OLPC Project: Plan, Update, Direction, Participation

Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Associate Professor Information Systems Department San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA 94132 USA Creative commons license http://creativecommons.org/ One Laptop per Child Project: Plan, Direction, Update, Participation Presentation: Bay Area Linux Users Group ( http://www.balug.org/ ) hello! Unless noted otherwise

Multiple hats... Disclaimer: I do not work for OLPC. I am only a volunteer!

Somebody is finally thinking of the children! To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. — OLPC Mission Statement, It's an education project, not a laptop project. — Nicholas Negroponte

in the beginning...

ooh! laptop! (July 2007)

Give 1 Get 1 – Nov 2007

Next thing I know... De facto organizer for olpc-sf http://tinyurl.com/olpcsf

Where no one has gone [computing] before...

School Galadima, Abuja City, Nigeria See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Galadima

Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thailand/Ban_Samkha

Khairat school is India's pilot site. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ulaanbaatar

Ethopia http://www.reactivated.net/weblog/archives/2008/10/olpc-ethiopia-updates/

Ghana http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/2921143251/

Cameroon http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/3110907018/in/set-72157611290673682/

Afghanistan refugee camp, Pakistan http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Pakistan/Atlas_School

Colombia http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Colombia

Peru http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Peru

Rwanda http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Rwanda

Iraq http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Iraq

Haiti http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Haiti

Solomon Islands http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Solomon_Islands

Nepal http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Nepal

Uruguay: Every primary school child has an XO. http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/

postage stamps too!

1.6 million XO laptops and counting See Google Maps Deployments worldwide Also see: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Property:Number_of_manufactured_laptops

Hook: Free/Open Source Software...
Line: Cute/rugged laptop...
Sinker: Smart kids everywhere!
My involvement?

OLPC San Francisco Bay Area http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_SanFranciscoBayArea http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sf http://tinyurl.com/olpcsf

OLPC-SF Deployments
A hub for exchange of ideas, plans, content, etc.
Deployments
Afghanistan (Carol Ruth Silver, MTSA)
India (Humaira Mahi & Sameer Verma, SFSU)
Jamaica (Sameer Verma & Univ. of the West Indies)
Madagascar (June Kleider, XO-ology)
Senegal (Drew & Lick-Wilmerding Schools)
South Africa (EduWeavers)
San Francisco (Starr King Elementary)
Uganda (UC Berkeley)

OLPC-SF resident expert

A glimpse... Deployments

India http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Khairat_school

Resident artist!

Khairat school is India's first pilot site. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Khairat school is India's pilot site. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Khairat Photos http://www.zooomr.com/photos/sameerverma/sets/40064/

Bhagmalpur project
Location:
Village: Bhagmalpur
District: Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh
Railway Station: Shahganj
Bus Stop: Banuwadeeh
School:
Classes: 1 to 8 class
Children: 1087
Teachers: 11
Internet: none
Computers: none
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Bhagmalpur

What's a laptop?

Under a tree...

Bhagmalpur photos Bhagmalpur School http://www.zooomr.com/photos/sameerverma/sets/40063/ Bhagmalpur Village http://www.zooomr.com/photos/sameerverma/sets/40075/

Jamaica

Maroantsetra, Madagascar

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Keur Sadaro, Senegal http://www.extrasleepy.com/keursadaro.html

OLPC Headquarters 1 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Little green machines...

Cost Electricity Networks Content Languages Pedagogy Age Security Theft Appropriateness ... The challenges

Cost US $140 at the factory My Lenovo Thinkpad cost me > US $2500

Electricity Non-traditional sources...

Yo Yo Charger http://www.potenco.com/products

Hand Crank Charger http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/Hand_Crank

Pedal power OLPC Afghanistan http://www.olpc.af/images/HPM/dscf1324.jpg

Solar Panel http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Product_News#Solar_Panels 5 Watt/14Volt panel

Moo power... http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Cow_Power

Networks Offline Moodle Rise of the Sneakernets WWWOFFLE

Content Open content standards (SCORM, IMS-CP) Creative Commons Offline Wikipedia 1.6 million books from the Internet Archive

