OLPC (informal further discussion) November 22, 2006 ********************************** The argument that a deployment on the scale of millions is indefensible. There are people in the economic community who must know when economies of scale (the business argument behind that "need") start to act and how the price point varies depending on the scale of the project. This would tell us if it's possible (it must be!) to only deploy a smaller scale of devices for the purposes of studying the impact and actual needs on the ground. Another contention point is that there is no evidence (from the developed or developing worlds) that adding devices itself will make any positive difference in children's education. We have not seen a compelling case of the educational value. UW TVI course at Beihang University November 22, 2006 *********************************** The current deployment has focused on providing not only lecture materials, but also providing guidance to the Chinese tutors on how to approach the tutoring. Even well into the quarter, the UW instructor still does not know what the course will be treated at the Chinese university -- how it will be graded, how much credit the Chinese students will get, how the course fits into their local curriculum, etc. An earlier warning that triggered a mid-term visit by the UW instructor was the cancelation of one section in China (reported by the teaching assistants in China) on a particular day -- apparently noone showed up that day. (Later on, during his mid-term visit, the UW instructor saw only 5 students show up during that section.) The instructor did not initially expect that the tutors would write on the Tablet PC, simulating the lectures. The Chinese tutors did not have prior experience teaching, but were doing a very good job (by the instructor's assessment) in tutoring. Each had developed their own independent style of teaching. They have been investing a lot of effort into the course -- watching each lecture twice before showing it and planning it in detail. The instructor found (and was surprised) how different the cultural understanding is, and how many of his semi-jokes didn't transfer at all to the Chinese students. There were also a number of places when culturally-specific references were used in lecture, and those did not transfer either. There is no evidence that those remarks had any effect -- positive or negative -- so they were likely filtered out like other incomprehensible or extraneous details. Chinese tutors had to translate some technical terms into Chinese -- to make sure those key concepts get across to everyone. An interesting observation is that Chinese students are used to giving unison response to instructor questions -- several of them "chanting" responses simultaneously. While there are tradeoffs of holding the same class at two locations -- e.g., pointing to the screen helps the UW class, but the instructor gets off screen and it's a small negative for the remote class. At the same time, there are aspects that bring positives on both ends -- e.g., the interactive style of the lecture (done by the instructor locally, and simulated by tutors remotely). Also, there is tremendous benefit to tutors -- they get a lot of experience teaching, as well as in the specific domain of teaching. The big questions that are outstanding are: - How sustainable is it? - How can this be scaled? - How much support/push on both ends does it require? (As a side note, a study done by Microsoft shows that the highest aspiration Chinese parents have is for their children to study abroad.) **********