User talk:Dlieber
Dear Volunteers and Staff of OLPC,
This is Danny Lieber. I'm a senior at Princeton University majoring in Molecular Biology. I am graduating in June 2008 and am very much interested in either working for -- or partnering with-- OLPC next year after my graduation.
Specifically, I am interested in acting as an observer, coordinator, and consultant at an OLPC test site in order to analyze and improve the reception of the laptops by the students and teachers at the test schools. This would entail understanding the students’ relationship with the technology by determining the extent to which physical components and programs of the laptop are easy to use, helpful, used in practice, and robust to malfunction or errors. This information-- of what works and what does not -- would be very helpful, if not crucial, in expanding the impact of OLPC on underprivileged students around the world. In addition to providing information, I hope to work as a liaison between engineers in OLPC and teachers at the test sites in order to bring concrete improvements to the program.
I speak English fluently and thus prefer to be in a location in which English is the main language of instruction. I also speak a little Spanish (enough to get around, but no more).
In terms of funding, I am hoping to get a fellowship from Princeton that would cover my living and travel expenses, so as for now I’m operating under the assumption that I will receive outside funding. Funding of course is a catch-22: you need money to do a project, but you need a project to get the funding. This implies that the more concrete my plans, the better the chances that I will receive the funding to implement this proposed project for OLPC. Therefore, the more I talk to people currently involved in OLPC, the better the chance that I will bring outside funding to the organization.
To find out a little more about me and my background, my CV can be found here: http://www.princeton.edu/~dlieber/index2.htm
If you are interested in contacting me, my email is dlieber at princeton.edu.
Please feel free to comment on my proposal and to suggest any changes below:
Welcome!
Welcome to the One Laptop per Child wiki. Please make yourself at home; read through the Table of Contents and FAQ, and take a look around. If you need a general wiki-tutorial, Wikieducator has some excellent ones. We also hang out on IRC - my nick is mchua, and I am often around #olpc-content.
Some possible pages of interest:
Check your preferences and be sure you verify your email address and turn on email notification if you'd like it -- you can find out when your talk page, or any page on your watchlist, is modified. You may want to upload a photo or information about yourself to your userpage (see Lauren's and Xavi's pages for good examples).
If you have a particular interest or project in mind, go ahead and start it! Feel free to leave me a note on my talk page if you have further questions, need help finding your way around, have a cool idea for a project, or just want to chat. You can also call, text, or email me anytime; contact information is on my user page.
Glad to have you here!
Project definition; using the wiki
You may want to start a few pages about different projects you have in mind. You mention
- being an observer and liaison b/t a local group and technical and other members of OLPC / its community
- being a coordinator and consultant for a project, identifying what materials work well and what work poorly in a given school
You might also want to talk to Cliff Schmidt, who is thinking about ways to do some similar things -- but also setting up his own literacy-enhancing foundation -- in Ghana. Sj talk 16:12, 10 November 2007 (EST)