Ceibal project

The Plan Ceibal is a Uruguayan initiative to implement the “1 to 1” model to introduce Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in primary public education and is beginning with the expansion into secondary schools.

In four years Plan Ceibal delivered 450,000 laptops to all students and teachers in the primary education system and no-cost internet access throughout the country. Impact already be seen, include: increased self-esteem in students, improved motivation of students and teachers as well as active participation by parents (94% approve of the Plan according to a national survey performed in 2009).

The success of Plan Ceibal is not only due to technological innovations, but also to achievements such as the creation of a training plan for teachers in primary education, the active inclusion of the society and teachers in the project and the successful design and implementation of a monitoring and evaluation model to measure the impact nationally that serves as a guide to define future actions in the Plan.

Lente uruguayo

Ceibal Project emerged as a result of the digital gap that existed in Uruguay between the people who didn't have access to technology and to those who did. It was impelled during the regime of Tabaré Vazquez as a pioneer project; although it was inspired by Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child project. It raised three prinicipal values: to distribute technology, to promote knowledge and to generate social equity.

The project was named “Ceibal” like the typical Uruguayan tree and flower called “ceibo”, known in english as Cockspur coral tree. Ceibal also stands for "Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea" (Educational Connectivity/Basic Computing for Online Learning in English). The OLPC XO-1 computers used in the project are nicknamed "ceibalitas".

Goals

Ceibal Project tries to promote digital inclusion and decrease the digital gap that exists among the Uruguayans and between Uruguay and the rest of the world. However, this goal can be accomplished only if it is complemented by an educational plan for teachers, students and their families.The educational plan of Ceibal Project tries to create the technological resources, the teacher´s formation, the creation of suitable content and the social and familiar participation. Ceibal Project has strategic principles: equity of knowledge, equal opportunities for children and youth, the disposition of tools to learn, not only the knowledge that is given by the school, but also with the knowledge that the child can learn by him or herself.

General

• To improve the quality of education through the new technological system.
• Providing computers to every scholar and teacher of the public education, promote the same opportunities for all.
• To develop a culture based on collaboration between children, a child and teacher, teachers with each other, families and school.
• To promote a sense of criticism of technology on the pedagogical community.

Estudiantes con XO

Specific

• To promote the laptops as a useful tool in the schools.
• To offer the teachers a suitable technological and pedagogical formation of the new technologies.
• To produce educational resources, with the new technological tools.
• To inspire an innovational mind of the teachers.
• To assure a good development of the project by a supportive system and technological assistance.
• To involve the parents in the implementation of the project, not only in the schools, but also in the houses of the scholars.
• To promote the proportion of relevant information of all the people involved in the project, in order to improve it.

Phases

• To assure a good development of the project by a supportive system and technological assistance.
• To involve the parents in the implementation of the project, not only in the schools, but also in the houses of the scholars.
• To promote the proportion of relevant information of all the people involved in the project, in order to improve it.

Controversy

Economical inefficacy

The British magazine The Economist draws a balance of Ceibal applied in Uruguay which it describes as "pioneering project" but whose outcome is uncertain and various implementation problems. According to the magazine, 380,000 students received their "laptop" model developed by One Laptop Per Child, an NGO in Massachusetts. Said that this represented a cost equivalent to 5% of the total education budget.

The Economist wonders whether the money invested in this plan is well used and immediately lists some of the pitfalls encountered during implementation. Thus, reports that the first 50,000 computers came with software in English, not Spanish, and many of the machines-half in school for 95 of Montevideo, which takes as an example, are broken.

Explains that the biggest technical problem is connectivity, according to a report prepared last month by the government indicates that 70% of primary schools, only half of the "laptops" can work simultaneously and two of five rural schools have no connection. He says this requires transfer to bus students to other sites so they can take tests. Another problem posed by Ceibal, says The Economist, is that most teachers Uruguayan-high average age, precisely find it difficult to cope with new technology.

The newspaper article closes with an exhortation to consider Ceibal more as a means to improve education as an end in itself.^[1][2]

Educational inefficacy

The Inter-American Development Bank assessed the impact of computers in education and criticized the Ceibal. They stressed the need to train teachers and said "give campuses more machines will do little to improve the quality of teaching."

The report Schools and computers: why governments must do their homework, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) says that equipping school buildings for more computers will do little to improve the quality of education in Latin America and the Caribbean countries unless they invest in teacher training and educational software.

The IDB study raises even an "improved version" of Ceibal that is similar to the standard of one laptop per student, but differs in the intensity of the training provided to teachers and includes the use of educational software ".

