{"id":2293,"date":"2012-03-05T09:31:03","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T14:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/?p=2293"},"modified":"2012-09-27T10:39:01","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T14:39:01","slug":"let-us-discuss-results-from-a-randomized-control-trial-of-olpc-in-peru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/olpc-in-peru\/let-us-discuss-results-from-a-randomized-control-trial-of-olpc-in-peru\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Us Discuss Results from a Randomized Control Trial of OLPC in Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In 2007, Peru announced it would distribute tens of thousands of XO laptops from One Laptop Per Child to children in rural schools across the country, and expanded the program every year since. Almost 1 million laptops later, the program is now the largest XO deployment in the world and one of the most faithful to OLPC’s technology-centric Constructionist principals.<\/p>\n

Teacher training was downplayed, with the belief that exposure to XO laptops alone would create a learning environment where children were excited and inspired to learn learning. Rather than developing relevant digital content, the focus was on how to use existing “Activities” (software applications) on the XO laptop to teach different subjects.<\/p>\n

This was a radical change from existing ICT4E best practices, which tend to focus on teacher professional development and locally relevant content as equal or greater in importance than hardware, and invited close evaluation. The Inter-American Development Bank responded with a multi-year randomized evaluation of the impact of the OLPC project in Peru – the first rigorous attempt to examine the impact of the largest “1-to-1 computing” initiative in a developing country.<\/p>\n

Results to Date<\/b><\/p>\n

So far, the IDB has issued two synopsis examining the academic achievement and impacts on cognitive skills that XO laptops facilitated in a 15-month randomized control trial with 21,000 students in 319 schools – an initial report<\/a> in 2010, and a second report<\/a> earlier this year. The summary findings should not be a surprise to EduTechDebate readers:<\/p>\n

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