- Aotearoa
- OLPC Friends
- in Testing
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Mission Statement
To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
Kotahi tamaiti, Kotahi rorohiko iti: nō Aotearoa
Test Reports
Micro Sponsors
We wish to thank our generous and wonderful sponsors:
I Want My Name
Southern Cross Wellington
Windsor Castle Parnell Auckland
We wish to thank our generous and wonderful micro sponsors:
- Stuart Maxwell from Amanzi Ltd
- Daniel Spector
- LCA2010 attendees who gave us their USB sticks
Sun Microsystems (and Glynn Foster) for USB sticks for Software Freedom Day - University of Auckland for their USB sticks for giving out at LCA2010
- Steve Leon of Spring TV for making this video about olpc in NZ
If you would like to help, please contact us: olpc-nz@lists.laptop.org
Thank you
Mona Lisa Experience
502_0421_disassemble
502_0320_scientist
Students work outside with solar power
User login
WELCOME
We are a group of New Zealand educators, technologists, polyglots, and more who contribute to the One Laptop Per Child project.
Our goal is to get a laptop loaded with educational tools into the hands of every one of the world's poorest children. OLPC has shipped to millions of children around the world, given laptops to every child and teacher across entire countries. The work continues.
We write software, test other people's software, design educational activities, and translate text. We are part of a global effort of professionals, volunteers, students, and people like yourself.
We also are deploying pilots into New Zealand schools. Come talk to us about the olpc hardware and the Sugar educational software.
We meet once a week in Wellington and Auckland. Everyone is welcome to join us. We have brunch, drink coffee, and enjoy conversation while continuing the good work.
Want to know more?
Read all about it
Want to join us?
Step 1) join our mailing list
Step 2) Find your local group
Wellington meets every week, Saturday 11am at the Southern Cross, 35 Abel Smith St. http://thecross.co.nz
Auckland meets every week, Saturday 11am at the Windsor Castle, 144 Parnell Road. http://thewindsor.co.nz/
Mona Lisa Experience
Students work outside with solar power
Introducing Sugarbot
Here's a tip for testers: you can use a machine to run tests for you. If you know introductory Python, you'll be able to create sets of instructions that a machine will carry out for you. How does this happen? Thank Sugarbot.
Some history: In 2008, Zach Riggle created Sugarbot during Google Summer of Code. His project was mentored by the editor of http://agiletesting.blogspot.org. That set him on a very good foundation. Sugarbot basically works as an activity withinside Sugar, it just happens to play with other Acitivities.
Further (only slightly technical) details after the jump.
Reflashing the XO-1 by Tim McNamara
Reflashing the XO-1 from Tim McNamara on Vimeo.
This is a tutorial on how to reflash an XO-1.0. The XO-1.0 is distributed by One Laptop Per Child to provide quality education. You can learn more about the programme by visiting laptop.org/.
This video was produced by OLPC Aotearoa, a group of volunteers that supports the work of the global programme with testing, software development and advocacy. Our local site is laptop.org.nz/. The video is made with free software: Ubuntu, OpenShot & Inkscape.
Open Video Chat
Team OneBeep wins 3rd place at World Imagine Cup
Team One Beep, made up of fourth year undergraduates. Vinny Jeet, Steve Ward, Kayo Lakadia and Chanyeol Yoo, Their idea is to send streams of data across the readily available FM/AM frequencies to impoverished communities.
Team One Beep won the Imagine Cup 2010 in New Zealand and traveled to Poland for the world finals.
After many days of judging, they came THIRD.
Big massive congratulations to the team. Looking forward to seeing this idea deployed to the children of the world.
Thanks iWantMyName
olpc NZ volunteers wish to thank iWantMyName for their support and renewing our domain laptop.org.nz for free.
Support Team OneBeep at Imagine Cup Poland by voting
Vote for Team OneBeep in the Peoples Choice Award
Watch the videos about the Team OneBeep project
You can also follow OneBeep on twitter and keep up with the teams progress.
WFP_Promo_Nepal
olpc visits AuckLUG installfest
olpc visited AuckLUG installfest - in the photo you see an XO and you see others looking at Sugar on another laptop - most interesting in the picture is that there are 4 people looking at Sugar on the other hardware
Solomon Islands study evidence of OLPC's positive impact
If you haven't already read about it, I recommend you look at the independent evaluation of the olpc pilot projects in the Solomon Islands.
