Next Billion Learner in Partnership with eKindling

The Next Billion Learner Philippines Project focuses on enhancing MaMaMedia Activities, originally created by the WorldWideWorkshop Foundation, creating a shareable handbook of MaMaMedia related lesson plans from around the world, as well as inspiring and building a community of Sugar-developers in the Philippines. This project is undertaken by the WorldWideWorkshop, eKindling, and faculty and graduate students from the University of the Philippines.

Background

The World Wide Workshop Foundation’s "Next Billion Learners" intiative focuses on the development of creative learning software for low cost laptops, in order to support 1:1 computing worldwide. The goal is to give educational opportunities to the next billion learners so that they will become creative thinkers, learners and leaders with technology. As the first project in this initiative in 2007-08, the foundation partnered with OLPC to create the MaMaMedia Creative Learning Center, a set of original Constructionist Learning activities for young children in developing countries wherein the OLPC organization has been deploying their laptop programs. The MaMaMedia Creative Center is based on award-winning, kid-tested, hard-fun puzzles, digital toys, and creativity tools from MaMaMedia.com.

The objective of the Next Billion Learner Philippines Project is to integrate constructionist learning activities (e.g. MaMaMedia Creative Center) into the educational programming of the first 1:1 Computing/OLPC Initiative in the Philippines.

Objectives

Technical Objectives:

1. Objective 1: Thoroughly test and identify any technical limitations of the MaMaMedia Creative Activities (developed in 2007-08) on the current XO 1.5 Laptop and the latest version of the Sugar Operating System. Deliver a detailed set of technical recommendations for improving the usability of MaMaMedia Creative Suite on the updated XO machine and Sugar platform.

1. Objective 2: Implement technical recommendations and usability enhancements (as identified through field testing with educators and students) through third party developers or University of the Philippines Computer Science Program under the guidance of Professor Feria. Testing MaMaMedia Activities and implementing the recommendation will serve as the introductory activity for the Computer Science Class. Currently, the CS 197 class of Prof. Rommel Feria is developing sugar-based learning activities as part of their requirement for the course.

Educational Objectives:

1. Objective 1: Gather literature on current uses of MaMaMedia applications in educational programming and OLPC deployments across the globe. Create a shareable handbook that will highlight old and new MaMaMedia Activities-based lesson plans from across the globe.

1. Objective 2: In partnership with eKindling, design shareable lesson plans in English that utilize MaMaMedia Activities as part of the first 1:1 Computing/OLPC deployment in the Philippines.

1. Objective 3: Pilot MaMaMedia Activities and associated lesson plans in the first OLPC deployment in the Philippines. Gather feedback from educators and students regarding the usability of Activities in actual Lesson Plans as well as its effects on learning outcomes.

1. Objective 4: Based on educator feedback, identify ways to enhance and update current MaMaMedia activities for end users. With UP students and developers, incorporate these ideas, along with their own technical recommendations into an updated version of the MaMaMedia Creative Center for the XO.

University of the Philippines Objectives:

After the initial engagement with the project, the Web Science Research Laboratory of the Department of Computer Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman plans to develop a learning assessment framework for Sugar activities. This framework would serve as the foundation for further Sugar activities development in the Philippines.

Updates

Progress updates will be provided here.