The use of information technologies and communications (ICT) in education "can be very expensive and may exclude important alternative programs which are already significant results," said Alberto Chong, general coordinator of that study.

According to the actual wording of the report, "countries can not think that will improve student learning by simply creating access to computers. The quality in use is crucial."

The researchers performed tests of control on various IT projects in the region and found that "only 14%" of the projects included in the sample benefited "significantly" to the adoption of computers, while 57% had "benefits partial "and 29%" minimal benefit "to have these tools for students in the classroom.

The report adds an appendix of "lessons learned regarding the use of computers in education" in which he asserts that "there are uncertainties regarding the potential effects of programs of widespread distribution of laptops to students," since " programs that ignore the teacher training and development of software programs can produce poor results. "

The IDB also stipulates that if children "without constant supervision of adults in the household can spend more time using their computers in ways that do not contribute to their education, instead of doing their duty."

In contrast, states that a lower investment and more effective is the computer rooms. "To give students training in the use of computers for one to two hours per week has had positive effects on learning and employment opportunities. This may be a cheaper investment, especially for countries with limited resources," he adds.

In terms of average costs, create and maintain a "computer lab" at a school costs about $ 23 per pupil in Latin America, "well below the $ 217 per student who does a program that gives every child a computer, "says the document.

Perhaps the only point of the report which Ceibal wins is the one that says "the use of educational computer software in schools to improve education in mathematics, has been shown to produce promising results in the region".^[3]

Low security and pornography danger

Since the launch of Plan Ceibal, has reported various cases where students have access to pages with pornographic content, violent or otherwise unsuitable for minors. One such case is that of a teacher in the city of Sauce (Canelones) that relates to have seen one of his students, of only 9 years old, watching pornography in the middle class.

The teacher of the girl of 9 years, 109 of Sauce School gave an interview to José Abel Zarza (Journal Code 3) and then discussed the issue on its agenda Carousel of Hope in FM Dreams of Sauce.

The teachers report that the girl used the computer to download Ceibal XO games although in many cases do not have a pedagogical purpose, but for half the game appeared a proposal pornographic. Another case was when the children were walking down a film called "The Jungle Book" and the end appeared half naked children.

Another was the case from recording a song town drunk, and in the middle of the song displayed pornographic images were "the master narrative. Continue telling the teacher "one day we were playing with the computer, and noticed a strange movement in the group as a kind of mariposeo weird, like they were hiding something".

"It was a 9 year old girl" tells the teacher and sent to another room and tried to watch what they were looking for, and is that the images on the computer had oral sex Ceibalita were specifically was that, "said the teacher and adds "after I discovered that, everyone began to say that guy went to that page and see this thing, another goes to another page that is otherwise".

Came to describe the report that a child made him "you can not just walk into racing cars and motorcycles, but directly put photos pornos" I asked him, "but your child can get into that," he said, "if a teacher".

The reporter asked Bush to the teacher, is not there a filter to prevent seeing pornography? "No, the XO does not have this filter, the only place you can not enter because he goes 'restricted access' is a military themes, themes of NASA and the Presidency of the Republic, but it Moreover, you can go to all that the child wants".

"When I saw. that 9 year old girl who had oral sex pictures totally explicit in the class could not believe it, but the other children told me she always looks, and that the other day I had an image where there was a sexual relationship in motion, and women climbed on top of man and made him pee up".

The teacher feels betrayed by saying "I never thought that a child could betray me like that, I thought they played. I would have preferred the computer truly be a tool "because" before seeking the child pornography had to go to Cyber and pay now under the arm pornography on the computer Ceibal School.

"If you get naked in a square, take him prisoner on the computer but are now seeing that," says the teacher discouraged. "There are testimonies from people who saw big people telling children how to make images to see porn, and children from second year and have expertise to find".

"I called the INAU and they said they could not do anything, to call Primary Primary and told me he can not do anything, to call the Parliament and there I spoke with who are supposed to protect the child and adolescent and tell me they could not do anything, but I never gave the name of whom I attended, was a secretary, and left me waiting to hear a music phone".

"I also called the Canary Islands and was told I had to make a report to Primary, I came to the conclusion that nobody cares about anything, just to show that buy these computers".

"Now I have another problem, on vacation, the school has to leave on the server because you can not turn off, I wonder who will care for children in summer school are using the server?, Not only children enter of parents coming late teens and high school. What can happen to those children who are there and those adolescents who do not have control? How I can check if there is a violation of one of these days in the school fund, "says the teacher concerned".