The Solomon Island government commissioned ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research) to evaluate the deployments in three villages and have reported back not only on the impact on students, but also on teachers, parents and the communities.
"OLPC must and should be given the opportunity to expand in Solomon Islands," the report quotes a school principal involved in the pilots. "It must be realised appreciated and embraced."
Read more about it on the olpc Oceania blog
olpc Auckland goes weekly
Everyone's Favourite Testing Adventure Now Weekly
By popular demand, we will be testing olpc, sugar and coffee at the Windsor at 144 Parnell Road in Auckland. Saturdays, from 11am.
Know someone who might be interested in helping olpc but not in a testing role? Invite them to come along as a translator if they speak another language, or to write lesson plans if they are an educator.
See you this Saturday at 11am at the Windsor.
Update on Team OneBeep - radio software gets data to remote areas
Vinny and Team OneBeep have made the news again with their recent nationwide win of the Microsoft Imagine Cup New Zealand round. They are off to Poland for the internationals.
Project aimed at improving OLPC project wins Imagine Cup
Kiwi imagination yields winning solution
Kiwi Teams Creates Waves with Innovative Application
Congratulations on the win. We look forward to hearing more about the project as you progress and seeing it helping the olpc remote deployments.
Larry Teckmeyer volunteers art for olpc
Larry Teckmeyer has made art for olpc and has said "Share it ASAP" as he has donated it.
Team One Beep - radio software gets data to remote areas
Team One Beep, made up of fourth year undergraduates Vinny Jeet, Steve Ward, Kayo Lakadia and Chanyeol Yoo, worked through the summer break to prove their idea could work. Their proposal was to send streams of data across the readily available FM/AM frequencies to impoverished communities.
Their project addresses a common problem encountered by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) charity. The charity makes education more available to third world countries by delivering low cost laptops to remote and poor communities. They have distributed 1.2 million laptops already, and the number is growing. However a lack of infrastructure, such as broadband or even telephone lines, makes it nearly impossible to update the educational materials on the laptops.
Team One Beep intend running field trials in Australia and the Pacific Islands. Solomon Island OLPC deployment has made contact and is interested in collaborating with Team One Beep.
Rwanda's laptop revolution
Rwanda has a plan to prevent any return to the genocide of 1994: connect 100,000 children to the outside world with their own laptops
Source and full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/28/rwanda-laptop-revolution
olpc went to foo
Tabitha and Fabiana were at Foo Camp in Warkworth on the weekend and took seven XOs between them - a mix of XO-1.0 and XO-1.5 machines - for attendees to try out and discuss where olpc is at in New Zealand and the world.
We can't say much more as what goes on at bar camp stays at bar camp. All we can really say is it was awesome and well worth going to.
Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/people/aur2899/
Thanks!
LCA2010: Wellington 18 - 23 January 2010
The New Zealand olpc and Sugarlabs volunteers are running a workshop during the education miniconf on Tuesday.
* http://www.lca2010.org.nz/wiki/Miniconfs/Education
We are also participating in the Open Day on Saturday.
* http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/open_day
If you are in Wellington, hope you can make it. :-)
laptop org nz cards
New year gatherings
Come along to the Southern Cross on Saturday 9 January 2010 for the first session of the year, or on 16 January 2010 for the second session.
We will be preparing for LCA2010 which is 18-23 January, Wellington town hall where we are going to have a workshop on the Tuesday in the education miniconference as well as two areas during the Open Day (one for people to experience using the XOs and the other area for Sugar on other hardware and using Sugar on a Stick).
If you are in Wellington on Saturday 23 January 2010 please come to the Open Day. Bring a USB key and we will put Sugar on it for you to take home.
LCA2010 will be an exciting start to the new year.
Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry Released
Sugar Labs has released Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry - the platform agnostic version of the Sugar Learning Platform.
Sugar is the educational software used on One Laptop PEer Child XO laptops. It's an entire operating system, and there are zillions of educational activities for Sugar.
