Re: Vung Vieng Village XO Project

[Nancie Severs]

   Hello my friends,

Happy & Prosperous New Year to you all!

I am settling back in to life at home in the USA. Tonight it will be 6 degrees below 0, Fahrenheit! It is cold!

1. I was so glad to participate in FOSSAsia this year. After I left HCMC/SGN, I went to Cambodia to visit an XO laptop project there. I have 3 blog entries for that trip. In case you did not see them, they can be found here:

One on Siem Reap here:
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1321389428/tpod.html

and 2 for my visit to the XO project in Reaksmy:
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1322029765/tpod.html

and
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1323139581/tpod.html

Here are some tips to help you navigate my blogs.

A. Click on a photo anywhere in the entry and you will get a larger photo with arrows to click and scroll through all photos. In that format, you'll see the title and any comments I wrote on the right side too.

B. You really only needed one link above. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, below the photos on any entry, and the Table of Entries (Contents) appears below each entry. You can scroll and click on any Entry from any other Entry.

2. Perhaps Mr. Quynh and/or Mr. Hong will soon be contacted by someone from the VVV. Last week, a friend of mine had a trip planned to Halong Bay on Indochina Junk, over the New Year's holiday. She had hoped to visit Vung Vieng and I sent a letter with her. Her boat went to a different village but she assures me that the letter will be hand delivered this week. I suggested that someone from Vong Vieng get in touch with the volunteers in Hanoi. Ms. Nguyet, of this group translated my letter into Vietnamese. Thanks Nguyet. I wrote to my friends that run the souvenir shop in the VVV. Here is a copy of what I wrote:

Letter from Nancie to Vung Vieng Village

28 Tháng 12 2011

Thân chào Hương, Hồng, Nam & Hải
 
Trước tiên tôi xin gửi lời Chúc mừng năm mới tới các bạn J
Thật khó tin là đã 2 năm rồi kể từ ngày tôi tới thăm làng Chài Vung Viêng của các bạn và mang tới 12 laptop từ dự án Mỗi trẻ em một Laptop cùng hệ thống pin năng lượng mặt trời. Tôi luôn mong các bạn và gia đình của các bạn cũng như tất cả người dân & trẻ em ở làng Chài đều khỏe!
 
Elaine là một người bạn của tôi, sẽ tới thăm Vịnh  Hạ Long theo tour của Indochina Junk, vì vậy, tôi nhờ cô ấy gửi lá thư này tới cho các bạn.
 
Tôi đã mất liên lạc về những chiếc máy tính Xos ở làng Chài Vung Viêng trong một thời gian dài. Tôi muốn thông báo cho các bạn rằng hiện tại có những tình nguyện viên tại Hà Nội & TP Hồ Chí Minh của dự án OLPC là người Việt Nam, họ có thể trợ giúp để nâng cấp phần mềm cho những chiếc laptops và hướng dẫn cách sử dụng các trò chơi/hoạt động trên XO bằng tiếng Việt. Các tình nguyện viên đã Việt hóa các trò chơi/hoạt động trên máy XO, và với
những cập nhật mới có sẵn, XO cũng có thể chạy một phần mềm mở được gọi là GNOME trong ngôn ngữ Việt Nam.GNOME có thể xuất hiện cửa sổ trên máy tính.

Để những tình nguyện viên có thể giúp đỡ trẻ em và người lớn tại Làng Chài sử dụng XO, chúng tôi cần có contact liên lạc bằng điện thoại và/hoặc email. Ở làng Chài có ai đang sử dụng những chiếc máy XO mà có thể liên lạc được với những tình nguyện viên không? Người đó có thể là giáo viên tại lớp, hoặc một người lớn nào đó hay thậm chí là một thanh thiếu niên thích sử dụng máy tính.
 
