OLPC Oceania/Teacher Training

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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 materials and ideas on the Wikieducator

A section has been created on the Wikieducator for educational resources for OLPC Oceania, including:

• Teacher (and student) training for using the XO etc - lesson plans and guides for facilitators
• Ideas for using the OLPC laptops in the classroom / teaching and learning with the XOs

Access these pages here

The pages above are being continuously refined and updated.

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

Resources

• Information pack on the OLPC vision
  • View
  • Download as odt
  • Download as pdf
• OLPC Peru video (as shown at the May Countries Meeting in Boston)
• OLPC PNG videos (Dreikikir, Gaire)

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Introduction to OLPC Vision on the Wikieducator

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

Resources

• Getting Started guide, laptop.org
• Download the Getting Started guide in PDF format (go to the link above and download the current version from there)
• Simplified User guide by the OLPC Community

Feedback: The Getting Started guide is preloaded on the XO; Start the browser and find it in the library

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Introducing the XO on the Wikieducator

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'
  • Top 5 apps and how to apply in the classroom for each participant
• Need some basic tasks to demo the power of the activities and collaboration - todo

Resources

Please see section Introduction to XO

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Introducing Activities on the Wikieducator

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

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Introduction to the Internet on the Wikieducator

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
• Solomon Islands SchoolNet links to educational resources, and OER repositories
• XO Activities -Teacher tools

Generating content

• On the XO/XS - including Moodle
  • Solomon Islands SchoolNet Moodle
• The tools for creating lesson plans
• Public content - wikipedia, wiki commons, flickr, youtube

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Introducing educational resources on the Wikieducator

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
• Improvement plans for using XOs

Resources

• Pacific Evaluation - See the OLPC Oceania Evaluation page for input
• Evaluation frameworks developed by each country (to be added)

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Evaluation on the Wikieducator

Teacher support

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

Forums

• UNESCO Teachers of the Future Initiative - forums for Pacific Islands teachers

Resources

• Training certificate
  • [Media:Training-cert-Oceania.odt|Download as odt]

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Teacher Support on the Wikieducator

Technical training

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

Lesson Plan

View a sample lesson plan for Technical training on the Wikieducator

Parent consultation

• What does OLPC mean for you and your child
• Parents responsibilities
  • Looking after the laptop
  • Safety matters - charging, surfing
  • Creating rules for sharing at home
• Signature for parents agreement

Resources

• [Media:Parents-agreement-oceania.odt|Download Parent's agreement in odt format]

Feedback

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

Timing of training

Allowing plenty of time for teacher training is really important, including followup training post the initial deployment. Below is a rough guide to a training schedule that could be used or improved upon.

Initial training

Day 1

• Intro to project and the XO
• Need to ensure there is hands on. Turning on the laptops and a couple of wow-factor tasks (including activities such as record) with the focus on the full activities run down the next day.
• Homework task - Each participant to tell something new they found on their own

Day 2

• Introduction to all activities
• Homework task - Download and learn about a new activity (not Doom!)

Day 3

• Introduction to the Internet and email
• Education resources
• Homework task - start a gmail account and email the training coordinator

Day 4

• Evaluation
• Teacher support
• Feedback

Day 5

• Distribution of XOs to students with teachers coordinating and doing the intro/training

The parents consultation and the admin training happen simultaneously somewhere throughout the process (before the XO distribution) and they require about only a couple of hours for the parents and up to a day for the admins depending on infrastructure complexity and admin familiarity with ICT.

Followup sessions

A follow up session is suggested a few weeks after the initial training

• Summary of all the above - mainly led by the needs of the community
• Discussion on issues, blockers
• Discussion on unexpected consequences (positive and negative)
• Discussion about progress, usefulness, how to improve

Messages

• Remember to have fun!
• Encourage experimentation and learning
• Share with others - includes knowledge and documentation
• Be prepared to learn from children
• Child ownership