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The story began several years ago at MIT Media Lab, where Nicholas Negroponte used to say: “We must convince the industry to built 1 hundred dollars computers”.

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educational proposalIt is critically important to adequately educate all the children

of developing countries.

Simply doing more of the same is no longer sufficient, if it ever was.

If citizens are to benefit, as they should, from the expansion of the global information economy based on technology, these nations must rethink the old paradigm of top-class-down, and replace it with a dynamic learning model that empowers children themselves, turning them into "teachers" and "learners”.

The kids will do the rest.

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OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)

• It is a project of the MIT Media Lab (Media Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

• It is a nonprofit project.• It is an educational project for which the

XO laptop was designed according to the project.

• The mass media were interested for the laptop itself more than for the educational project (at the beginning they used to call it “the $ 100 laptop”

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OLPC embodies the theories of constructionism first developed in the '60s by Professor Seymour Papert at the MIT Media Lab.

We believe:•The most valuable natural resource for any country is its children. •The emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the innate ability of children to learn, share and create on their own.

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OLPC was thought to start at Brazil, India, China … big countries! The reason: scale economy, big amount of laptops to build means cheaper price. President Lula was enthusiastic but political troubles prevented the project.

DIGITAL INCLUSION LEARNING REVOLUTION

2005: Conference at Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

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SOUTH AMERICA

URUGUAY

Here is the first –and unique country so far- in facing the huge challenge of giving ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD

January 2006: the very first XO laptop arrives to Uruguay brought by Dr. Antonio Battro, Chief Education Officer of OLPC.

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The Uruguayan OLPC model is “CEIBAL” (name given due to the uruguayan

national flower).

Mars 2006: CEIBAL was born. It was presented at the

Presidency of the Republic of Uruguay

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• Uruguay is the first country at the whole world to implement the OLPC vision. The project is leaded from the Presidency of the Republic of Uruguay and extended all over the country. The Uruguayan adapted version is called CEIBAL.

• Uruguayan community telecenters of CDI Uruguay are collaborating with CEIBAL in spreading the project to families and communities.

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Geographic distribution of Community Telecenters

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Uruguay Its capital: Montevideo

• CEIBAL Plan is creating a social revolutionary process with no precedents at the world.

• It has became a global model.

• In 2009 every children and their teachers, own their laptops.

• CEIBAL is a research & action project in which the universe is the sample.

• CEIBAL has no precedents, so everything must be reconsidered and recreated.

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The 1:1 profile of CEIBAL allows, among many other things:

• To interact at the knowledge construction, to satisfy personal areas, to go beyond the curriculum, time and place limits.

• Allows the children to learn every time and everywhere, and with every persons.

• Allows the student to learn at his/her place accessing the global knowledge, interacting with their peers … and also to teach!

• Because this way, children who are growing with their personal laptops are active constructors of knowledge.

• In fact, this plan is making real the constructionist epistemological approach of Seymour Papert.

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• CDI Uruguay has installed a Community Telecenters Network at our country, so called Escuelas de Informática y Ciudadanía (Computer Science and Human Rights Schools).

• These Schools are both in urban and rural areas.

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• CDI Uruguay made an agreement with • CEIBAL Plan:• To extend it to all ages (not just children).• Our main role is to expand the project to families and

communities. • We have XO laptops and Wi Fi connectivity at our

Schools and at our Social Entrepreneurs Training Center.

• We are training there members of the children’s families in order they can take profit of laptops at home and also to better understand what children are doing with them. 15

From now on we will see the official presentation of Educational Commission of CEIBAL Plan

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CEIBAL EDUCATION

Targets:

• Empower learning in order to reduce social divide, giving wide access to ICTs.

• Deliver before the end of year 2009 a laptop to every child from 6 to twelve years old, and to their teachers.

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PRINCIPLES

• Education as a right for the whole society• Equity in opportunities to access knowledge• Democratization of education• New concept in literacy

BASIS

• CHILDREN• Empowerment of learning • Active elaboration of significances• Development of learning skills• Creation of virtual learning communities• Intercultural involvement • Investigation promotion • Self- confidence enhancement

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1:1 approach• Allows inter-action in knowledge

construction • Satisfies personal interest areas• It is learning by doing with no limits• Pupils can teach their mates while the

teacher focus where his/her advise is more necessary

• Allows global focus in learning while acting local

• Allows the knowledge active production instead of being information recipient

TEACHERS

• Promotes teachers thinking

• Allows to elaborate educational contents

• Foster the creation and development of virtual professional communities

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FAMILY

• ” Promotes inter- generation learning• Engages the family with the school • Fosters the family to exercise its societal

actions • Children and family have shared

responsibilities like caring the laptop, choosing the sites to navigate, amount of time to spend with the computer … and playing together!

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Teachers training

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Cascade implementation among professionals

•Specialists train multipliers•Multipliers train principals•Principals trains teachers•Permanent on line training

In my opinion, the XO is a very good tool.

I am not saying that it is perfect. Fortunately, at the future we will have better tools.

But we just cannot wait for the perfect one, we will never start!

While waiting for perfection, children will lost wonderful opportunities.

The entire world will lost, because is no good that technology rest at the hands of a few people.

Technology empowers people and the power is good if distributed among everyone.

Best of all: if it is at the hands of children because they are the best advocates of the future.

 

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I introduce to you some Uruguayan children at their classrooms 

 

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www.ceibal.edu.uy/portal/

www.cdi.org. uy Further information

I introduce to you my 30 months old granddaughter Melina. She is teaching me in how to do “the forbidden experiment”

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She is an XO fan!

Thanks!