User:Bjordan/Notes
- examples (this should be a large part of the guide - case studies that people can copypaste) Past jams - takeaways 2007
June - Game Jam, Olin College, Needham MA 7 fully working games in 3 days Matchmaking - Matt on music (keyboard), Brian on sound (microphone/mixer), Roberto on graphics (tablet) Delivered: 3D Pong, Kuku, Sort, Spray Play August 1-2 - Curriculum / Free Content Jam, Taipei Part of Wikimania Started offline wiki reader Delivered: Chinese character support August 6 - Curriculum Jam, Bhaktapur Nepal ? No post-jam materials September 21-23 - Journalism Jam, Columbia University, New York NY Talks by Law professor and ICANN board member High school students for testing + feedback Extensively covered by campus media Began the activity Report (not .xo packaged) December 15 - Game Jam, Prime College, Kathmandu, Nepal Introduced students and teachers to Squeak More of a learning session than programming Provided copy of squeak, activities and workshop materials on CD-ROM, with extras to distribute for friends
2008 February 9 - Game Jam #2, ACE Institute of Management, Nepal 10:30am to 2:00pm, more of introduction to programming February 15-16 - University Chapter Jam, Olin College, Needham, MA Focused on getting Olin, Babson, Wellesley students involved Turned more into a networking/discussion event More of an introduction to OLPC for community Weren't able to create activities (lack of easy documentation) Have at least one person who has recently made activities - not knowing how to make Activities was the biggest block we need to work on next time. Brian Jordan suggests standardizing on one development platform for a Jam (Pygame, Etoys, or otherwise) and having template "hello world" games for that platform. Also subdividing the chapter into areas of focus - one person is point for all code activities, one person for content/educational activities, and so on. Make expectations clear to all involved (tell speakers what/when to speak, have instructions for activity dev Know your audience -- XO devs, programmers, or general public Have a public area/exhibit - this was a good thing to have, an open area with XOs to play with. It gets people coming to the event and interested, even if they don't have much of a background in the area or haven't thought of contributing to OLPC before - maybe some of the passersby will later become contributors. If we were to set up a demo area again, maybe we would have more focused "stations" with guides on what particular ectivities you could use and hints on how to explore them so passersby can be more self-sufficient instead of always having to pull away participants from their work to give a demo. Still have at least one person hanging around the demo area, though, because human interaction is a good thing. Discussions were a great idea - got professors to come in and lead/moderate talks on how their field of interest was related to OLPC - cultural design implications, under what circumstances laptops are the best technologies for education, etc. It causes you to step back and think about why you're doing what you're doing instead of jumping in and going "Oh! What a cool laptop - let's make things!" Rather, you think about "we have this laptop... what is the best way to utilize it? Does it have to be on this laptop? Could you be using it with something else? Just using something else?" Having skilled discussion facilitators helped a lot. Next time: recording these discussions would have been sweet. We got a lot of unexpected random grassroots people who just showed up and were really excited. (Originally had expected just college students.) We sent things out to mailing lists and were surprised at people responding. They brought a lot of energy and their own stories to the event. We are doing it again. But better. February 23 - NYU Jam, NYU, NYC, NY 5 hours long Live streamed
April 18-20 - Health Jam, Seattle Make sure location is accessible (non-auto locking doors, or contact # to be let in) MUMPS/VistA on XO
April 26-27 - LinuxFest Northwest