Để bắt đầu, người đó có thể liên hệ với Ông Vũ Quỳnh email vdq...@gmail.com và ông Trần Hồng theo email hong...@gmail.com tại Hà Nội

Có lẽ Hồng hoặc ai đó có thể gửi mail và hỏi số điện thoại của chú Quỳnh, anh Hồng.

Về tôi, gia đình tôi và tôi đang sống tốt ở Mỹ. Tôi đã có một cháu trai đáng yêu 5 tháng tuổi ởi Bangkok. Năm nay tôi vừa mới tới thăm cháu. Tôi cũng đã qua Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh và gặp gỡ nhiều người quan tâm tới việc mang XO tới cho trẻ em Việt Nam. Tôi cũng đã đi cùng Elaine đến một trường học ở Campuchia có nhiều XO cho trẻ em. Những đứa trẻ đã học được rất nhiều thứ với máy tính. Những đứa trẻ lớn hơn giờ đã có thể sử dụng được các loại máy tính và có thể học được nhiều điều từ Internet, bởi vì họ đã có XO.
Tôi hy vọng rằng trẻ em ở làng chài Vung Viêng thích những chiếc máy XO mà tôi đã mang tới. Và tôi rất mong muốn được nghe tin tức về việc những đứa trẻ ở Vung Viêng sử dụng  XO như thế nào.
 
Tôi xin chúc những điều tốt đẹp nhất luôn đến với các bạn J
Chúc mừng năm mới!
Nancie
nancie...@gmail.com


December 28, 2011
Dear Huong, Hong (Rose:)), Nam and Mai,

Happy New Year! I can hardly believe that it has been two years since I visited the Vung Vieng Fishing Village and brought you 12 XO laptops from the One Laptop Per Child project. I hope that you and your families and all of the residents and children in Vung Vieng are well!

I have asked my friend Elaine to bring you this letter when she visits Halong Bay with Indochina Junk.

I have not heard anything about the XOs in the VVV for a long time. I want to tell you that there are volunteers now in Hanoi and HCMC with OLPC Vietnam that can offer help to update the software on the laptops and to show you a Help Activity instruction manual in Vietnamese language. The volunteers have been working to translate the Sugar software for the XO into Vietnamese. And with the new update that is available, the XO can also run an open software called GNOME in the Vietnamese language. GNOME works a little like windows on a PC.

For Vietnamese people to help the children and adults in the VVV with the laptops, we need to have a person for them to contact by phone and/or email. Is there someone who has used the XOs that can be in touch with people who can help? It could be a teacher, or another adult or even a teenager who likes computers.

To start, that person can contact in Hanoi,
Mr. Vu Do Quynh at vdq...@gmail.com
and Mr. Hong D. Tran, hong...@gmail.com

Perhaps Hong (Rose) or someone else can email them and get their phone numbers.

About me, my family and I are well in the USA. I have a new grandson, 5 months old in Bangkok. This year I visited him. I came to HCMC Vietnam and met many people interested in getting XOs for Vietnamese children. I also went with Elaine to a school in Cambodia that has XOs for many children. The children there learn so much with them. The older children are now good on all types of computers and can learn many things on the Internet too, because they have XOs.

I hope that the children in Vung Vieng like the XOs. And that I can hear something about how the children use the laptops.

Happy New Year!
My very best to all of you,
Nancie
nancie...@gmail.com

And, Happy New Year and my very best to all of the members of our OLPC Vietnam Group!
Warm regards and personal thanks,
Nancie:)

--
Nancie
This email came from my XO from OLPC!
Please check out One Laptop Per Child at http://laptop.org/ and help make the world a better place!

[Nguyễn Vũ Hưng]

Hello Nancie,

Thanks for the update. It is really to hear that.

@Hong and Mr. Quynh: I keep an XO at home, please take that if you need.

Nguyen Vu Hung

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "OLPC Vietnam" group.
> To post to this group, send email to olpc-v...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> olpc-vietnam...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-vietnam?hl=en.

