恭喜發財！ (Kung hey fat choi!) Last Friday, we gathered 16 OLPC supporters for one simple mission: assemble an XO dragon at different spots of Hong Kong to celebrate Chinese New Year. Between us all, we managed to collect 13 laptops plus a few tidbits (including some pens, plastic cups, stress balls, hanging clips and bananas!), and the only limit was our imagination, of course.
The evening started off with a warm-up run at Western Market in Sheung Wan. As with any team project, our work evolved from a quick brainstorming session to delegation by different body parts, and our first dragon -- pictured above -- was born within minutes. If you look closely, we actually used some of the batteries as legs! This is the kind of "out of the box" thinking that we aim to promote to children everywhere.
After a second run to improve our efficiency, it was time to hop onto the tram. Read on to see how our tour went.
OLPC APAC has once again returned to Sichuan for another deployment. This time volunteers from Hong Kong and in concert with local Sichuanese volunteers descended on Jintang County just 28 kilometers away from Chengdu for the deployment.
Our mission: to conduct XO training workshops, install school servers plus WiFi access points, and to install new localization patches on 1000 units of XO laptops. These laptops will be deployed with three area primary schools; Anbang Primary School, Experimental Primary School and Xixian Primary School.
Xixian Primary School will serve as our key pilot school as XO laptops will be provided to every student between the grades of two to five. While at the other two schools, XO laptops will only be distributed to fourth graders.
Day 1 - Welcome ceremony and prepping the XO laptops
For the next 3 days, we will be calling Anbang Primary School our new
home as we toil late into the night prepping 1000 units of XO laptops
and conducting morning training workshops for both the teachers and children. The
students at Anbang were extremely cheerful and courteous as they greeted
the volunteers with a big smile and called us "uncle" or "aunt".
Needless to say, the ladies weren't too fond of being called "aunts" all
day long and would rather be greeted with a "younger" title.
Day 2 - Teacher training workshop with OLPC volunteers
Day 3 - Children training workshop with OLPC volunteers and installing the school server
Day 3.... meeting the kids!!! The morning at Anbang Primary was the coldest morning yet but our spirits are high and we're all excited for we know today is a day like no other. After flying hundreds of miles on a red eye flight and working like slaves for the past 2 days, it all comes down to today. One might say today is defining moment of the entire trip. Today we will be hosting a training workshop for around 60 students from the three area schools. Throughout the training workshop, the kids were fully engaged with the various learning activities in the XO laptops. At one point, we even invited two kids up to the stage to share their learning experiences and had them teach the rest of the class on completing certain tasks with the XO laptops. While that is going on, the tech team visited the other 2 schools to config and install the school servers and the WiFi access points. Being able to witness first hand the kids having fun exploring and learning on the XO laptops while collaborating with their friends on what they have learned made the red eye flight and the hard work from the previous 2 days all worth the while....
上圖中間那位，是 Dasho Kinley Dorji，為不丹皇家政府資訊及通訊部秘書長 (Secretary of the
Ministry of Information & Communications of the Royal Government of
Bhutan)。他當天穿了全套正式服裝，還身備配劍，簡直威風凜凜！不過他說，劍只是裝飾品，他根本不會舞劍...
演講時，他首先說了一堆不丹語，跟在場旁聽的小孩打個招呼，令快要悶荒的孩子們都為之一振！然後他把手伸進袍裡，我以為他在搔癢，原來他在找他的講稿，就
像古裝劇裡的人那樣...
上右圖：Anthony 正向聯合國兒童基金會 (UNICEF) 的 Ruby 介紹 XO 手提電腦。
我是 OLPC (one laptop per child)
新加入的小小義工之一。兩年多前，2007年的一個聖誕節前夕，我捐了一部小小的 XO laptop
給遠方的一個小孩。當時的我，還以為自己很了解這個 project，以為給孩子送電腦就是這個 project
的目標。這趟不丹之行把我這個觀念完全改變過來了 . . .
雖然說這次的不丹任務有當地政府的支持，但出發前還是一步一驚心。先有VISA
問題、後有機票問題、東部地震問題、天氣究竟有沒有如某些網站所說只有 -4
度的疑問、住的酒店究竟確認了沒有、到底我們要去的是哪一所學校、究竟有多少學生參與、不丹各地又有多少老師前來參與、電線拖板夠不夠、班房有多少等等，
甚麼都不清楚，問不丹的負責人，他們都好像不著緊！有一個不丹人後來跟我說： "We don't plan here at Bhutan!"
By OLPC APAC on September 18, 2009 3:23 PM
|1 Comment
7th June, Puyang Primary School. The original campus collapsed during the 512 Earthquake. The current campus is now a cluster of hastily erected temporary classrooms.
It is the last day of school before the summer vacation. On the blackboards are lists of summer homework and assignments. Some parents are anxiously waiting for their child outside the classroom.
The tasks for us OLPC volunteers is twofold -- firstly, to set up the classrooms and XOs, and secondly to hold XO workshops for primary school students.
This is how the classrooms looked like when we arrived:
And we had to set up four classrooms to look like this:
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