192 Entries for “Recent Blogs”
July 8, 2009 | Program Updates | OLE Nepal
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.
March 9, 2009 | Learning Applications Development | OLE Nepal
OLE Nepal has been working on its digital library, E-Pustakalaya, since the summer of 2008. The project has made significant progress, with the library now publicly launched and featuring basic functionalities. Additional content and features will be continuously added. In the early stages, the Nepal Library Foundation (NLF), Canada, provided startup funds to help OLE Nepal maintain a robust and publicly accessible website for E-Pustakalaya. This funding helped purchase a server for the library. From January 2009, NLF also extended support by hiring two full-time coordinators for content acquisition. These coordinators have been working with authors, publishers, and other relevant organizations to gather materials and establish an editorial board.
March 8, 2009 | Program Updates | OLE Nepal
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.
Jan. 5, 2009 | Program Updates | Rabi Karmacharya
OLE Nepal organized a three day workshop on December 23-25, 2008 to prepare the teacher training manual for the next round of OLPC laptop deployment planned for April 2009. The workshop participants included experts from the National Center for Education Development (NCED) – Nepal Government’s teacher training body under the Ministry of Education, as well as officials from the Department of Education (DoE)’s OLPC team. Teachers from the two test schools – Bashuki Lower Secondary School and Vishwamitra Ganesh Secondary School – were also invited for a day to share their experience on using , shed light on the challenges faced so far, and give suggestions on how the training program can be made more effective and relevant in integrating the laptops and ICT-based teaching-learning method in their classrooms. Earlier on December 15th, few of the participants had also visited the two test schools to observe how the program was being implemented in the classrooms.
Dec. 22, 2008 | Team Reflections | OLE Nepal
We are the guys from upstairs who play loud music and disturb everyone else. Currently, there are eleven interns working for OLE Nepal. All of us are intelligent, hard-working, and energetic young high school graduates committed to helping change the Nepalese education system. We were too lazy to apply to colleges while still in school, so we had a year with nothing to do. Fortunately, OLE Nepal beckoned us, and now we have something interesting and worthwhile to fill our time with. Some of us are seasoned veterans who have worked long hours until late at night on weekends to meet deadlines. Others are newbies who grumble all the time about not having their own desktops.