--
Best Regards,
Nguyen Hung Vu [aka: NVH] ( in Vietnamese: Nguyễn Vũ Hưng )
vuhung16plus{remove}@gmail.dot.com , YIM: vuhung16 , Skype:
vuhung16plus, twitter: vuhung, MSN: vuhung16.
http://www.facebook.com/nguyenvuhung
http://nguyen-vu-hung.blogspot.com/

[Serge Stinckwich]

2012/1/4 Nancie Severs <nancie...@gmail.com>:

>    Hello my friends,
>>
>> Happy & Prosperous New Year to you all!
>>
>> I am settling back in to life at home in the USA. Tonight it will be 6
>> degrees below 0, Fahrenheit! It is cold!
>>
>> 1. I was so glad to participate in FOSSAsia this year. After I left
>> HCMC/SGN, I went to Cambodia to visit an XO laptop project there. I have 3
>> blog entries for that trip. In case you did not see them, they can be found
>> here:
>>
>> One on Siem Reap here:
>>
>> http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1321389428/tpod.html
>>
>> and 2 for my visit to the XO project in Reaksmy:
>>
>> http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1322029765/tpod.html
>>
>> and
>>
>> http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1323139581/tpod.html

Thank Nancy for this report of your trip. I was mostly interested by
your description of how children use
the XO laptop in Cambodia. It looks like there is almost no support
from IT people in Cambodia (except Channa) in order to update the
machines from time to time. I think this is quite important in order
to change the activities. This is really important to have a dedicated
teacher like the one they found apparently. This is something
definitively missing in VVV.

The main activity seems to be the learning of english. This is nice
that they use Scratch, this is one of my favorite activity also ;-) Do
they build visual programs with the Scratch tiles ?
One of my friend is developing DrGeo 2 activity for XO: http://www.drgeo.eu/
This is an activity to learn geometry. Maybe need more preparation and
knowledge from the teacher, but this could be very nice to visualize
some basic geometry theorems.

I visit the VVV village some months ago : the XO was working correctly
and still used by children, the solar panel was not working correctly.
I told the people here that someone will come back to the people just
to assess their needs and maybe update their laptops with a more
recent version. Unfortunately, i had no time until now to come back
because i was in Japan for two months.

We are 73 people in this OLPC-Vietnam group, this is a pity that we
could not find a small group of people that want to do something
(prepare some new activities, plan a visit to VVV, ...). I know that
some great work had been done for the translation in vietnamese of
some of the activities. This is really important but we need also some
people to deploy and take care of the laptops on the field. Anyone
interested ?
This is also important to find someone like Channa close the village.

@Quynh what is the status of the translation of the XO manual in VN ?

Arky a guy from Mozilla (living in Ha Noi) is in CC of this email. Is
is really knowledgeable in order to organize local community for
translations. Maybe he can help us in order to organize the work a bit
more.

Regards,
--
Serge Stinckwich
UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC), Hanoi, Vietnam
Matsuno Laboratory, Kyoto University, Japan (until 12/2011)
http://www.mechatronics.me.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk
http://doesnotunderstand.org/

[Nancie Severs]

Thank you Hung and Serge for your posts!

I continue to be patient and optimistic that our grassroots effort will make a difference to at least a few Vietnamese children who otherwise would have no opportunity to learn computer skills, and thus limited qualifications for 21st century employment as young adults.

Serge is correct. I like to think of Channa in Cambodia as the local project "Hero." Even though he is a paid teacher, his efforts to learn and plan curriculum and to teach creative fun lessons, go beyond what any other teacher out there does. A "local hero" has been key to a successful small project in Ntugi, Kenya. In that setting, one local person has had his tuition to teachers college funded and will come back and teach, and another young man receives a stipend for an "internship" to manage and document the project. Both of these local young men now have future opportunities that they would not have had but for that XO project. And the children in several villages there are all benefiting as well. The dollar costs are not high, relative to funds available by corporate partnership or grants.