"A little girl seized the XO computer comes Ceibal mom waiting for her. I do not know if the mother feels guilty or that is also in the house, or if you are aware, because maybe the girl did not say anything, but he never came to look so far, "said the teacher," and are 4 or 5 brothers and everyone has a computer at home".

LATU and we call the section of the plan with Ceibal and we attended a young lady named Claudia, to whom we ask to contact the Director, because a year ago LATU announced that it had a remote filter can prevent access to such pornographic pages ceibalitas. The young Claudia was very surprised, and said that the Director was in a meeting and would call us soon. Never again called to the school or the teacher.^[4][5][6]

On the other hand, police are investigating another similar case in Salto, where neighbors have complained that there are children who, using the signal from the Internet café, access to pages with sexual content. The complainants requested the presence of the uniformed in the environment of Internet cafes, where you could see that children between 9 and 10 years, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, were connected to these sites not suitable for minors.

Even, there was an Internet café, which closed at the exit of a school classes for more than an hour to prevent children from using the connection to that purpose. Other complaints of neighbors aimed at school principals because they saw that, on leaving school, at the door of schools, there were children using the laptops to access the Internet and accessing pornography.

The head of the Family Court, Raquel Gini Casas, is analyzing the situation and tries to put the corresponding coordinations to determine the possibility of laptops, which are used to access pornographic sites, can be removed.

The Departmental Inspector of Primary Education, Rodolfo Urrutia said to be trying to sensitize parents to try to control how they use their children to the laptops ^[7].

Source of distraction in class

According to the testimony of various teachers, their students tend to be distracted by the computers. The students seem to pay more attention to multimedia content integrated into their XO to the class or even surfing the Internet freely while it runs. Moreover, the docentesles it is impossible to prevent this from happening, because they can not keep track on every computer.

Health risks

• Visual risks: Within the visual damage users may suffer from prolonged use of computers, there are a number of diseases such as headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, redness, fatigue, eyestrain, dry eyes, irritated, double vision, polyopia, and difficulty focusing eyes. All included in a syndrome called Computer vision syndrome or CVS for your acronym.

• Social, emotional and psychological risks: Some of the social, emotional and psychological diseases what students can suffer are the Internet addiction disorder (IAD), Social isolation, weak interpersonal relationships, lack of motivation and self-discipline, emotional detachment from the community and commercial exploitation.

• Body risks: Recent studies have revealed that there are bacteria that can survive on keyboards and keyboard covers. The vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE), which can cause complicated abdominal infections, skin, urinary tract and bloodstream in people with compromised immune systems, the Staphylococcus aureus, resistant to methicillin (MRSA) that can cause hives, boils , blisters or other skin afflictions, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PSAE), a common cause of pneumonia and urinary tract infections and bloodstream.^[8] It can also cause neck pain and shoulder, carpal tunnel syndrome,^[9] migraine headache, backaches, nutritional abnormalities, sleep disturbances ^[10] and obesity due to the replacement of time spent on exercise and physical recreation.

References

1. ^ Laptops for all - The Economist
2. ^ Ceibal bajo lupa - El País Digital (In spanish)
3. ^ Plan Ceibal "hará poco para mejorar calidad" educativa - El País (In spanish)
4. ^ Maestra saucena denuncio que hay niños que ven pornografía en las computadoras - El Corresponsal (In spanish)
5. ^ Maestra denunció que niños ven pornografía en XO - Uruguay al Día (In spanish)
6. ^ Maestra denuncia pornografia en computadoras Ceibalitas XO - El Corresponsal (Listen in Spanish)
7. ^ Justicia investiga acceso de niños a pornografía - El País
8. ^ Hoja Informativa sobre Los Peligros de Bacteria en los Teclados de Computadora de los Trabajadores en el Cuidado de la Salud (In spanish)
9. ^ Long Hours at Computer: Health Risks & Prevention - LifeMojo
10. ^ Adicción A Internet: Síntomas Físicos Y Psicológicos - Editum.org (In spanish)

External links

• Official Education Web site
• Official Institucional Web site
• Miguel Brechner in TEDX - Plaza Cibeles
• OLPC Wiki about the project in Uruguay
• Miguel Brechner Frey of Plan CEIBAL speaks about the measurable results of the plan at TEDxBuenosAires, October 2010. Kids, parents and teachers from Escuela 5, Salto, Uruguay appear discussing the impact of the XO on their lives.