"Sugar On a Stick" is the same educational environment, bundled up onto a bootable USB memory stick. Simply plug in the "Sugar on a Stick" to almost any PC's usb port, and reboot. Children's files and lesson progress is saved to the same usb memory stick so it's all kept for next time, and the USB memory stick can be used at home and at school.
This latest version of Sugar offers simpler navigation, improved wireless networking, streamlined updating of Activities for children, easier keyboard configuration, better Gnash support for Adobe Flash content, and more. New Activities such as Physics and OOo4Kids join updated favorites such as Browse and Read, suitable for reading e-books.
So what are you waiting for? Download Sugar today!
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Blueberry
OLPC Auckland meeting
OLPC Auckland meeting this saturday 11:00 am at the Windsor Castle 144 Parnell Road.
OLPC Friends Sydney Meet Up
Join the first OLPC Friends BoF @ SLUG's monthly meeting for October 2009. Meetings are open to the general public, and are free of charge.
Acronym time:
* SLUG means Sydney Linux User Group
* BoF means Birds of a Feather
If you can't make it to the event (sorry I haven't got a plane) join online at #olpcfriends (IRC freenode).
Google Australia
48 Pirrama Road
Pyrmont NSW 2009
Australia
Friday, October 30 at 6:30 PM (EST) - that is 8:30pm for us in New Zealand
The shiny new XO1.5s have arrived
They've cleared customs, and arrived in Wellington: Grant unpacking 5 of the new XO1.5 Laptops
One Laptop Per Pacific Child
We caught up with Ian Thomson, OLPC Oceania Coordinator today, and heard about the pilot deployments at Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.
Students in the Solomon Islands with the OLPC XO Laptops
There have been 3400 XOs deployed to the Pacific Islands so far, with another 1600 waiting to be deployed in the Pacific region. By working with ACER Australian Council of Education Research there is an evaluation being conducted of the Solomon Islands, anticipated publish date of November 2009.
As part of the pilots work has been done with teachers, parents and education ministries to ensure the best success of the pilots. Some of the lessons learned include reinforcements that the OLPC programme enhances, strengthens and aligns with regional and country education goals and plans. The communities have been supportive of the deployments.
Teachers in Nauru with their laptops
Traditionally, in pacific cultures it is not typically acceptable that the children know more than the adults, however the pilots have shown that it is okay for children to know more than adults with regards to technology and literacy.
There is interesting discussions happening on how XOs can be used to support traditional knowledge.
Another lesson learned by the pilot groups is that a standing stock of XOs and hardware peripherals should be centrally maintained in the region to efficiently feed deployments in a timely and cost-efficient manner.
Teacher training session in Dreikikir - Papua New Guinea
The pilot phase has resulted in the development of community consultation guidelines that recommend principles for ensuring OLPC is introduced with the full involvement and consent of local communities.
Children from Patukae in the Solomon Islands
Translation projects are under way for Papua New Guinea pidgin, Solomon Islands Pidgin, and Kosraean. Future translations to start are Fijiian, Samoan and Tongan working with the local Ministries of Education.
One of the challenges they are still working on is funding trials in 15 Pacific countries. The technical working group have scoped the rollout trial phase at US$3.5 million including the hardware and all the support required for implementation.
The NZ testers will offer any support they can in testing and recommend any educational technologists wanting to donate their time, take a working holiday in one of these locations:
Piloted: Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu
Trials: Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Fiji, French Polynesia, Republic of Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga and Tuvalu.
Niue students with their XO laptops
The Tester's TODO list
We're working our way through the list of activities for the Peru deployment.
We've also had a request from Australia to test their bundle of activities for their upcoming deployment in the Northern Territories (spreadsheet attached)
We also have a request to retest foodforce.
Vik's Reprap in makezine
Vik's Open Source 3d printer, that prints many things including spare parts for OLPC XO Laptops, featured in Makezine's blog this week.
Next Auckland Meeting - 2009-10-10
Auckland meeting will be on Saturday 10:30am at De Post waffle house in Mt Eden.
The place is De Post: 466 Mt Eden Rd, Mt Eden East, Auckland 1024, Auckland - (09) 630 9330.
Did we mention it's also a WAFFLE HOUSE!?
