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| 5/13/2009 10:04:00 AM Email this article • Print this article |
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Eli Luxenberg and James Elkin pose with a laptop that’s part of the One Laptop Per Child Initiative. (Photo by Rachel Philipson) |
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Cornell students preparing for summer in Africa
Taryn Thompson
Reporter
Cornell University students Eli Luxenberg and James Elkin are on a mission: to empower African children with technological skills in a computer-savvy world.
The two information science majors, about to finish their sophomore years, will board a plane to Mauritania on June 8 to spend several weeks teaching and tutoring. The trip will be funded by a grant from the One Laptop Per Child initiative, an organization dedicated to providing a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education.
Luxenberg and Elkin where one of 15 students groups chosen from an applicant pool of more than 200 with innovative and creative ideas for making education a priority, not a privilege. Simply known as the Cornell OLPC, Luxenberg and Elkin proposed to introduce laptop computing in Mauritania with the goal of improving children's' literacy through a partnership with the Peace Corps in the rural city of Tidjikja.
"The general idea is to give kids access to technology," said Luxenberg. "The way we got the idea was through my brother Seth, who works for the Peace Corps in Tidjikja and will be the local contact for the project."
Luxenberg's brother was stationed in Mauritania by the Peace Corps to work in environmental education.
"He said a lot of the time people just want to learn English and how to use computers," Luxenberg said. "They have some computers there, but not many, and they don't have the same personalized access that we have. So we just want to give a few kids that opportunity."
Each team was selected to carry out specific deployments to different parts of Africa, Luxenberg explained.
"Two members from each deployment have training in Rwawnda for a week to meet and learn about methodology," he said. "From there, everyone will go to their specific deployment sites for the summer. Ours is Tidjikja."
In Mauritania, school subjects are taught in Arabic or French, rather than the local dialect. The official language, modern standard Arabic, shares roots with the local dialect but differs completely from colloquial language.
This impedes language instruction because children cannot connect the words on the page to the words they are speaking, according to the group's Web site. The overall literacy rate in Mauritania is 51.2 percent, compared to 99 percent in developed countries.
Cornell OLPC will partner with Peace Corps volunteers who have been serving communities in Mauritania since 1967. Their mastery of local languages, cultural training, and community-based connections will help establish presence within the country.
Through President Clinton's Education for Development and Democracy Initiative of 2000, the Peace Corps created Girls' Mentoring Centers to support education and empowerment of young women. Luxenberg and Elkin will work with the Tidjikja GMC, where every student will receive their own laptop.
"So often you've given to an organization and it doesn't get distributed properly or it's given to the government and the government has bureaucratic difficulties," Elkin said.
"In addition to being able to go there and give personally to kids and help them figure everything out, OLPC gives us the opportunity to travel to the middle of the Sahara desert and run power and internet to the GMC, making sure this is really going to happen."
Elkin explained that because of the way education is organized in Mauritania, the government has a policy of rotating teachers from different parts of the country to integrate different ethnic minorities. That's why laptops will not go directly to the schools.
"We didn't think it would be self-sustainable, so we're distributing the laptops to the after school program at the GMC, which is like a YWCA," he said. There, girls can learn entrepreneurial skills and receive supplements to the school curriculum. It also provides a safe haven.
"OLPC is doing a great thing in that they've gathered a lot of money to develop, design, and produce a laptop geared just for kids," Elkin said. "They created open-source software that goes along with each computer."
Elkin said the partnership will focus on training teachers to work with the laptops and teaching kids how to integrate the computers into the classroom.
"The laptop is a tool that makes hands-on learning a lot easier," Elkin said. "The philosophy of constructivism is easier because instead of going out and actually building a bridge which takes time and resources, you can do it on a computer screen which someone donated. That's why I feel like this is an awesome opportunity."
Luxenberg and Elkins received $30,000 through the grant for operating expenses and laptops developed by OLPC - 100 of them at $200 each.
The ultimate goal of OLPC is to provide each of the worlds' poorest children with a rugged, low-cost, low-power connected laptop outfit with software designed for interactive learning. According to the Web site, when children have access to this type of tool, they get engaged in their own education.
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The Youth Leadership Corps is a new Youth Council program to connect teens (14+) with their community through volunteer service while also doing workshops for leadership building and event/outreach planning. After two compelling opening productions, Glimmerglass Opera began its second weekend with an all-time favorite, Mozart's comic masterpiece "The Marriage of Figaro." Don't let the title fool you; with the libretto by genius collaborator Lorenzo da Ponte, this opera is presented in Italian with English projected titles. The show was a truly remarkable achievement-a seamless, clearly delineated, musically excellent, and emotionally telling performance-matched only by some unscheduled thunder and lightning theatrics outside.  |
