Week II

This past week with OLPC, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to and work in a variety of schools. While everyday is filled with memorable moments that show more and more about the role that OLPC plays in Rwanda, there is one particular moment that especially stood out to me this week.

While in Nonko (we were supposed to be helping the teachers with their picture dictionaries in EToys) I was expecting to face the same teaching challenges that I had the week before with the different group of teachers. This is normally a task that many of the teachers have not yet become familiar with and they often struggle with the task of recording photos and putting in texts. However, this particular time, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that one of the teachers was already so well-versed with the task that she felt bored. Instead of sitting idly, she urged me to teach her another program, one that she could use easily in her classroom. Immediately, I began to show her how to use Memorize and how to create her own games, something that would be infinitely useful in her classroom. Of course, she was very pleased and quickly began creating her own games, complete with her own sounds and pictures from around the school.

This moment to me, perfectly demonstrates the varied background that each of the teachers bring to their OLPC training. As her enthusiasm demonstrates, the XO laptop can really become a major figure in the classroom learning environment. My experiences have shown me that there is a major gap between the teachers who are interested in learning the laptops and the ones who do no really care for the what XO laptop can bring to their classrooms. This was one of the rare moments where a teacher seemed to earnestly want to learn the laptop, while most seem to believe it be little more than a burden. Still, there is no doubt in my mind that as OLPC continues on with its XO laptop teacher training, more and more teachers will be inspired to learn more about the XO laptop, and soon the XO can become a key figure in transforming the educational system in countries like Rwanda.