Language Diversity
India: 28 states and 7 union territories
The Constitution of India recognizes 22 languages
1. Assamese 2. Bengali 3. Bodo 4. Dogri 5. Gujarati 6. Hindi 7. Kannada 8. Kashmiri 9. Konkani 10. Maithili 11. Malayalam 12. Manipuri 13. Marathi 14. Nepali 15. Oriya 16. Punjabi 17. Sanskrit 18. Santhali 19. Sindhi 20. Tamil 21. Telugu 22. Urdu

Languages Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Aymara, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Basque, Bengali, Bengali (India), Bislama, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Dzongkha, English, English (South African), English (US), Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, French (Canada), Friulian, Fula, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kreyol, Macedonian, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Marovo, Mongolian, Nauruan, Nepali, Norwegian, Norwegian Bokmål, Papiamento, Papua New Guinea Pidgin (Tok Pisin), Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Punjabi, Quechua, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Solomon Islands Pidgin, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Templates, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Vietnamese, Walloon, Wolof, Yoruba... Approx. 96+ languages Tutorial: http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/452 Translate: http://translate.sugarlabs.org/

Pedagogy http://www.sugarlabs.org/

FOSS: Free and Open Source
When the project started FOSS was the only option that was flexible enough for this project
No vendor lock-in on formats
No royalties on redistribution
No discrimination based on fields of endeavor
Scalable global model for software and content

Activities, Not Applications
There are no software applications. The laptop focuses children around "activities."
Activities are distinct from applications in their focus —collaboration and expression
Abiword becomes Write
Firefox becomes Browse
GTK+ based
They don't use Abiword or Firefox. They “Write” a letter or “Browse” the web.

Presence
Everyone has the potential for being both a learner and a teacher.
Employs a network (mesh or AP-based) that interconnects all laptops within range.
Telepathy framework
Telepathy-gabble for using a Jabber/XMPP server across the Internet
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Telepathy_Gabble
Telepathy-salut for p2p/mesh collaboration
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Telepathy-salut

Tools of Expression
The laptop is a "thing to think with"
Principle of "learning through doing"
Constructivist learning
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Constructivism
Seymour Papert (constructionism)
Lego Mindstroms

school...to go

Educational device or trojan horse? Surprise! Its a REAL computer. It can do REAL computer things!

Laptop can also be a:
Phone (Asterisk)
Healthcare monitor (O 2 , pulse sensors)
Micro-finance platform
Record yield, income, loans, payments, etc.
Anthropological documentation platform
Family tree
Photos, birth/death records.

OLPC XO-1 Speaker Rotate screen Keyboard Mouse pad Microphone Antenna Camera Gamepad Power Battery USB

XO 1: /proc/cpuinfo

XO 1 /proc/meminfo

OLPC XO-1.5 Speaker Rotate screen Keyboard Mouse pad Microphone Antenna Camera Gamepad Power Battery USB Note: XO-1 and XO-1.5 are physically identical

XO 1.5
CPU: Via C7-M Ultra Low Voltage x86 compatible processor with 128KB L2 cache;
CPU clock speed: 400 MHz (1.5 W) to 1GHz (5 W), variable.
An Intel-compatible instruction set (including MMX, SSE, SSE2 & SSE3)
Companion chips: Via VX855 provides memory interface, a 3D graphics engine, an HD video decoder, USB, SDIO, and other system interface and management functions

XO 1.5
DRAM memory: 1 GiB dynamic RAM; data rate: DDR2 SDRAM;
BIOS: 1 MiB SPI-interface flash ROM;
Open Firmware used to load the operating system;
Mass storage: 4 GiB NAND flash in an internal microSD card
One externally accessible SD card slot as in the original XO.

XS: OLPC School Server The Internet in a Box unsung hero too!

School environment Manage content Manage access Manage assessment

What does the XS look like? Fantasy View

What does the XS look like? Reality View http://www.flickr.com/photos/popcorncx/149706221/

What does the XS look like?
Any x86 box with requisite memory, crunch and storage can be the XS.
It could also be a ARM machine in the near future...
Ideally, we want a machine that
Consumes very little power
Has the oomph needed
Portable
Pocketable, even?
Very forgiving for power brownouts, heat, dust, etc.
Kinda like the XO.

