Been having the sense that I am on the razor's edge of loosing the kids' excitement in eToys, so decide that we need to have our paint the fence day (i.e. The Karate Kid) sooner rather than later, as in today. When I get to class I tell the kids that we will be making a game today, using everything we've learned so far. They are kinda excited, kinda incredulous. Do a bit of review on the paper compasses, for the kids who missed class on Tuesday. Then we move on to X Y coordinates. We basically turn the playground...
give two, keep none Fri, 8-Feb-2008 (teefal)
Just sent out a plea to forums and bloggers I know. David Weinberger not only posted it, but he's sending us his XO! Here's the plea: Waveplace is a non-profit starting an XO pilot in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, in ten days. OLPC was going to be giving us laptops, but it fell through, which is why I'm trying to get twenty XOs from elsewhere. Your laptop may end up in the hands of one of the most needy children in the Western Hemisphere. The school where the laptop will be sent is run by Susie Scott Krabacher, who has been the...
Waveplace Brings Spark to Caribbean Children Sun, 10-Feb-2008 (teefal)
(written for OLPC News) We're told the first twenty laptops off the OLPC production line went to our 4th graders in the US Virgin Islands. These lucky kids are taking part in a ten week pilot program conducted by Waveplace Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to bringing digital media skills to Caribbean children. One month into our first pilot, we're starting another pilot in Haiti next week, and we need your help. Waveplace is all about mentoring. While OLPC's notion of "pick up and learn" has appeal, we find that mentors make all the difference. You wouldn't expect a child to...
St John Day 8 Tue, 12-Feb-2008 (bill)
Decide that more difficult concepts in eToys would be more understandable if we took a step back and gave the kids more of a foundation in the fundamentals. Out on the playground I divided the kids into groups of three (or at least try to divide them up) First kid was responsible for going forward and the second other for turning. The third kid meanwhile is calling out the commands. The catch is that he/she had to guide his/her team to a destination on the playground only he/she knows. Idea is that the third kid is continually adjusting his/her commands,...
St John Day 9 Thu, 14-Feb-2008 (bill)
Today is Valentines Day, by default the most horrible day of the year, and generally a day of mourning for me. When I showed up at GBS the place was a nuthouse. The kids were hyper-amped on massive quantities of Valentine's candy and their fragile brains were pretty much short circuiting before my eyes. I had had a plan to start the class with more geometry marching on the playground, but it was obvious that that wasn't going to happen. In fact it was obvious not much was going to happen today. Decide instead to make it a day of...
St John Day 10 Tue, 19-Feb-2008 (bill)
(Laura report) I introduced the digital storybook for the first time. I showed them how to pull a book from the toolbox and how to add pages. They already knew how to draw pictures, so we spent most of the class thinking of story ideas and starting drawing. The problem was that when we added pages and proceeded to the next page, usually the image carried to the new page. I didn't know how to resolve this, but eventually it was discovered that you need to move the images after they are done to keep them on that page....
haitian pilot starts Wed, 20-Feb-2008 (teefal)
Today we're starting our pilot in Haiti, at one of the Mercy & Sharing schools in Port-Au-Prince. Our very own Bill Stelzer, leader of our St John pilot, will be teaching Emile Roulsa Jean and two others to become Haiti's first Waveplace mentors. They'll then start a ten-week pilot using the nineteen laptops we were able to receive in time. Our greatest thanks go to the ten kind souls who donated their XOs last weekend, along with David Weinberger, Jerry Michalski, and Wayan Vota for helping spread the word. David & Jerry are A-List blogerati and Wayan runs OLPC News,...
St John Day 11 Thu, 21-Feb-2008 (bill)
(LaReesa report) During Bill's session in Haiti, I had an opportunity to teach the class with the assistance of Mary. When I went to the class, there was not really much teaching for me to do. All the kids were just continuing to work on the stories that they had started during the session on Tuesday. Most of the class time, I had spent assisting the kids with what to write or problems that they were having with the starting new pages. A lot of the kids didn't know how to create another page so the work was duplicating itself...
Report from our St John and Haiti Pilots Tue, 26-Feb-2008 (bill)
(from newsletter) For the past two months my brain has been in two different places, only a few hundred miles apart on a map of the Caribbean, but worlds apart in challenges faced. On St. John we are now six weeks into our pilot. Learning most of the XO is almost effortless for the kids. Chat, Write, Record, Journal, and Browse took me all of about fifteen minutes to get a few kids started, then I just sat back and watched the newfound knowledge spread like wildfire. Learning Etoys is more like jumping into the deep end of the pool,...
St John Day 12 Tue, 26-Feb-2008 (bill)
Back from Haiti. Laura and LaReesa have been teaching, plan now is for me to concentrate shooting video and let them and Mary do the primary mentoring. Heard all had gone great while I was gone, but just before class started I found they had a problem where at random times an object would be duplicated on every page instead of being on the page it was supposed to be on. Unfortunately I found out about just before class started, so there was no time for me to look intro it. Laura started class by reviewing lesson of week before....
Bringing Education to Life Wed, 27-Feb-2008 (teefal)
(written by Jan Kinder, from newsletter) As I watch the youth of today, I'm reminded of growing up in the 60's. Our daily schedules were not hectic and complicated. We started school in kindergarten and before that, play was our classroom. We had imaginative time to expand our minds and develop our creativity, and express our individuality. Our education system, for the most part, supported the 'teachers taught, and students listened and learned' model. One of my teachers however did not conform to that model and has stood out in my mind for over 35 years and influenced my teaching...
The Shiniest Toy Wed, 27-Feb-2008 (teefal)
(from newsletter) Very likely if you're reading this, you love shiny new toys. Especially intriguing are the clever ones: the iPhone's, Wii's, and XO laptops. Handling a new inspired design is a little slice of Christmas morning, a reminder of a time when gadget play was all that mattered. The XO is quite an eye-catcher. One look and you know it's something to pick up and explore. Like so many toys that make our daily grind a bit better ... Bluetooth headsets, touchscreen remotes, talking GPS nav ... the XO excites our imagination with its swivel screen, mesh networking, and...
Immokalee Means Home Thu, 28-Feb-2008 (teefal)
(written by Ted Coine, from newsletter) Immokalee, Florida, is one of the poorest towns in the United States. Actually, before moving to nearby Naples, I had never seen the likes north of Mexico. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Immokalee is appalling. And to think that it's only a forty-minute drive from the most affluent small city in America. You can see why my wife and I want to do our part to help. Over eighty percent of the residents of Immokalee are immigrants, many illegal. Half of them are migrant farm workers, who make only...
St John Day 13 Thu, 28-Feb-2008 (bill)
Main thing before I come to class is to figure out the duplicating objects across pages problem. Once I'm in a quiet place takes all of five minutes to figure it out. Key is to move or resize the object immediately after drawing it and clicking Keep, to "set" it on the page. Absolutely critical to know, we probably lost a day on this problem. Also another interesting thing that only happens in book mode. Moving an object temporarily "lifts" it off the page. Ramifications in scripting, because if you were to move an object by hand (instead of say...
