OLPC project in Peru: A global experiment funded by third world countries for a foundation of the first, even without impact.
In relation to the research being conducted abroad, one last news is that OLPC organization has recognized the importance of training teachers to use the XO so that they can work better in the classroom with these technological devices .
This statement breaks the 5 principles on which rests the proposed OLPC (born of Seymour Papert research and Claudia Urrea) and belies the Negroponte´s claims when he said: "you just need to give computers to children so that they learn alone" or "distributed XO from helicopters."
This, from my point of view, reveal that we are in front of a mega global research to discover how to teach and learn how information technologies. In this research project (experimental) some African and Latin American countries (but not Asian or European) have been involved with the acquisition of XO computers.
Peru was one of them and funded this research project with the acquisition of 513.204 XO laptops at a cost of $ 188.00 resulting in $ 96'482, 352 at the exchange rate gives us a figure S/.2.7 S /. 261'467, 173.92 million new soles, without having to date no concrete results regarding the impact that these technologies have been in formal learning of students.
But the importance of teachers in using computers, and later the Internet, has been known since the '70s. In the United States, for example, there are several studies that account for the same problems now faced by any government administration to introduce information technology in education.
More recent research also realize the limitations of education systems to effectively use information technology and communication in teaching and learning processes and conclude with the important role of the teacher.
The question is ask what had motivated the previous Peruvian education authorities to opt for the acquisition of these technologies, from the conceptual and theoretical, is nothing new.