But to grow their project, the benefiting community needs to step up and ask for help. To be successful, they must at some point take ownership. If the solar panels, inverter or charge controller has a problem, they need to contact someone for help resolving it. The people in the VVV are indeed poor. But there are investors in the "business" of that village, and there are at least several tour boat companies making a livelihood of taking tourists there.

I want to mention that this effort to spread digital education to the world's neediest children need not be dependent on just one type of computer; e.g., the XO, or another particular hardware option. In 2007, the XO was the first ever produced Net-book. Everyone thought it to be so light. While I still love its rugged design for the locations it was intended, in HCMC this year the Van Lang University students with their IPhones and IPads said "while we love it's clever design appeal, oh it's so heavy." I thought that was interesting.:) Yet, the Panasonic Toughbook is the only other computer besides the XO that will consistently stand up to the weather and elements in the rural Cambodia setting I visited. The few Toughbooks in the classroom there get a thorough workout. Now they redefine heavy! Let's support whatever hardware works to bring children who otherwise would not have opportunities to learn any computer skills at all.

I hope that in 2012 volunteers from our group can teach some children in a "shelter" in or near Hanoi, with the XOs on hand!

"Give rod, not fish." Teach the children to teach themselves, to solve problems, and to rise above life's difficult circumstances.

Best and thanks!
Nancie

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OLPC Vietnam" group.
To post to this group, send email to olpc-v...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to olpc-vietnam...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-vietnam?hl=en.

[Quynh Vu Do]

Hi,
Soory for a late reply.

Le 4 janvier 2012 13:50, Serge Stinckwich <serge.st...@gmail.com> a écrit :

> We are 73 people in this OLPC-Vietnam group, this is a pity that we
> could not find a small group of people that want to do something
> (prepare some new activities, plan a visit to VVV, ...). I know that
> some great work had been done for the translation in vietnamese of
> some of the activities. This is really important but we need also some
> people to deploy and take care of the laptops on the field. Anyone
> interested ?
> This is also important to find someone like Channa close the village.
>

I just tested recent available techniques for giving internet
accessibility in remote areas like the Vung Vieng Fishing village
using 3G technology.

I found, bought and successfully tested a mini 3G broadband router
(CNET model CQR-681, priced at 770.000 VND in Hanoi, 740.000 VND in
HCMC) that can connect to the internet through 3G and provide internet
access to a local computer LAN with wired or wifi connections. The
router can take power from a USB's computer port, thus using a laptop
as a content server, it could provide internet, wifi connectivity and
selected web content to the XO computers, although during a limited
time when no power is available.

This offers several perspectives to increase the use and the
usefulness of the XO computers in Vung Vieng with a limied extra
investement. But we still need to find a stronger and more committed
local contact for this to be successful.

> @Quynh what is the status of the translation of the XO manual in VN ?

Its translation has been finished in last March:

http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-vietnam/browse_thread/thread/84baf74474b20225

However it seems that the Translate.flossmanuals.net web site is down
or has been discontinued ?
Thus the Vietnamese version of the XO manual can't be read on line.
Fortunately, I made an artisanal copy of the web pages in
OpenOffice.org to generate a PDF version.

You will find the PDF in this page (in Vietnamese) that I just published:

http://hanoi.centre-linux.org/article.php3?id_article=131

Thus you can produce links to that page and inform whom who might be interested.

Best regards and Happy New Year of the Dragon !

--
Vu Do Quynh (M.)
Hanoi, Vietnam
Blog personnel: http://vdquynh.blogspot.com/
Moments online: http://memolane.com/vdquynh

[Nancie Severs]

Hi everyone!

I send my very best wishes to all of you for a Happy New Year of the Dragon. I hope you all have a wonderful TET Holiday with family and friends!

Thanks Quynh for posting and for the link to the translated Help Manual. I have forwarded this to Chris Leonard, the OLPC volunteer that works with language localizations.

