The first global assembly of Open Learning Exchange (OLE) was held in Kathmandu, Nepal; from 2nd to 7th November.

As an (un)official photographer of  OLE Nepal I shot quite a few photographs during the assembly. Here are a few of them:

Preparations for the Assembly

Daya, Sunil and Basanta (OLE Nepal network team) setting up the internet connection

Upaya and Shannon going through the participant list.

Rabi Karmacharya, Richard Rowe and Karen Lynch answering journalists’ questions during press meet. 

Abhishek and Sunil maintaining the network

Dr Prativa Pandey, Chairperson of OLE Nepal Board of Directors; addressing the assembly.

 
Discussion session

Presentation by Rabi Karmacharya, Executive Director of OLE Nepal

Presentation by Dr Saurav Dev Bhatta, Education Director of OLE Nepal

Blogging from the Global OLE Assembly in Kathmandu, Nepal – Richard Rowe, founder of the Open Learning Exchange, puts a lot of emphasis on the need for social entrepreneurs in developing countries to catalyze a transformation in their schools. In each country where OLE is established, you will find a social entrepreneur leading the local OLE Center, bringing novel learning approaches into schools, and working with their government to scale up those innovations proven to improve children’s access to quality education.

Rabi Karmacharya, executive director of OLE Nepal, embodies this social entrepreneurship. As he opened the Global OLE Assembly here in Kathmandu this week, he denounced the fact that, while new technologies are readily used to improve finance and other business sectors, “it is unfortunate that we cannot use technology to improve the standard of learning in our schools.”

In Nepal, as elsewhere, if educational technology is used at all, it is usually targeted more at institutions of higher learning. Its use in primary schools is negligible, Rabi said.

He acknowledged that technology is only a means and not an end – then he cited some of his own “ends.” They are as sweeping as improving the quality of education and reducing the dramatic inequality between one child’s access to education and another’s. They are also as intensely practical as enabling teachers to professionally develop and collaborate with each other to improve children’s learning.

In other discussions at the OLE Assembly he and his OLE Nepal colleagues put the magnitude of the problem in stark terms. Even in the third and fourth grades, many Nepali school children “really don’t know how to read,” they said.

Over the past two years – a period Nepali Director General of Education Mahashram Sharma told the Assembly had been “remarkable” – OLE Nepal has distributed 2,000 laptops to teachers and students in 26 schools in six districts and trained 125 teachers.

But laptops make up only part of the picture. As Rabi put it: “We do not believe that handing out laptops is going to improve the quality of education. The challenge lies in successfully integrating technology into the classroom so teachers can do more and students can have a more meaningful education.”

OLE Nepal has developed content and learning activities that can be used whether a student is online, on a computer that is offline, or simply on paper. The Center works closely with Nepal’s Curriculum Development Center to align the content with government standards. In addition to such learning activities as games that teach pronunciation or addition, the Center has been making Nepali language literature available online – often for the very first time.

“Content is at the core of all the work we do,” as Rabi often says, and the current global trend toward free and open educational software and content is key to enabling OLE Nepal to do its work. The fact is that with 6.5 million primary school children in Nepal, buying 6.5 million software licenses “would be beyond what we could afford,” he said. By contrast, once OLE Nepal makes a learning activity or text available in its digital library, it is freely available to anyone who has the means to access it.

Even as he speaks of millions, though, Rabi says OLE Nepal has a very phased approach. “We cannot massively deploy from the start.” The focus so far has been on grades 2, 3, and 6. Curriculum development and content aggregation in OLE Nepal’s digital library have primarily targeted literature (to develop a reading culture in the children), art, Nepali, English, math, and teaching support materials, such as lesson plans. Interesting to note: Among the guidelines to teachers is often the advice that laptops should not dominate a lesson, but perhaps take only 20 minutes out of a 45-minute session.

Teacher training is another emphasis of OLE Nepal’s work, and the Center has been working with the Department of Education to train educators to teach in a new way. As described by Dr. Prativa Pandey, chair of OLE Nepal’s board of directors, the idea is to rely on teachers to drive education but empower students to engage in self learning as well. The kind of creativity this fosters in children is exactly what the nation of Nepal needs to build a future generation of entrepreneurs and leaders, she said.

