OLPC Oceania/Teacher Training

Please find below a basic outline of teacher training for the Pacific. This will be updated as we implement and fine tune the process according to our successes and feedback.

Training Topics

Introduction to the OLPC vision

• About OLPC - the vision, the mission, the 5 principles
• Concepts of the technologies - learning, creating and collaborating. Understanding that this is not a laptop project
• Constructionist learning, the concept of a learning project
• Guided learning, the role of the teacher
• OLPC around the world
• OLPC Oceania
• OLPC and this country

Introducing the XO

• The hardware
• The software
  • Open Source
  • Designed for children
• Power issues
  • How to use/access power in the various circumstances
• Sharing content
• Sharing activities
• The server - managing and maintaining the classroom

Introduction to Activities

• All the activities on the XO
• How to download new activities and remove activities
• How to share activities
• How to integrate XO activities into the classroom - open discussion and documentation into wiki
  • Ideas for new activities - refer to 'participating in the community'
• Need some basic tasks to demo the power of the activities and collaboration - todo

Introduction to the Internet

• What is the Internet?
• Finding reputable knowledge online
• Internet safety - child safety, spam, appropriate content, the role of teachers
  • Compare with the importance of street safety. Digital safety is no less important
• Communicating on the Internet - email, blogs, instant messaging & chat, social networking, virtual worlds
• Online communities - how to find them, how to get involved, good netiquette

Educational resources

• Finding resources
  • Wikipedia
  • Education portals - eg TKI - TKI is a bilingual portal and web community which provides quality-assured educational material for New Zealand teachers, school managers, and the wider education community.
  • Wikieducator - an open learning resource for the Commonwealth
• Generating content
  • On the XO/XS - including Moodle
  • The tools for creating lesson plans
  • Public content - wikipedia, wiki commons, flickr, youtube

Evaluation

• Discussion about what outcomes teachers/admins/parents want to see - build into template evaluation
• Talking to the teachers about how to determine the outcomes of the XO in the classroom
• See the Pacific Evaluation wiki page for input
• Improvement plans for using XOs

Teacher support

• How to find/create documentation
• Basic troubleshooting
• How to get answers to questions/issues
• Participating in the community

Technical training

• Configuration of all components (APs, server, XOs)
• How to reimage
• Higher level troubleshooting
• Technical support

Feedback

• Discussion with teachers/admins about what worked, what didn't