Evaluation of the Educational Value of the OLPC Project

While the One Laptop Per Child project and OLPC XO-1 hardware is intyeresting from an ICT point of view, the question is how useful is it for its primary purpose of educating childern. Formative Evaluation of OLPC Project Nepal: A Summary (September 28th, 2008 By:Rabi Karmacharya), provides a summary of Uttam Sharma's research on use of the OLPC. Two Nepalise test schools had 135 OLPCs distributed to all students. The conclusion was a positive one, with the computers working and perceived to be educationally beneficial.

The schools were described as a "Secondary School" and a "Lower Secondary School", with students in grade 2 and 6. It is not clear to me what age these students would be or what educational level this is. The OLPC is specifically intended for younger children in the first few years of schooling, who are learning to read, basic mathematics and the like.