Partnerships have been critical to OLE Nepal’s progress. In addition to its partners in the Nepal government, OLE Nepal has been strongly supported by the Danish Government and has also begun working with such partners as the World Food Programme. Internet access by the schools is made possible in part through a wireless network put up by Nepal Wireless entrepreneur Mahabir Pun.

Where does it all lead? Evaluation visits to schools began in September and will take place again in February-March, with a report expected in autumn 2010. With the documentation of the merits of OLE Nepal’s approach in hand, the Center and the government will decide whether and how this novel approach has improved students’ chances of getting a quality education – and whether the innovations that OLE Nepal has introduced into some schools and districts should be expanded to many more.

Early indications are coming in from teachers, who are asking to continue and expand their use of the program. What’s more, there are signs from the students themselves, Dr. Pandey said. On two visits to a local school – one when laptops were first in use and another six months later – she saw a marked increase in students’ confidence, she said. And this is the kind of confidence that leads to a higher level of learning, with children thinking for themselves and becoming more creative.

Even Nepalis living overseas are weighing in. Technicians tracking the online use of the OLE Nepal library and learning activities have found that many in the global diaspora are using the Nepali content to teach their children as well.

Visit OLE Nepal’s digital library, E-Library (E-Pustakalaya), at www.pustakalaya.org. Visit OLE International’s homepage at www.ole.org.

About the Global OLE Assembly
The Open Learning Exchange (OLE), an emerging global network dedicated to educating the world’s children, is holding its first meeting of educational innovators from across the developing world in Kathmandu on November 2 to 7, hosted by OLE Nepal.

Among those attending have been Mahashram Sharma (Director General of Department of Education); Lawa Dev Awasthi (Joint Secretary of Nepal’s Ministry of Education); Haribol Khanal (Executive Director of Nepal’s Curriculum Development Center); Prativa Pandey (Chairperson of the Board of Directors of OLE Nepal and Chair of the opening session); Richard Rowe (Founder and CEO of OLE International) and members of his team; Kedar Bhakta Mathema (Former Vice Chancellor of Tribhuvan University and the Chief of the advisory board of OLE Nepal); Rabi Karmacharya (Executive Director of OLE Nepal) and members of his team; and representatives from OLE Centers and partners in Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Rwanda, and other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Kathmandu, Nepal – The opening sessions of the first Open Learning Exchange Global Assembly took place on November 2 at the Everest Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal. Among those in attendance were Mahashram Sharma (Director General of Department of Education); Lawa Dev Awasthi (Joint Secretary of Nepal’s Ministry of Education); Haribol Khanal (Executive Director of Nepal’s Curriculum Development Center); Prativa Pandey (Chairperson of the Board of Directors of OLE Nepal and Chair of the opening session); Richard Rowe (Founder and CEO of OLE International) and members of his team; Kedar Bhakta Mathema (Former Vice Chancellor of Tribhuvan University and the Chief of the advisory board of OLE Nepal); Rabi Karmacharya (Executive Director of OLE Nepal) and members of his team; and the representatives from the various OLE Centers around the world participating in the conference.

The first session began with the ceremonial lighting of the panas by the chief guest, Education Director General Mahashram Sharma. OLE Nepal’s Executive Director Rabi Karmacharya then delivered his welcome remarks. He highlighted the significance of education for “sustainable development, a vibrant economy, an equitable and just society, lasting peace, communal harmony, and international understanding.” He also spoke of the unique opportunity that this global assembly provides for collaboration on education endeavors and for mutual learning between the participants in order to truly tackle the challenges we all face in fostering responsible, skilled, and educated citizens of the world. He expressed pride in Nepal being chosen as the venue for the first OLE global assembly, in recognition of the achievements that have been made by the OLE Center here. He emphasized the importance of viewing “technology as a means, but not an end in itself,” adding that the project in Nepal is not just a computer project but an attempt to use technology in the teaching-learning process to deliver quality education, making content creation and teacher training indispensable parts of the entire process. Finally he reasserted his belief that we can ensure each child quality basic education. “Ambitious? Yes. But not impossible,” he concluded.