Reprap view finder
Aly tries out one of the reprap printed view finders:
in other news - the One-3D-printer-per-child project continues progress - imagine a world where every child had access to a printer capable of printing a real 3D version of any object they can think of and describe on their OLPC XO laptop.
OLPC in uruguay - 380,000 computers over 2 years
A video of the revolution going on in Uruguary in education, where every child and every teacher now has an XO OLPC laptop:
Tsunami hits Samoa
An 8.3 earthquake caused a tsunami in Samoa today.
We have confirmed that Ian Thomson, RICS and Oceania OLPC Coordinator, is safe in Noumea.
There is an OLPC project deployment in Samoa and there has been some equipment destroyed. We are not aware of any volunteers being hurt or killed in the tsunami.
We will keep in contact with Ian and others in the area to find out what we can do to help during this time.
Our thoughts are with the survivors and their families.
What's happening in Aotearoa - kotahi tamaiti, kotahi rorohikoiti
WellyNZTesters have issued a Call For Papers for the education miniconf we're running at the LCA2010 conference on mid January next year
http://laptop.org.nz/content/miniconf
If you want to come visit us in New Zealand, and can't afford it right now, please apply for funding http://www.lca2010.org.nz/media/news/89
We're testing the full activity bundle for the upcoming Peru deployment
http://laptop.org.nz/test-request
An Auckland group has started!
Some kind folks in Sydney are rounding up unused dust-gathering XOs from the LCA2007 giveaway, to ship to Wellington.
We've got a school server running.
The OLPC XO and 3D printing with RepRap
Vik Olliver made this video to show how the XO can drive the RepRap machine. This allows the XO to build its own parts. In the video, the RepRap is making view finders to help children taking pictures with the XO's built in camera.
Sugar on a Stick
Shown here, all the usb keys we flashed with Sugar on a Stick for Software Freedom Day. The keys were donated by Sun Microsystems.
OLPC hackfest / testfest - Auckland and Wellington
The NZ OLPC "Friends in Testing" meets every saturday in Wellington. This saturday will be the first meeting after a very successful Software Freedom Day here.
http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/wellington
This saturday is also the first ever meeting of the Auckland group.
What's involved is: brunch, coffee, conversation, intro to the green XO laptops, how the OS works, how to install an activity, and then you test your chosen activity, try to find some bugs. If we find bugs we send a test report back to the project.
If we don't find any bugs we also send a report saying how awesome the project is. Those that know python may wish to track down and destroy the bug, but for the most part we don't.
We've been ask to test the list of activities that are being deployed to kids in Peru soon
We're meeting at 10:30am, and tying the two locations together via irc (we're a bit bandwidth constrained in cafes.
Wellington is at the southern Cross http://thecross.co.nz
Auckland group is at Ironique, 448 Mt Eden Rd, Mt Eden.
Please join us - there will be many newcomers at both events.
p.s. People hacking on other projects are also welcome - we like "cross pollination". I know there are some koha, statusnet and drupal hackers coming.
p.p.s. If you have your own laptop, whatever flavour, bring that along too. The "sugar" software project that powers the OLPC laptops should run on most anything, and if it doesn't work on yours, we'd like to know that too.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Auckland OLPC meetup and test fest
Aucklanders are meeting this Saturday, to have the first OLPC test fest in the city.
There will be spare XO laptops, so if you're interested come along and join us. The coffee is good and there is wifi.
Location: Ironique, 448 Mt Eden Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland. 10:30am on Saturday.
There will be a simultaneous OLPC testfest in Wellington
Sugar for the Children of the World
OLPC & Sugar has now been deployed to EVERY SINGLE CHILD in Uruguay, Peru and Niue!!
In total 1,374,500 XOs have been shipped to the children of the world in Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Ghana, India, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua, New Guinea, Solomons, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
That doesn't even include all the unofficial pilot programmes, the gifting of XOs to test groups (such as Wellington friends in testing), nor all the software only deployments of sugar and sugar on a stick.
We're proud to be part of a project that is creating educational opportunities for the world's poorest children.
Auckland Sugar
The XO known as "mojo" has moved to Auckland, and now lives with Fabiana Kubke, a neuroscientist and educator from Auckland University.