My reasonable short term goal is to see that translation turned into a downloadable Sugar Activity so that it can be downloaded directly to the XOs in Vietnam. If anyone knows how to do that, please go ahead. If some of our volunteers are working at translations for Pootle or otherwise, please be sure to post your efforts or ask for assistance on our Group here.

I am still hopeful that we will be able to establish contact from the VVV. We have recently heard about a school in HCMC that has some XOs through volunteer efforts from Singapore also.

Best wishes for very safe travels and Happy Holidays!
Nancie

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OLPC Vietnam" group.
To post to this group, send email to olpc-v...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to olpc-vietnam...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-vietnam?hl=en.

[Serge Stinckwich]

Dear Arky,

great if you manage a organize a visit to the VV fishing village !
I will probably made a short visit of Vietnam in April 2013.

Regards,

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 3:02 AM, Arky <ar...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> Hi Nancie,
>
> After two years, we managed to built an active Mozilla localization (l10n) team working on Firefox localization. Perhaps
> we could use their help to localize OLPC activities as well.
>
> Anyone up for a visit to Vung Vieng Fishing village in first week of Dec 2012.
>
> Cheers
>
> --arky

>> **Nancie

>> This email came from my XO from OLPC!
>> Please check out One Laptop Per Child at http://laptop.org/ and help make
>> the world a better place!
>

--
Serge Stinckwich
UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC)

[Nancie Severs]

Hi Arky and friends,

I apologize for the late reply. I have been busy with family and traveling:).  Congratulations on the Mozilla achievement! Arky, that's really great news about completing the Mozilla localization to Vietnamese! I hope you also had an interesting and productive conference in Cambodia. Currently, I am not planning to come to SE Asia this year. That could change & I'll be sure to let my friends know if I will come.

The newest XO Build, 12.1.0 is available here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/12.1.0

It works wonders with the XO-1. It dual boots easily into GNOME and works with Firefox. We are fortunate that Sugar Labs for now, is still supporting the XO-1 model.

I think it will be wonderful if some of you can make a visit to the VVV. In one of the recent posts, you were discussing the ability to bring the Internet to the VVV. That should work on a 3G device. A volunteer colleague who works in Kenya  http://ntugigroup.org/ recently shared a link to a BBC piece on the XO project in Ntugi. Scroll down to Part 3 with the XO photo to watch.
tinyurl.com/bbcntugi
You can see that they had Skype working from Kenya to China on an XO-1 with a 3G USB connection.

The desire for Internet for meaningful learning for kids (and adults) with XOs, raises the need for funds. Last spring, I was contacted by Mr. Roger Wander, of Australia who visited the VVV in winter, 2012. He had a very generous idea and raised some money from his friends, instead of birthday gifts for a big birthday. I wrote up the details in my blog here:
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nsevers/4/1342634414/tpod.html

You can see that we had an idea to use the funds for a lending library, and if the XOs are unused, or not being used in school, perhaps they could be used in the new library with Internet also funded by the gift at the start, anyway.

I was in touch with Ms. Trang, at Indochina Junk last in August. At that time, I thought I would be coming and could perhaps facilitate delivery of Roger's gift to make certain that his funds are used to benefit the children/families he intends. Ms. Trang had mentioned that the families in the VVV might be moved to a different place (on land). I haven't heard a time frame for that and my plans travel plans changed; I did not come. I haven't heard anything further.  The funds are still available.

It would be ideal if you (Vietnamese speakers) contact Ms. Trang, and Mr Dũng, the owner of Indochina Junk, directly, since I admittedly have a huge language problem.:) She can be reached here:

 

To Kim Tuyen  (Trang) 
Sales & Marketing Manager

A: No 11, Alley 12B, Ly Nam De st - Hanoi - Vietnam
T: (+84) 4 3926 4085

F: (+84) 4 3923 2560

P: (+84) 983 367 479

Hotline: (+84) 989 166 433
E: in...@indochina-junk.com

W: ­www.indochina-junk.com 

Mr. Roger Wander and I both would be pleased to see something positive happen for the children of the floating villages. I know they are far behind in their education, for the time they have not been in regular schools. Many of the kids quit by the time they are 10 to 12 years old and none of them go to high school. I was told that the adult literacy rate was only about 25% out there. So much can be done and the XOs are a tool already in hand.