Director General Mahashram Sharma welcomed the participants of the conference on behalf of the Government of Nepal’s Ministry of Education and the Department of Education. He spoke of the close working relationship that OLE Nepal and the Government of Nepal have established in implementing the project here in Nepal. He commended OLE Nepal’s efforts in creating child friendly learning materials and in teacher preparation and training to nurture “creative, knowledgeable, and skillful citizens.” He also highlighted the very significant “paradigm shift” that this project has triggered, in the role of teachers changing from “instructors” to “facilitators,” allowing for more self learning and creative growth among school children.

Open Learning Exchange International Founder Richard Rowe highlighted that there is much that can be learned from OLE Nepal, which he believes is emblematic of the model that is being implemented in other countries with OLE Centers. Within this model, three factors are instrumental in making a project like this successful, all of which OLE Nepal has been able to put together: leadership by a social entrepreneur, a committed and supportive board of directors, and a strong relationship with the local government, which is necessary to achieve educational transformation on a large scale. He stressed that OLE Nepal and its partners have shown that universal basic education can be achieved. Open Learning Exchange’s goal is to have 100 centers established worldwide following this model by the year 2015. Rowe also briefly spoke about what OLE does for its centers: helping new centers implement funding; building tools, such as the Billion Kids Library, that are freely available for use by all the centers; and enabling a global exchange of knowledge and experience among OLE Centers. He highlighted that the Assembly can act as a forum for the centers from around the world to discuss how they might use the Open Learning Exchange as a resource, what they can contributed to it, and how they would like to see it evolve.

On the first day, the Assembly focused on the need to create content and help teachers with their professional development as laptops and handheld devices are being increasingly used by teachers and students in developing countries.

“Content is at the core of all the work we do,” said OLE Nepal’s Rabi Karmacharya. He cited as examples OLE Nepal’s rollout of new Nepali-language learning tools for primary school mathematics and its close collaboration with the Ministry of Education on teacher training. Among the presentations from other countries, OLE Rwanda director Jacques Murinda described his center’s work to localize content from South Africa and digitally distribute it in Rwanda – whether for use on paper, on laptop, or on a handheld device. Yamandú Ploskonka, head of OLE Bolivia, spoke of his center’s work to translate educational materials into Aymara, a widely used indigenous language.

About OLE Nepal
OLE Nepal (www.olenepal.org) is non-governmental social benefit organisation that has been working in partnership with the Government of Nepal to develop high-quality interactive digital learning materials, maintain a web-based education focused library for students and teachers, build the Nepali government’s capacity to independently develop, enhance, and maintain ICT-based teaching-learning materials at the primary and secondary school levels, and implement a plan to provide universal access to primary school level ICT-based teaching-learning materials by 2015.

About OLE International
OLE International (www.ole.org) helps connect and equip social entrepreneurs in OLE Centers around the world, enabling them to demonstrate educational innovations, document their effectiveness, and work with governments to scale them to reach all children. It is a US social benefit organization, based in Boston, Massachusetts.

In early July I participated in a visit of two schools here in the Kathmandu Valley which use XOs in grades 2, 3 and 6. I took quite a lot of notes as we updated the software on the ~180 XOs, looked at the local power and network infrastructure, spoke to the headmasters and teachers and just generally tried to get a feel for how the project was running in those two schools. I compiled my notes into a two-part article which was recently posted over on olpcnews.com:

Notes from a Nepali deployment, Part I: Updating
Notes from a Nepali deployment, Part II: Challenges

Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment here or directly on the articles in case you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

One of the tasks that I’ll be working on during my brief stint here in Nepal is researching and (hopefully) implementing a way to organize all the different media objects produced by OLE Nepal as basis for their E-Paath learning activities. Currently we are talking about several thousand images, sounds, texts and videos but it’s not hard to imagine their repository containing hundred thousand or more artefacts in the not-too-distant future. Apart from the specific OLE Nepal use-case I also believe that even larger content repositories have to be a core consideration for both the larger OLPC and SugarLabs efforts.