Services that the XS runs
Networking
DNS
DHCP
NAT/Masquerading
Bridging
Identity management
Seamless XO login
Single One Time Password (SOTP) on server
Activation
Theft deterrence

Services that the XS runs
Collaboration
XMPP via ejabberd
Storage
Files and attachments for courses
Backup files
Other media
Backup
Journal/Datastore backup
XO Software updates
Push updates including firmware and OS images
Activity server
Pushing activity bundles

Networking
Provides networking infrastructure for the school.
Acts as an Internet gateway (if backhaul exists)
Includes an HTTP proxy (optional)
Content filter (optional)
Supports Wi-Fi:
Ad-Hoc
Mesh (IEEE 802.11s draft)
Infrastructure (Access Point)

Identity management
Single One Time Passwords (SOTP) for maintenance.
Remote ISP maintenance, etc.
OLPC XO Browse
authenticates seamlessly with Moodle
Moodle talks to ejabberd for permissions, etc.
First XO to access Moodle
This XO becomes admin.
This XO can assign other teachers, course creators, and other such roles

Collaboration
XMPP-based collaboration via ejabberd.
Ejabberd is a XMPP (jabber) server written in erlang.
Uses gabble mode under telepathy in Sugar.
Gabble allows for server-based collaboration
XOs switch to salut mode in case no XS is found.
Salut allows for peer-to-peer collaboration
Activities such as Chat, Write, Memorize use XMPP to collaborate.
http://xmpp.org/ http://collabora.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy_software

Storage
Much of the storage lives in /library partition.
Mount /library on external USB disk or other media and expand storage.
Run rest of the system off a CF or SD card (solid state)
Files can be served as
links via Moodle
links via Apache (add Apache config)

Backup
We have 3 processes: Traffic control, Backup-complete, Daily cleanup
Traffic control
provides basic "traffic control" to manage load.
Backup-complete script
Creates links for latest snapshot.
Daily cleanup
enforces a per-user "soft" quota.

Updates
Pushing updates to OS image and firmware via rsync.

Layout (Access Points)

Hardware recommendations
Schools with less than 40 laptops:
use XS-on-XO: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS-on-XO
Requires a SD card (4GB and class 6)
External USB hard drive (needs own power)
USB-Ethernet for backhaul.

Fit PC and Fit PC2
Fit PC works well and is comparable to the XO-1 in performance.
More configurable than the XO-1.
Replace a SSD in the FitPC to make it cooler and more power efficient.
http://www.fit-pc.com/fit-pc1/
Fit PC2 has heat problems.
Intel Atom runs too hot
Surprise surprise.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndevil/3535934684/

Schools with up to 100 laptops:
1GHz CPU, 1GB RAM,
at least 2GB disk storage per laptop.
Something in the mini ITX form-factor works well.
Fanless units are better

For up to 500 laptops:
dual-core 2GHz CPU
2 to 4GB RAM
This type of a machine usually works in environments with good power resources.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/popcorncx/149706221/

More than 500 laptops
Server-class dual CPU
4 to 16GB RAM
Data center hosting is also an option.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamisonjudd/2433102356/

School Server

Don't have an XO but still want the goods?

Sugartime!
Get Sugar
Sugar on a Stick
Sugar on Debian, Fedora, Gentoo
Fedora/Sugar in VM
VirtualBox
Qemu
VMWare
Live CDs
Deliver Sugar via LTSP
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Downloads

How can you help?
Educators
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educators
Translators
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Localization
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/452
Developers
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developer
Getting involved
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Getting_involved_in_OLPC
Sugar
http://sugarlabs.org

Contributor Program
OLPC Contributor Program is designed to get you a XO laptop in exchange for contribution. The info you will need for applying:
Project
Propose
Other contributors
Audience or impact
Brief description
Relevant experience
Contact information
# of XOs needed, and their use
Apply at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors

Mailing lists
Educators
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/educators
Software Developers
General development
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Sugar UI
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
All mailing lists are at http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/

Community lists
Everyone
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-open
OLPC San Francisco
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sf

Made with the free stuff Its your intellectual property. Keep it open. Vote with your fingers. Use open formats! http://www.openoffice.org/

OLPC Project: Plan, Update, Direction, Participation

by Sameer Verma

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 8

Statistics

OLPC Project: Plan, Update, Direction, Participation Presentation Transcript