Speaking of the XOs, I was in San Francisco at the OLPC Volunteer Summit last month. OLPC has an experiment with Android Tablets in Ethiopia that our group might want to read about. It is sort of like what I did, leaving computers for folks to figure out by themselves (which maybe in retrospect wasn't the best idea.) But in Ethiopia, the tablets have sim chips embedded which are collected every week so that what the children are doing with the tablets can be analyzed. The project is called "The Reading Project" The presentation and slide talk is available on Ustream here:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/26344794

My thoughts on this: Tablets with touch screens are now everywhere. In HCMC last year, many students at Van Lang U already had Ipads. The XO-4 will have a sunlight readable touchscreen, due out in 2013. Good learning can occur with the touch tablets and toys now available also. When my Bangkok son visited recently, he bought a Fisher Price toy called Leap Frog for my 1 year old grandson (not open source and pricy).
http://www.leapfrog.com/leappad2/

I know that by now, even the folks from the VVV must have seen tablets on their visits to Hong Gai. Perhaps people would prefer new easier to use touch tablets to the old XOs.  But how many Ipad and Iphone users know how to program, how to develop Apps, etc., who will be the next generation of "you," and how will children learn patience, if the accessible technology provides only the easy stuff?

That's it for today. I am hopeful.
Thank you and warmest regards,
Nancie:)

[Rafael Masters]

Dear all, 

     I heard about this project from reading an article on its success in Ethiopia. I immediately wanted to be involved. I am a teacher over here in Viet Nam with a basic grasp of the language, and I would be delighted to help with creating new exercises and learning activities for your tablets. However I am a little uncertain of how exactly to get involved, being unfamiliar with google groups. Could someone possibly email me at freelan...@yahoo.co.uk to let me know more specifically how I might help? 

Thanks for your time

Rafael Masters

[Quynh Vu Do]

Hi,

2012/11/29 Rafael Masters <freelan...@gmail.com>

It will be better if you can just join the Google Groups OLPC-Vietnam. Then, your posts will not need to be moderated and the threads of various discussions is well managed by the Google engine. Thus the entirety of discussions within the group will be available to everybody.

With regards to your question about how to concretely contribute to the project, that makes at least 3 persons (4 with me) based in Vietnam that are recently willing to do something in the near future. if you are beased in Hanoi, then we could try to organize a meeting some evening and discuss strategies and possible actions to be done. I am retiring of my job as of 31st January 2013 so I might be more available in the coming years.

Would an informal meeting around 6 p.m. sometimes during this remaining week or during the next week suits whoever that might be interested in Hanoi ? Suggest also a place not too noisy, not too smoky. My center CNF (42 Ta Quan Buu), located in Bach Khoa is of course available if one wishes so.

Best regards

[Arky]

Hi,

Did anyone recently visit Vung Vieng? Would love to hear about the status of this project.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Projects/Vung_Vieng_Fishing_Vietnam

Cheers

Arky

[tkk...@nurturingasia.com]

Greetings. I was told by an Australian friend that she saw some little green laptops when she was visiting there! This is good visibility. Nevertheless there are need to get a platform for people involved in small or big educational projects in Asia to come together - share failure lessons or best practices.

With this in mind olpcbasecamp2013@Malacca, Malaysia is scheduled for on Nov 16-18, 2013. If people come some wonderful things may happening in this region of the world. The website link is below and it is a free event. Just register, let us know you are coming, showup and participate - but travel, accomodation food, etc expenses must be participants' responsibilitiy.

www.olpc.asia/basecamp2013

A community sprint to improve a community edition of the OLPC XS school server will also be part of the program in planning.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Community_Edition/0.5/Sprint (under development)

Do spread the word around and hope to see some of you.