In order to efficiently handle this quantity of material one needs a solid and scalable solution. Let’s just call it Educational Content Management (ECM), shall we?

The basic requirements for such a solution are as follows:

• the ability to handle tens if not hundreds of thousands of multimedia objects
• easy to search so existing objects can be quickly retrieved
• a version control mechanism, especially for text documents which tend to undergo a lot of revisions
• reasonably easy to integrate in the current workflow (I’ll take a closer look at this aspect in just a bit)
• the ability to define workflows with the simplest one of them being the review of an object
• support for metadata that goes beyond what normal file formats offer
• allow for batch processing (upload, download, tagging, etc.)
• preferably based on software people already know, e.g. a browser or file explorer
• open-source

After doing some research last week I came up with half a dozen solutions that looked reasonable well suited to meet these requirements:

• Alfresco
• Daisy
• Epiware
• Knowledge Tree
• LogicalDOC
• Main Pyrus
• xinco DMS

Upon further inspection I decided to give Alfresco a shot since it appeared to be the most versatile solution. Well, two days later and I’m still stuck toying around with Alfresco and not very successful  getting it do what I want. In particular I’ve been concentrating on two use cases that I’d like to address by utilizing an ECM solution:

One of the most important assets during the design of an E-Paath activity are four text documents:

1. Activity document: This is the blue-print for the activity and contains every piece of information the developers need to implement the activity. It can therefore be considered the activity’s DNA. What’s important is that here at OLE Nepal the activity document is created by a curriculum expert and/or teacher. (Other broader collaborations with technical people are of course also possible.)
2. Teacher’s note: An extensive document detailing learning goals, links to school book contents, ideas for preceding and follow-up activities, etc.
3. Lesson plan: This contains a detailed overview of how teachers can use the activity in the classroom, which homework can be assigned to pupils, etc.
4. Help text: E-Paath activities contain an online help-text to facilitate the use of the activities.

With regards to the workflow the documents are initially written by a teacher and/or curriculum expert and in then get gradually refined and improved by various people. There are also review stages especially when it comes to the Nepali text that is being display within the activities.

At the moment all of these texts are saved as .docx files and stored on a central fileserver where multiple versions of the same document are saved for archival purposes. People communicate informally about which version is the latest one, which steps need to be taken next, etc.

In my mind this is a clear scenario and use case that could benefit from the use of an ECM that would allow for workflows to be implemented explicitly, for roles to be distributed to different people and as a one-stop solution for saving and retrieving the current and relevant versions of the documents.

Since Alfresco offers a SharePoint Protocol component the idea was to set this up in the backend and allow people to interface with the system via their current software of choice, Word 2007.

The problem here is that after 10 hours of experimenting and reading countless PDFs and forum threads and I still haven’t managed to get this running. Using the built-in Office functionality I can create a document workspace and subsequently save a document into it. However whenever I restart Word and try to retrieve documents from that document workspace I end up looking at an error message telling me that the repository URL isn’t valid.

The Office add-ins provided by Alfresco on the other hand allow me to browse existing document workspaces and also create new ones. However once I try to save a document into it I’m presented with an error message that Word isn’t able to save anything there. Similarly trying to check out existing documents from a workspace can result in empty error messages.

This is what I like to call being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The second major use case I’m trying to address with Alfresco is the management of image files which make up the majority of the assets created for E-Paath activities. Even today with a relatively small team of content developers having worked on activities for two years there are thousands of images that are stored on the fileserver. Even with a decent naming scheme, which is only partially utilized, it’s not hard to imagine that finding existing images is anything but easy. Imagine what the situation will look like 5 years from now when changing teams of dozens of developers and volunteers will be dealing with thousands and thousands of available assets. This isn’t just an issue for the team here in Nepal. Imagine how much it will hamper content sharing on a global scale between Nepal, Uruguay, Peru, Rwanda, Austria, UK, etc.

