Cambridge Learning Workshop Sept2008

On September 17-19, 2008 attendees from around the world, mainly Colombia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and Mexico, attended a learning workshop at OLPC headquarters; participants walked away with, hopefully, a better understanding of the XO laptop and OLPC.

Overview:

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Regional Workshop is designed to provide participants with a pragmatic understanding of laptops for learning at both the micro and macro scales. The micro scale involves how children learn and how children use laptops for learning in productive, joyful ways. The macro scale involves how to create high-quality learning environments for everyone, not just a few. This workshop is part of a larger series of events both at OLPC and in other countries and localities aimed at building local capacity and forming an international network of organizations to deploy one laptop per child.

The workshop will be practical and hands-on, yet it is not a mere technical training. Participants will become familiar with laptops for learning and will use the concrete experience as a basis for reflection upon the learning process. Participants will also learn from the examples of countries already adopting one laptop per child at national levels so as to plan how to best implement in their own countries. Participants will also get to know each other to form their own learning network so as to enable richer development in each country and the region.

Presentations:

Day 1:

Overview of Current Deployments, Robert Fadel, VP of International Operations: File:International Operations.ppt

The XO & Learning, Claudia Urrea, Learning Team: File:The XO & Learning.ppt

Birmingham, Alabama Deployment, Julian Daily, Learning Team: File:Birmingham, AL Deployment.ppt

Day 2:

Software, Ed McNierney, VP of Software Development:

File:Software Presentation.ppt

Hardware, John Watlington, VP of Hardware Development:

File:Laptop Hardware.ppt

Customizing Your XO, Julia Reynolds, Assistant to Learning & Technology Teams:

File:Customizing Your XO.ppt

Country Technical Support, Kim Quirk, VP of Technical Support & Reuben Caron, Support Engineer: File:Country Technical Support.ppt

Power, Richard Smith, Director of Embedded Engineering:

File:Power on the XO.ppt

Storytelling with the XO, Barbara Barry, Learning Team:

File:Storytelling on the XO.pdf

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn, Angel Fernandez, Youth Teacher:

File:Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn.ppt

Day 3

Connectivity on the XO, Michail Bletsas, VP of Connectivity & Advanced Technology:

File:Connectivity on the XO.ppt

Real World Implementation, Claudia Urrea, Learning Team:

File:Real World Implementation.ppt

Paraguay Presentation, Cecilia Alcala, Raul Gutierrez, Miguel Martin:

File:OLPC-Paraguay.doc

Suggested Reading Materials:

Designing Multimedia Environments for Children: Allison Druin and Cynthia Solomon

Can be found: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Multimedia-Environments-Children-Allison/dp/0471116882/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221833141&sr=1-2

Computer Environments for Children: A Reflection on Theories of Learning and Education: Cynthia Solomon

Can be found: http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Environments-Children-Reflection-Education/dp/0262691256/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221829522&sr=1-2

Symbolic Computing http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1-toc2.html Brian Harvey's Logo computer science books

Papert

Can be found: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002-2251585-7822408?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Papert&x=0&y=0 books by Seymour Papert olpcbooks

TurtleArt by Artemis Papert and Brian Silverman

Can be found: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=artemis+papert&commit=Search

Amazon.com: Allison Druin

Can be found: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=allison+druin&x=0&y=0

Discussion

• The Wiki needs to be cleaned up, so that information is more easily accessed.

• Important role of university involvement in deployments.