T.K. Kang

>To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to olpc-vietnam...@googlegroups.com.
>For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>

[Quynh Vu Do]

Hi Arky,

I'm keeping the remark I made previously to someone who also made enquiries about the project. Thus If you hqve some interest in that project, it would be better for further exchanges if you can subscribe your email to the list.

About what's going on right now ? it seems that there is not much going on unfortunately.

I asked the tourist company (forgot the name of the contact person I had at the phone) to send me any information they have but they didn't although the lady I had at the phone told me she would send me some information by email. After reminding her a few times by calling her again, without successes, I "abandoned". maybe I'll tempt it again when I'm back in hanoi in next october.

There is IMHO one difficulty in this project which is the quick turn-over of the teachers of the Vung Vieng school. They stay for one or two years then move to elsewhere and are replaced, it seems to be. Thus empowering the teachers with the use of the XO Laptop can be hindered by such a situation.

We definitely need to have one trip over there to see what can be done. For that we need to coordinate with the tourist company or to contact directly the local authorities of the Vung Vieng village (in order to not be dependent on tourist trips to get there).

Once I have succeeded to contact local people there I may make a (bike) trip over there to evaluate the actual situation.

Best regards

2013/9/16 Arky <hitma...@gmail.com>

Hi,

Did anyone recently visit Vung Vieng? Would love to hear about the status of this project.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Projects/Vung_Vieng_Fishing_Vietnam

Cheers

Arky

It will be better if you can just join the Google Groups OLPC-Vietnam. Then, your posts will not need to be moderated and the threads of various discussions is well managed by the Google engine. Thus the entirety of discussions within the group will be available to everybody.

--
Vu Do Quynh (M.)
Hanoi, Vietnam

Blog personnel: Choses vues et vécues...

[arky]

Hi,

(Replying to list)

I'll be back in Hanoi in late October. Sign me up for a trip (bike or otherwise) to fishing village.  Let us
see if we can address the problem of transient teachers. Perhaps the local community members (open source
community, volunteers) engaging with the project regularly might solve this issue.

Am trying to rope in OLPC community, teachers, Hardware hackers and Open Source developers to take more
 interest in the project here in Viet Nam.

Cheers

--arky

[Serge Stinckwich]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 9:25 AM, arky <hitma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,

Hi Arky and others ;-)

> (Replying to list)
>
> I'll be back in Hanoi in late October. Sign me up for a trip (bike or
> otherwise) to fishing village. Let us
> see if we can address the problem of transient teachers. Perhaps the local
> community members (open source
> community, volunteers) engaging with the project regularly might solve this
> issue.

I visit two times the fishing village (the last time in 2011 if I
remember correctly ) and the OLPC laptops were still working at that
time.
It would be nice to have some recent news.

> Am trying to rope in OLPC community, teachers, Hardware hackers and Open
> Source developers to take more
> interest in the project here in Viet Nam.

I remember that I try several times during my stay in Vietnam from
2008 to 2012 to organize presentations, meetings about XO OLPC.
There is a lot of people on the olpc-vietnam mailing-list, but not
that much people willing to do some concrete actions.
One major problem was maybe the distance between Ha Noi and Ha Long bay.

Regards,
--
Serge Stinckwich
UCBN & UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC)

Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk

http://www.doesnotunderstand.org/

[Arky]

Hi,

@chris We could organize a L10N sprint to encourage people to contribute.   We use pootle for Mozilla Vietnamese translation as well.  The

idea to get one or two contributors to take responsibility of maintaining the translations.

@Serge I didn't know you visited the project before.    Lets see if we can get few people to pool together and hire a car/boat.

It is important to make it easier for people in Hanoi or visitors from other OLPC projects to get the  Vung Vien fishing village. Any ideas?