In order to deal with this issue a solution should have the following capabilities:

• quick search to find existing materials
• batch capabilities for upload, download and tagging
• support for extensive but not mandatory metadata (what this means is that it should be possible to add metadata incrementally at a later date therefore not forcing developers to spend time with tagging content at the time of upload)

Since using a single solution for both document and image management seemed like a good idea I again toyed around with Alfresco to see what it had to offer.

Batch uploading worked like a charm, if you use Chrome or Internet Explorer that is. There’s some sort of weird issue going on with a combination of Firefox, Flash, AdBlock extension and Windows Vista which is of course exactly the combination I happen to use. Once the images are in the document library however it’s a pain to add metatags to them as this, to the best of my knowledge, can only be done on a per-picture basis. The search on the other works very nicely however I would definitely love to see a batch download solution there to allow me to download a whole result set with a single click.

At the end of the day what I’m stuck with is a solution that seems to have a lot of potential but currently doesn’t quite have what it takes to be my Educational Content Management system of choice.

Anyway, since I’m still actively toying around with Alfresco I’d appreciate any pointers and information about potential solutions for the the issues described above. At the same time I’d also be very interested in your suggestions for and experiences with other Enterprise Content Management solutions that meet the requirements discussed at the beginning of the article.

Innovation in Education

Since its inception in 2005, the One Laptop Per Child Program (OLPC) with its $200 XO laptop has simultaneously sparked excitement and hype as well as controversy, particularly within the realm of educational discourse. After all, in OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte‘s own words, “It’s not a laptop project. It’s an education project.” In Nepal, Open Learning Exchange Nepal (OLE Nepal) has created its own model. Instead of simply distributing XO laptops to children, the organization has taken matters a step further by creating original digital learning activities directly supplementing the current national educational curriculum, training teachers to use the new resources to best effect and creating a digital library with a wide range of educational materials before finally distributing the laptops in public schools all over the country. What they are doing in Nepal, in the systematic manner that it is being done, in conjunction with the government, is the first project of its kind and its success could inspire countries around the world to adapt the model to fit their own requirements.

With the start of the new academic year, OLE Nepal is in the midst of deploying nearly 1800 laptops in 26 schools in 6 districts around the country. The deployment was preceded by a series of district-based teacher training program on the basic functionalities of the laptop and how best to use it within a classroom. A detailed teacher-training guide as well as individual lesson plans and guidelines are available for teachers for each of the learning activities known as E-Paath (try E-Paath online or by downloading at: http://www.olenepal.org/e_paath.html). The laptop and the digital activities in no way intend to replace regular teaching but to complement it instead. E-Paath consists of both lessons and exercises. Students can use the lessons to revisit a lesson already taught by a teacher and use the exercises to deepen their understanding of the material studied. The machine, tailor made to fit educational needs, encourages ‘active learning’ drawing children and teachers away from traditional rote learning methods to learning by doing, hearing and seeing.

OLE Nepal has also created a digital library, E-Pustakalaya (www.pustakalaya.org), which adds an entirely different dimension to the work it is doing. In addition to allowing children to visualize what they’re learning, with E-Paath, the library provides children with a repository of information (materials on health, the environment, education, literature, etc) that they can visit and revisit searching for and reading up on topics that may interest them, ultimately helping them become independent critical thinkers and information seekers.

It is natural for some people to be skeptical about something so new and seemingly counter intuitive; how can spending money on laptops be justified in developing countries where basic needs, like food and clothing, aren’t being met? The initial investments in laptops may seem extravagant and unjustified at first, but on closer inspection it is clear that the possibilities for information sharing and empowerment are limitless. The potential achievements of a program like this reminds us of the old adage “give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.” Education is undoubtedly an integral part of all development models today. Even the biggest critics of formal education would be hard pressed to argue that education in some form is not essential for development. If education is so essential, then logic demands that giving the very best education possible must be a priority for effective development. The model being implemented by OLE Nepal both bolsters the current education system as well as aims to bridge the gap in access to information between different socio-economic realities. The success of the project will bring the students from different backgrounds in Nepal to a much more level playing field than before. If we are to make progress in leaps and bounds, we must focus on treating problems rather than just washing away the symptoms and this project aims to do just that.

