Waveplace Blog

Today marks the beginning of week 2 of our pilot sans Jonathan and Daniel our two volunteer mentors from Camp Alegria. They need to get back to their obligations at the camp and then will be headed back home to the US. We are all grateful for their capable, good humored and helpful presence. They were a tremendous asset the first week.

To fill their absence Patrick, a Peace Corps volunteer, has come on board. I hope that his involvement will prove beneficial to the ongoing sustainability of the project, as he will be in Nicaragua for another 11 months. This is an excellent opportunity to forge a relationship between the Peace Corps and the school in Buenos Aires as well as Camp Alegria.

Today’s session began with a different format then usual. The lesson involved the introduction of scripts. As this is a fairly complex process we decided that it would be best to demonstrate the steps of the lesson in entirety before having the children launch in themselves. To begin with Carolyn opened with a review asking the children to identify tools they have already been using. It was clear that they have a good grasp of the material covered in the lessons thus far. She then went into the demonstration. The children were attentive and eager to boot up and tackle the process themselves. To begin with they created a single simple sketch – a soccer ball, a boat, a truck, a smiling sun to name a few ¬– kept it, opened it’s halo, set its direction with the arrow tool and began experimenting with various numerical settings for advancing and turn. Once again we witnessed children helping children if they got stuck. Very quickly one of our classroom whiz’s found the add sound script and before long the entire class was experimenting with adding various sounds to their bounce scripts. They then proceeded to create 2 more discreet sketches and soon had their objects zipping and spinning across their screens.

The teacher’s lessons involved more complex scripting and introduced animation. Patrick joined us for this session. During the children’s class we introduced him to the XO and etoys. It is apparent that he will be able to catch up quite quickly.

Marcial and Roxanna are struggling a bit with the increasing complexity of the lessons however Giovanni and David (our translators/mentors) are working diligently to try to keep them up to speed. Giovanni is very capable and while David is more hesitant working with the computer in general he appears quite able to explain both the concepts and processes being presented demonstrating a sound understanding of them.

Yesterday Bill, Carolyn and I headed off to San Juan del Sol for a bit of adventure. We hired a boat with a motley crew of world travelers and headed south along the Pacific coastline looking for waves. Carolyn and the others dove of the side and paddled their boards into the waves and enjoyed an afternoon of surfing. Bill and I stayed on board reveling in the rock of the sea, the beautiful shoreline and the presence of sea turtles. Later, at dinner with our new acquaintances representing Sweden, Austria, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Antigua, the conversation turned toward the XO’s and the pilots. Everyone was inquisitive about this project. They asked probing questions, brought up concerns about sustainability and children’s capabilities across cultures. It was heart warming to experience their genuine enthusiasm about the pilot.

There were no absences today even though it was Saturday. The children were gathered at the school dressed in their uniforms and eager to start another lesson. They were introduced to the halo tool and the children were pleased to learn how to further manipulate their sketches. They practiced resizing, by both retaining the scale and not, duplicating, rotating, repainting and discarding. We had decided to first present the children with each tool through demonstration and then to have them experiment with the new tools by creating a pond and a fish. They appreciated that it was easier to draw...

The morning wind was blowing steady as Carolyn, Bill and I struck out on our first horseback ride on the shore of Lake Nicaragua. It had been far too many years for Bill or I to comfortably mention since our last equestrian experiences, and just a few for Carolyn. Once astride we coax our horses to head down the beach. It was easily apparent that the horses were far more in charge then we were. Heading back towards the camp Bill and Carolyn’s horses found the road that led back to their pasture and headed home. I circled back and...

All of the children were anxiously waiting in the gated courtyard when we pulled up to the school. We greeted them and their exuberance for a few moments until Marcial arrived and unlocked the classroom. Once inside they quickly scrambled to their desks eager to claim their computer for the second time. Without prompting or need for instruction they powered up and were ready to begin etoys lesson 1. For a better view of Carolyn's screen they moved their desks to form semi-circles radiating out from her and dove into the lesson. Once again the number of mentors facilitated the...

Around noon Bill, Carolyn, Jonathan, Daniel and I packed up the XO's and piled into the car to travel the pot-holed dirt roads past cattle grazing and sugar cane farms. In the distance spectacular volcano's vaulted with cloud-shrouded peaks never failing to impress by virtue of their mere presence. Passing nary another vehicle during the 40-minute drive, everyone in the pueblo rides bikes, horse pulled wagons or motorbikes, and we reached the elementary school in Buenos Aires pueblo. Marcial and Roxanna meet us at the gate to the school. We unpacked the suitcase filled with the xo's and entered the...

Spent the morning dealing with logistics - unpacking, numbering computers. Bill worked out glitches in upgrading them and trouble shooting that process that would continue well into the night. Meeting with Adam, getting his back story on the project and what he perceives his ability to participate due to all of his other responsibilities here at the camp. Issues arose concerning translators and transportation after the first 2 weeks. Possibilities included getting a local peace corps volunteer on board as well, hiring a local with a vehicle to drive every day (may be cheaper than the rental car option). Adam...

Last week, Waveplace finished our pilot in Immokalee, Florida. We'll be posting student storybooks soon, but for now you can watch our first Florida video, which gives a taste of our "improv theater" teaching style. There are also several newspaper and radio reports on our press page and a few articles in our latest newsletter. Today we start our pilot near Rivas, Nicaragua. We're using Spanish-keyboard XOs and solar panels this time, since the school has no electricity. Our three Waveplace mentors flew in last night and will begin teaching the teachers today. The kids get their laptops tomorrow. We've...

With our Immokalee pilot in full swing and our Nicaragua pilot starting in August, this summer has been an exciting blur of activity at Waveplace. To kick things off, we had a great story done on us by NPR, which kicked off a wave of new interest in our efforts. To date, we've received inquiries from more than fifty organizations around the world hoping to do similar work as Waveplace. Also last month, I participated in a worldwide video conference hosted by Duke University. All things OLPC are really starting to gain momentum. Just now I spoke with our three...

Developing a story invites children to a deeper exploration of their inner reality. The sharing of stories allows them to share a piece of that reality with others. Empathy stems from a willingness to truly hear and identify with another person's perceptions, feelings and views. Stories help build empathy. Developing a story allows the emergence of a child's imagination to manifest itself, whether it's a funny tale, a silly musing, a true experience, an episode of an admired action hero, or an adventure of a ladybug or an errant crocodile. From concept through finished storybook, children develop awareness that the...

(written with Susan Jordan) The purpose of education is to teach kids how to become critical and creative thinkers. It's about the process, not the end product. When children are learning, you can get inside their mind and break apart what they are doing to find out what they know and where they need to grow. The brain thinks visually. Squeak Etoys takes full advantage of this by being a cognitive bridge that takes traditional concepts and connects them to 21st century thinking skills and computer programming content. Etoys appeals to students emotionally as something fun and exciting. When you...