OTPC - A Disaster of an Educational Tablet

Oh hello there. Welcome to my blog once again.

And today, I have nothing to share with you. That's right! No knowledge, discovery or anything that seems to be useful and resourceful.

Except these 2 old "educational" tablets from 7 years ago. They were called.. "OTPC".

*They are stand for "One Tablet Per Child".

OTPC

OTPC was an educational project for elementary schools in Thailand. This project were involved around giving "learning system" tablets to students for helping them with education. According to the project, the project was aimed to improve students learning abilities by giving them the abilities to access the Internet and thru (half-assed) learning apps.

Except it wasn't that educational. It was a "completely" disaster and didn't really improve any children skills what-so-ever.

"Maybe you're being bias here."

Oh ho ho ho.. I think you underestimate me and my "dirty" knowledge. Well let's see how did the OTPC project perform.

History of OT-'cant made kids educated'-PC

I will summarize it in short context.

Somewhere in around 2012, the project was launched. Everything went pretty smoothly. Students were excited and can't wait to get their hands on tablets. Teachers were happy. News Media were praising the government. Everyone saw "there're nothing that can't go wrong with this project."

Until "the wrong" had occurred.

3 years later (1 year after political crisis in Thailand), these tablets has turned into nothing but more than e-waste trashes. How?

Reasons

• Political Crisis. (Result in halt of the project)
• Maybe you should read the paragraph above this sentence again. Just in case
• Battery Degradation
• Horrible Screen Protection
• "Kids' Mischief" (You see. Children didn't see tablets as a learning tool. But instead seeing them as gaming and social networking device. Source? Eh.. your guess is good as mine.)
• High-cost Maintenance
• Mental and Physical Problems (Poor Eyesight, Less Social Interactions, Not Suitable with Young Children, Unhealthy Activity .etc. The irony here is these were told by government itself.)
• Work Deficiency ("Teachers should be the ones who teach students, not tablets.", as said by Government again.) 
• Low Benefits to Children
• *Translation from the words of my friend* "I remember I was excited as heck when I heard my school will hand out free tablets to the students. However, I didn't get ones because they all kept inside containers. I thought that they were feared of students breaking them. But nope. It was kept because they need to return every units back to the government after 1 year. I mean, were they for real? The project name were literally "ONE TABLET PER CHILD". Not "ONE TABLET FOR SHOWING". Fuck man, I still hate them."
• 6000 Million Baht down the drain
• More E-Waste

That's a long list of big 'oof'.

So.. yeah. It wasn't that great. Or you could say it was doomed from the start.

Spec

OS : Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean

CPU : Dual-Core Rockchip RK3066 1.6GHz
GPU : Mali-400MP
RAM : 1GB

ROM : 16 GB (Internal : 1.48 GB, External : 10.43 GB) and SD Card Support)

Connectivity : WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS and USB OTG

Battery : ???

Display : 9.7 inch with 1024 x 768 pixels

Camera : Dual Camera (Front Camera : 800x600 pixels, Back Camera : 1600x1200 pixels, Both support 480p video)

ETC : Microphone and Accelerometer (That's good to know I guess)

I'll leave the spec judgement to you. Or not at all since they're kinda outdated. But now. Here's come the moment you've been waiting for..

OT-'Problematic"C

"If they were considered as e-waste, then how did you get them?"

Grey Market. Alright let's move on.

I have 2 OT-PC tablets. And both of them didn't receive any charges at all. Of course, this is a common problem due to how long batteries were left discharged. So to fix this problem is quite easy. All I have to do is leave them charging for around 2-3 hours.

Bad News: 1 of the tablets has a syndrome called "Sackcrap Crapsack Battery Syndrome". Its battery was found dead and no longer receive any charges whatsoever.

Good News: Another tablet was charged successfully. But it's not that good. After using the tablet for 2 minutes without any WiFi connections or excessive battery usage apps, the battery was drained by 2%.. All I did was changing the settings, and it already drained by 2%. It also can't open "Gallery" for some strange reason too.

I have a very old smartphone (10 years). And it's still holding more charge then both of these tablets combine.

What high quality devices we got on our hands here.

OT-'Potential Learning Apps'C

Hmm.. I really wonder if these "Learning Apps" are better than the tablet itself.

*Apps I'm showing here aren't "third-party" apps like "StudentCare" and "E-Class Student". (Both of these apps have horrible ratings and their servers were shutdown like decade ago.)

Book

What a creative name for an app. Apparently this is for Mathayom 1 (First year in Lower-Secondary). This app contains e-books for learning, such as: Thai, Math, Science, Sociology, Religion, History, Physical Education, Music, Culture anndddddd Art & Craft.

Maybe you might know what this app is. It just nothing but more than fancy .PDF files shortcut. And you still need third-party programs to open them.. like Adobe Reader that packed with system itself. There's also another option, KingSoft Office. Which can't load images inside .PDF files properly.

OBEC EDU

A.K.A "Interactive Multimedia Learning App". This one is also for Mathayom 1. But this time there're only 4 subjects: English, Math, Thai and Science. Hmm.. Let's check out English.

Looking.. pretty weird. But convenient nonetheless. Also uninstall buttons do nothing.. I think I'll start with "Don't touch the paintings".

So apparently it's an interactive multimedia. And from the look of it. I think it looks pretty good. Not great but not bad either. There's also a test too! Huh. This seems like a complete app. But something's keep telling me "these medias look familiar".

They all are made in Adobe Flash. Not really surprise because Flash was a pretty popular tool back in the days.

คัดลายมือ

Main Main

First Alphabet in Thai

Translation : Handwriting Improvement..

Even though this app has features like "Pronunciation Sound" and "Writing Exemplary", which is quite thoughtful. However, due to horrible tablet screen and good old "pencil and eraser" is a better practice, this app is kinda pointless. I mean.. you don't use finger to write papers, do you?

Summary

And that's all about this "learning system" tablet project.

To be real here, this project had potential to be something greater. If only it had great apps or an official website for download e-books. Oh boy.. infinite knowledge. But too bad this project was nothing but sugar-coated karma for getting more people votes. It's just sad.. pure sad.

And now. What should I do with these useless tablets.
Maybe I can send them to my asshole neighbor as a Christmas gift in iPad Pro 4 box. Heh. Brilliant!