Astha Thapa

This article is from the June issue of UNWO’s The Mirror.

Open Learning Exchange Nepal (OLE Nepal) began the first part of training teachers to integrate E-Paati (XO laptops) in classroom teaching-learning process by conducting a four day training workshop on March 22-25, 2009. This training was designed to train master trainers from the Ministry of Education’s teaching training body, the National Center for Education Development (NCED), for the next round of OLPC laptop deployment planned for April 2009. The training covered a wide range of topics including IT literacy, classroom arrangement and management, challenges in using laptops in the classroom, maximizing use of laptops both at home and school, non-technical issues and their possible solutions, parents and community awareness, etc. The workshop was conducted at NCED’s training center in Sano Thimi. The fifteen participants included five trainers from NCED’s central office, as well as four Education Training Centers (ETCs). Program Officers from four District Education Offices also participated in the workshop. These trainers will go out to the pilot districts to train teachers of the schools where the XO laptops will be distributed.
The first day of the training started with an opening speech by Rabi Karmacharya, the Executive Director of OLE Nepal. He gave an overview of OLE Nepal’s mission, strategy, goal and the status of its continual effort to integrate ICT based teaching-learning method in Nepal’s education system. That was followed by remarks from Mr. Mahashram Sharma, Director General of Department of Education (DoE), who highlighted on the role that the OLPC project can play in improving the standard of education in Nepal. He also applauded OLE Nepal’s exemplary work in this area. Finally, Mr. Harka Prasad Shrestha, Executive Director of NCED thanked everyone involved in the process and hoped that this training program is the first step in building NCED’s capacity to train teachers in ICT-based education approach.
The exposure to E-Paati and its activities were a novelty for the participants. For many, it was the first time that they saw the laptop. They were also amazed to see the variety of things that could be done in such a small machine. All participants agreed that this initiative has the potential to bring a revolution in education by improving quality of and access to education materials.
Dr. Saurav Dev Bhatta, Education Director of OLE Nepal, who was also the heart and soul of this workshop, conducted the major parts putting strong emphasis on how this training should be delivered to the teachers.
OLE Nepal had prepared a training manual with help from trainers from NCED, DoE officials, and teachers from the current test schools. A copy of the training manual was given to each participant. By the end of the workshop, participants had read through the manual and discussed its strengths and weaknesses. Their feedback was taken positively and necessary amendments were made before it was made ready for the seven day residential training for the teachers of our pilot schools. Most participants commented that this training manual followed a new modality that was very effective and should become NCED’s standard training manual on ICT-based education. They also expressed the opinion that the training program should be turned into one of the standard training programs that NCED offers to public school teachers all over the country.
This workshop ended on March 25, and after a one day break these participants joined the residential training for teachers from the pilot schools in Kavre district. During this seven day training program, the master trainers are expected to get a firsthand exposure on how to train teachers to implement the processes outlined in the manual. This training is currently being held at Malpi International School, Panauti. In addition to observing the training sessions for the seventeen teachers from three pilot schools of Kavre district, the trainers are also participating actively by conducting at least couple sessions a day. This time, the work load has been divided among the trainers from NCED and the OLE trainers. The NCED trainers are doing a good job by trying to show the connection between child centric education philosophy, learning styles and the E-Paath activities.
It is encouraging to see that eight of these enthusiastic teachers from Kavre district are female and despite their family responsibilities, they have opted to join this training. Two of them have little children and one is in her later stage of pregnancy. Four of these female teachers come from Jana Jyoti school where XO laptops had already been distributed last year. The teachers said that this was the first time they learned how to open the laptops. They commented that they did not know children could have learned so much using these laptops. Although they had taken a long time before deciding to join this training, they do not have second thoughts about their decision. They now feel that the laptops from last year that were being stored in children’s houses will now come to life.