Evaluation in OLPC: what for? What has been done, what could be done?

Evaluation could a play a role in providing useful feedback on what works and what don’t in the different local deployments, or if certain Sugar activities work better than others for instance. A recent paper from the OLPC Foundation Learning Group clearly advocates for embedding evaluation process into the early stages of the deployment design, (Zehra 2010.) Simple and cheap tools can be used to monitor the effects of the OLPC projects, before thinking of more complex design, such as impact evaluation.Need for a change in education systems, potential private funding (Giving Pledge), widespread impact evaluation documentation, less curricula-driven tests, simple test tools, leave more room for OLPC interventions and evaluation. It is an opportunity to learn that OLPC community should catch right away.

Continue ReadingEvaluation in OLPC: what for? What has been done, what could be done?