask my private teacher.”

“Sometimes I do homework with my mum and sometimes with my dad.”

“My mum is an English teacher.”

“Yo le pregunto a mi abuela.” (V M)

“When I don’t know what a word means, I use the Google translator. I write the word and it tells me what it means in Spanish.”

Most common doubt: meaning of a word. Google Translate is the biggest helper, the place where most students find answers.

The family provides answers when studying at home.

Once they leave the classroom, students generally do not consult their class teachers when they have questions.

“I ask my private teacher.”

“My mum knows a lot of English.”

The Ideal Website for Learners

They are demanding in terms of content.

Backed by an institution

Audios

Free

Educational

Interactive

Segmented bylanguage level

Recreational

Spell check

Translated intoSpanish

Up-to-date

Colourful

Icons

In terms of design, their demands are simple: “use of icons” and “colourful”

“Words with their translation.”

“Using body parts.”

Content

Design

PaidWebsites

FreeWebsites

The Website Universe – A Global Overview

“I think we would use them more if we knew they were out there.”

“It has apps for the IPHONE.”

“It’s one of the ones I like the best.”

“It only works if you’re registered, you need a password.”

“I heard that it’s very good... It has exercises and gives you little tests to see how you’re doing.”

“It’s good, especially for kids.”

Learners use of the Internet to study English

“Whatever it takes (…) an hour, an hour and a half.”

“Almost always on Fridays because I have homework.”

Low Level of Brand Recall

“I get on YOU TUBE… and I write to my friends.”

“GOOGLE TRANSLATOR” “OPEN ENGLISH”

Education is the goal, even when playing

“I play games… All of them are in English. I don’t always understand them. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t… When I don’t, I play anyway… Before I knew English I would just play without understanding.”

“I look for questions that are in the books and then I don’t understand them… and I translate it.”

“Songs… because there are hard sentences in the book but they are like easier with the CDs.”

“The answers are at the end of the book.”

“I almost never find the answer I need because the questions are a little hard and then things come up that I wasn’t looking for and then I tell my mum.”

“You don’t always get the right answers."

Students don’t trust the contents of the website.Books are still the most frequent choice when it comes to studying..

Low Rate of Site Visits

The Ideal Website for Young Learners

Contents

DesignColourful

Sketches

Characters

“There should be some characters.”

“A lot of happy colours so it looks nice.”

“Things to colour.” “The name of the game should be in Spanish.”

“Educational, for example, math in English… or science in English.”

“With classic songs… the ones where no one sings.“

“Football.”

“Videos.”

“Music videos.“

“Interesting news..”

“Words that are translated for you.”

“Things to read.”

“The parts of the body.”

“Numbers.”

Vocabulary Games

MusicReading

Argentina – LearnEnglish Materials

Up to 3 million children using laptops in primary schools will have access to British Council LearnEnglish materialsThe LE materials have been mapped to the City of Buenos Aires curriculumIn-service training is needed for teachers in how to use the materialsBritish Council has recruited a trainer of trainers to work with local trainersPlans to work with 41 teacher training colleges in Province of Bs As and 26 trainers, to reach 2600 trainees initially

Educar Website - Argentina

www.chicos.gov.ar/justo-el-ingles-que-necesitas

http://learnenglish.educ.ar/

Criticisms• Many pupils take the laptops home and don’t use them at school • Some schools lack connectivity• Teachers have not been trained to use the laptops, or have received insufficient training• Inadequate arrangements for maintenance when things go wrong

Uruguay – Plan Ceibal• Every child in government schools has an OLPC laptop• Videoconferencing tele-presence technology is being used to teach Class 4 children in primary schools using remote teachers based in Colombia and Argentina • High quality teaching by specialist English teachers – for an hour per week, supported by classroom teachers with little or no knowledge of English• Proof of concept phase between June-November• Progressive expansion from March 2013 onwardsVideo 2 (3).MP4

2-way video & audio

“This is Uruguay's problem: 40% of children who attend public schools come from the poorest fifth rung of society. And out of this fifth, just 3% makes it to college. I want to tell you how through the CEIBAL plan (Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea), we decided to take a chance on making a change and to find a way out of this crisis we live in.”

Miguel Brechner, Plan Ceibal

Joint lesson planning

Students with Classroom

laptops

Local classroom:• TV screen showing

remote teacher• Lesson materials

shown via Webex

Joint lesson planning

Local class teacher

managing activity

Remote teacher using video-

phone

Uruguay – Remote Teaching using OLPC

E1237002.wmv

Uruguay - using OLPC laptops

E1237002.wmv

What the class teachers say• Yo me siento más tranquila y con ganas de empezar. (Elizabeth)• Yo tenía mucho miedo al idioma. Me parecía que me iba a resultar

muy difícil poder enseñarles a los niños si yo tenía dudas, pero ahora que ya trabajamos en eso yo me siento más segura y apoyada. Me gustó mucho el grupo de compañeros docentes que se eligió. (Gabriela)

• Venía con muchas dudas, no en dictar el curso, sino en saber si podría dictarlo con eficiencia. Me gustó la forma de enseñarnos y me parece que no es tan difícil. (Ana)

• Me voy más tranquila. Han sido muy fortalecedores estos días, muy claros los profesores y excelentes las propuestas. (Silvia)

• Muy contenta y entusiasmada. Creo que en estas primeras unidades me siento segura de trabajarlas porque manejo el idioma (hasta ahí) El curso ha sido muy claro y enriquecedor. (Natalia)

• Experiencia sumamente enriquecedora. Me llevo más seguridades que inquietudes. El equipo con el que trabajamos es excelente.(Andres)

So - is the jury still out?• Teachers need to be trained adequately, both in how to maximise

use of the software on the laptops and how to manage a class where the pupils have laptops, for example, encouraging students to create their own simple blogs

• Where laptops are to be used as part of a structured programme, materials need to be mapped to or created for the local syllabus

• With young learners not everything can be done on the laptops – they need to touch, feel, handle, move round the room, do things actively with other children

• Testing should test what the students have been taught!