Here's a postcard we recieved today from mojo:
If you're in Auckland, and want to join in the fun of contributing to the OLPC/Sugar projects, get in contact with Fabiana Kubke
Software Freedom Day - Sunday 20 September @ Wellington Town Hall
Software freedom day is almost open us:
http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/
We have put OLPC and Sugar on the agenda for Kids programme, Students programme and for hackerfest.
We are very excited to have the sponsorship of Sun Microsystems who have donated 150 USB keys to the event and have given us permission to put Sugar on a Stick on some of these to give away at Software Freedom Day.
With well over two hundred registrations for this years event we are looking forward to sharing OLPC and Sugar with attendees.
Report from WellyNZTesters Group Test 2009-09-12
Present: Brenda, Callum, Alastair, Tabitha, Dave, Sigi, Carl, Tania, Tim
Sugar on a Stick - did 80 USB keys today! awesome! tested them and they all boot up, so we are ready for Software Freedom Day
Maori translation - started looking at pootle and talking about how much work the translation will take
Wellington OLPC group at the Open Govt Barcamp.
Last weekend, the Wellington OLPC group went to the Open Govt Barcamp.
Tabitha was recorded in this interview - Overview of how the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) laptop works:
Thanks Steve of Spring TV for making the video to share with the world.
Software Freedom Day
Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The principles behind FOSS are underpinned by the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. You can read more about the four freedoms here.
Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business - in short, everywhere!
http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/
What's on in Wellington?
Open Govt Data Barcamp - Transparency is the new black
What's it all about?
The New Zealand Open Government Bar Camp is an "unconference" for people who are interested in making government-held data more freely available for others to re-use. An "unconference" is an alternative participant-driven event, that avoids aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations.
RSVP needed for Saturday
This saturday's OLPC meeting will have a change of scenery - we're going to be at the National Library.
For catering purposes, they want us to RSVP - can you please reply to me if you're going to be there? Please reply ASAP
(Tuesday at latest).
details are
Saturday 29th August
National Library of New Zealand (70 Molesworth Street, Thorndon 6011, Wellington
Barcamp - registration 9:15am+
sessions 10am-5pm
Testing summary - 22 August 2009 Wellington, NZ
Who: Alastair, Tabitha, Tom, Dave, Carl, Brenda, Callum, Tim, Grant, Becs
Recent Deployments - Rwanda
OLPC official blog reports on the recent deployment of XO laptops with the sugar environment into schools in in Rwanda
.
They include the software that the Wellington team contributes to.
XO OLPC / Sugar running Turtle drawings Fractals
XO OLPC / Sugar running Turtle drawings Fractals
Micro Sponsors wanted
Wellington OLPC Friends in Testing a seeking micro sponsors to contribute usb memory sticks
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Give One Get One
http://laptop.org/g1g1 Masi Oka speaks on behalf of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation about the Give One Get One opportunity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbtebeftyA
Sahana project
This Saturday (1st August) during our regular test fest there will be people from the Sahana Project having a hackfest.
Further details on Sahana's facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=220276240206&ref=ts
Final pre-release Candidate Release 8.2.1 incl Activities
Testing requests coming out our ears! Isn't it fantastic to see
momentum in OLPC.
I hope lots of people can make it to the Southern Cross this weekend -
usual time 10.30am, 35 Abel Smith Street.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Holt
Date: 2009/5/13
Subject: [support-gang] "Final pre-release Candidate Release 8.2.1
incl Activities"
To: Support Gangsters , Testing
, Devel's in the Details
Please test this Give1Get1-suitable image, including Activities now.
plz test Build 802 - Candidate Release 8.2.1!
The build is now signed so you don't even need a developer key:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Friends_in_testing
Helping us test WPA (WPA2 especially) would be most useful, since these
wifi connections sometimes fail as much as 20% of the time, when similar
8.2.0 seemed to fail only ~10% of the time. And of course try:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/1_hour_smoke_test
Please help me clean up Release Notes on the way:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/8.2.1
Recap -- all you should need are these 2 files burned onto a USB stick:
Schools out at Daniel Ortellado
Maintenance Workshop
Our workshop on basic laptop repair - aka "pull it apart and put it back together again"
