Basics
One Laptop Per Child PROPOSAL
Who/What/When/Where
- Location
o Needs to have system of >100 children, non-governmental organization
o Make sure government is relatively stable
o Some access to outside world
- Time period
Team
- Roles of each member
Consultation
- Community support
- Communication
o Language
Localization
- Long-term effects after we leave
- Acceptance / Trust of foreigners
- The impact we will have on 6-12 year old children
o They need to be "agents of change," not just "objects of teaching"
Education
- Students: how long they are on break, schedule, their existing/current curriculum
- Lesson plans
- Teacher/student preparation
- Learning workshops
- Community participation
- XO resources that will actually educate kids
Technology
- Receipt and storage of materials
- Internet connectivity
- Power: Available power source? Generator? Solar panels?
- School server
- Support
- Service & Repair
Logistics
- Accommodations
- Transportation
- Health
Budget
- Travel costs to Kigali and deployment community
- Housing for 9 weeks (can local partner help here?)
- Food
Proposal contents (from OLPC wiki):
* Answer the basics: who, what, when, where. Most importantly, KEEP IT CONCISE AND DIRECTLY TO THE POINT.
* How will you work with children? Are the children in school from June-August? Are they on break? Address how you will deal with children and learning with their schedule.
* Who is the local partner? How will you follow-up? Partner with groups capable of maintaining the deployment after you leave. Is there an academic institution, NGO, community organization, etc. willing to oversee the project after August? Do you have family ties in the community? What's going to happen when you leave?
o Include a letter of support from the local partner (this doesn't count towards your 750 word limit). Make sure you show that together you're capable of handling the receipt of a 230 kg package of laptops and equipment. Where will you store the equipment during the deployment?
* How will this impact 6-12 yr old children? All proposals must be about kids 6-12 years old and their learning. A proposal gets stronger as soon as the group can show that children are the agents of change, not just the objects of teaching.
o Stick to OLPC's Core Principles: child ownership, low ages, saturation, connection, and free and open source.
* Describe your project's financial needs. As an attachment (that doesn't count towards the 750 word limit), provide a brief budget for the project. Include travel costs (to Kigali and your deployment community), housing for 9 weeks (can your local partner help here?), and other project-related expenses. Remember that OLPC will only grant up to $10,000 and that you do not need to include XOs, accessories, or Kigali accomodations in your budget. If you have a creative project-based idea that needs funding, let us know.
o Be realistic with your budget. It will determine how much money you'll receive.
o But also be economical where possible. If we think a team's budget is wasteful or unrealistic, we will consider that in evaluating the proposal.
* How will you provide financial support after you leave? OLPC is dedicating significant time and resources to create learning environments throughout Africa! How can you show that your team can provide financial support after you leave?
o Research your university's grant programs, student associations, alumni networks, and other avenues of funding to sustain your deployment.
* Communication - do you share the language of the school or community where you will be working? If not, how will this be overcome?
BABABE:
Team member roles:
Project lead/ Head of team: Mary Wang
Tech lead: Owen Derby
Community lead: Janet Li
Teaching lead: Maddie Mirzoeff
Team (Who We Are)
Mission Statement
Goal
When
Where
Proposal
(This is what the Cornell Team had)
- BACKGROUND: Description of Mauritania: geography, ethnicity, culture, history
- Facts (Statistics from the CIA factbook) about Mauritania: poverty, literacy rates, internent access
- How XOs can impact the people of Mauritania
- City they are working in, facts: location (distance from capital, etc), population, description
- Our contact within the town: who, what he does, skills he has, children he works with
- Schools we will be working with: grades, number of children, etc
EFFECTS:
- What the children will do with the laptops
- Benefits the laptops will bring to the children
- How the family will benefit
- Possible curriculum ideas
- Language the children speak (Arabic and French?)
- Set up correspondence with local school in America; pen pals
- Logistics: the students are on break, who the teachers will be. Will we get backing of the local community?
- Sustainability: We will teach adults? teachers? volunteers? How to use the XOs. How long our ground contact will be in that area. Will we hand over the project to the administrators of the school?
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- We will work with the local community to establish volunteer or perhaps even paid positions to continue our program after we leave. Specifically, these people could work with Zach or other volunteers/teachers to redistribute the XO's to subsequent grades after each class of students has outgrown the laptops. They could also provide IT support, as we would provide intensive training in the troubleshooting and basic repair of XO's. There is also the possibility of collaborating with a local university, but the logistics of this are a little bit unclear as of this point, because according to our NGO contact, it may be difficult to work with the bureaucracy of universities, since they are governmental entities and as such may contain some corruption.
- We will work with the local community to establish volunteer or perhaps even paid positions to continue our program after we leave. Specifically, these people could work with Zach or other volunteers/teachers to redistribute the XO's to subsequent grades after each class of students has outgrown the laptops. They could also provide IT support, as we would provide intensive training in the troubleshooting and basic repair of XO's. There is also the possibility of collaborating with a local university, but the logistics of this are a little bit unclear as of this point, because according to our NGO contact, it may be difficult to work with the bureaucracy of universities, since they are governmental entities and as such may contain some corruption.
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Random logistics:
Transportation of laptops, security issues, language barriers
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