Cheers

--arky

[Nancie Severs]

Hello OLPC Vietnam Volunteers,

I have been following this thread. I was delighted to hear that an Australian visitor and a few others over the past year or two have reported the XOs in use in the Vung Vieng Village.

I am hoping to come to SE Asia via Bangkok in November and to attend the OLPC Basecamp in Malacca Malaysia:
http://olpcbasecamp.blogspot.hk/2013/09/look-up-visible-full-moon-is-inspiration.html
It would be terrific to meet some of our OLPC Vietnam Volunteers and Friends there!

This about the Vung Vieng Village Project: In a presentation or panel about small XO projects, at Malacca, I would discuss the obstacles to success. In bringing the XOs to the VVV, I meant well, but my model was much like Nicholas Negroponte’s “helicopter drop” theory, that the kids and adults would be able to teach themselves how to use the Apps on the XOs. We volunteers who work with deployments around the world now know that with the exception of the few savvy hands on kids, this is not the case.

My good friend from Our Vietnam Group, Mr. Quynh wisely told me that “sometimes when you give a gift to someone, and even if they want the gift, they are not always ready or able to receive and use it.” In the VVV, my Vietnam project partner from the boat company Tuyen Luong, “finished” when I left Vietnam. I had no good contact person in the VVV. I had given Indochina Junk Co. contact information for those of you in Hanoi who have offered support, but no contact was ever made by them.

My best contact at Indochina Junk is Miss Trang:

Kim Tuyen  (Trang) 
Sales & Marketing Manager

INDOCHINA JUNK  –  Halong’s Finest Luxury cruises!

A: No 11, Alley 12B, Ly Nam De st - Hanoi - Vietnam

T: (+84) 4 3926 4085
F: (+84) 4 3923 2560
P: (+84) 983 367 479
Hotline: (+84) 989 166 433
E: in...@indochina-junk.com
W: ­www.indochina-junk.com

Visit Yen Duc Village: www.yenducvillagetour.com

About a year ago, she wrote me that the residents of the VVV might be moved from the floating village to a land location & about the new Yen Duc Village Tour. I have not heard anything from them since then.

I was originally prepared to bring enough XOs for 1 to 1 Child Ownership. Communication is difficult because I don’t speak Vietnamese, and I have taken the silence/failure to follow-up on my communications as a IJ company decision to limit their involvement in this project.

The fact that we have had no word from the users of the XO means to me that the XOs still have an old Build of Sugar on them 8.2.1. The latest stable Build for the XO-1’s, 12.1.0 is awesome both on the Sugar and Gnome OS sides and I would like the children/adult community to benefit from this.

I still believe that this project has had positive impact on the children & adult resident recipients of the XOs and solar panels. Because of this project, the only young adult resident who had graduated from high school, learned to use the XO, transferred the skills to PC’s in Net cafes and set up an email account. The schoolchildren all have these easily transferable skills as well.

On a tour, the guides would have us believe that the Vung Vieng & other floating village children have never been on the mainland. We were told that they have never seen cars or a cow, stores, etc. But this is just untrue. The VVV families all have relatives on the mainland. I know that some of their children are living with relatives and attending mainland schools, rather than living in Bai Tu Long Bay. So all is not always how it appears. I have much affection for the VVV residents; no ill will, and I hope that they are all well. I am certain that the XOs have introduced the children to confident computing skills that will serve their futures well.

I see no need to push ourselves onto this project if there is no reciprocal interest. But if someone succeeds in making contact and can reflash/update the XOs and stimulate some interest, that would be terrific.

I would, and do approach these projects differently today. As a beginner, I was naive. I still hope and dream that the introduction of the XO laptop into Vietnam was a good thing. And, as you all know, I work tirelessly towards the mission of bringing education to the world’s children who have limited educational opportunities, now with whatever hardware and software best fits any particular locale.

I hope to see some of you in Malaysia!
Warmest regards,
Nancie

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OLPC Vietnam" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to olpc-vietnam...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

--