A Participatory Approach to Scenario Development for XO Laptops in Brazil

Tel AmielFlávia Linhalis Arantes

Leonardo Cunha de MirandaMaria Cecília Martins

M. Cecília C. Baranauskas

"The fact that OLPC was much stronger in

developing innovative technology than in understanding how to diffuse it may reflect the engineering orientation of the organization and its lack of understanding of the needs or interests of the nontechnical people who will ultimately buy and use the innovation."

Kraemer, K. L., Dedrick, J., & Sharma, P. (2009). One laptop per child: Vision vs. reality. Communications of the ACM, 52(6), 66-73

27 states

190+ million people

5500+ municipalities

K-12 schools shared by state +

municipalities

80%+ is public

245.000+ schools

52+ million students

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/americas/south_america_pol98.jpg (CC-BY-SA)

History

PROINFO (since 1996)– School computer laboratories, monitors

UCA, One Laptop per Student – Federal program, working group (2005-)– Pilot I: Classmate, Mobilis, XO – 5

schools (2007)– Pilot II: 300 schools and 5 municipalities

(150.000 laptops) (2008-)

OLPC

Worldwide: 2 million+ Peru: 900.000 Uruguay/CEIBAL: 500.000

Brazil– Two XO-OLPC pilots from UCA– Four additional pilots– Total 4 states– 3013 units distributed

http://one.laptop.org/map/peru (attribution)

OLPC Campinas

2009– Donation of 512

laptops (OLPC->Municipality)

2010– Established

working group (Municipal, School, University)

Thinking about technology

Technology vs. device Integration leads to multi-layered

ripples in different socio-technical spheres

Shared planning and shared responsibilities

Organizational Semiotics

Examine these ripples through semiotics

Organized behavior– Norms (formal and informal)– Signs (conventions, agreed-upon, tacit,

etc.) Making conventions explicit Shared meanings, shared goals,

shared language

Semiotic framework

Human Information

Social world – law, expectations, culture Semantics – meanings, validity Pragmatics – intentions, communications

Systems and Platform

Syntactics – formal structure, software Empirics – capacity, patterns, efficiency Physical world – infrastructure, economics

Timeline

June/2010 – Meta-knowledge July/2010 – Envisioning usage

scenarios September/2010 –

Expanding/selecting scenarios October/2010 – Trials/scaffolding

scenarios November/2010 - Implementation

Workshop 1June/2010

Meta-knowledge

Semio-participatory methods, project goals

Identifying stakeholders, challenges, potential solutions

17

Actions and Responsibilities

Pragmatic

Semantic ,

Syntactic

Empirical

Physical environment

Social world

School infra-structure

Preparing software, servers, configuration and applications

Batteries, and bandwidth

Who receives the XO

Uses in and outside of school

Meanings-making, professional development development of materials

Functions of the human information system

Technologicalplatform

18

THE PROJECT

CONTRIBUTION

SOURCE

MARKET

Interested Parties

COMMUNITY

Actors

Clients, Supliers

Partners,Competitor

Spectator,Legislator

Mapping interested parties

Community– Press, mayor’s office, teacher union, community

leadership “Market”

– Other school projects, volunteers, interns, lan-house, community centers

Source– Technology provider, local support group, energy

company, OLPC, researchers, other OLPC schools, municipal office (training and support agencies)

Contribution– Teachers, students, administrators, school council, etc.

Evaluation Matrix

Problems/Questions Ideas/SolutionsInterested Parties

CONTRIBUTION

Actors

SOURCE

Clients, Suppliers

MARKET

Partners, Competitors

COMUNITY

Spectator, Legislator

Evaluation Matrix

Contribution– Distribution criteria, taking XO home

Source– Maintenance for XO

“Market”– Computer schools as partners?

Community– How should results be publicized?– Family responsibilities?

Workshop 2July/2010

Envisioning scenarios

Using the machine and testing the system

Discussing complex educational scenarios

23

Formal

Informal

Technical

SOCIETY

Conceptual model

XO

School

Community

Formal

Informal

Technical

Society

XO

School

Community

The neighborhood in the city; Computer in the streetsA citizen’s outlook

Exploring the school envirommentStudents and consumption at home; Visit to Paulinia’s ecological park; Opening doors...

Workshop on radio announcers

Workshop 3July/2010

Selecting scenarios

Defining activities based on goals Addressing real-world constraints and

choices

Workshop 4July/2010

Testing scenarios

Scenario trials with teachers Researchers scaffold scenario,

highlighting possible gaps/bumps, and create support material and guides

Scenarios

1. Exploring the school environment– Identifying school areas, spaces and devising

rules for the usage of common space

2. Consumption at home– Identify industrial food products from home– Identify unusual and foreign language

3. Radio announcers– Plan a radio program for the school– External partnership

Next steps

Implementation has begun Planning for expansion and

integration Collaborative evaluation

Lessons learned

Thank you

XO-OLPC Group@

Núcleo de Informática Aplicada à Educação (NIED)@

University of Campinas (UNICAMP)

tamiel@unicamp.brwww.nied.unicamp.br