Activating educators

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HowTo [ID# 43752]  +/-

Goals

1. Building a community platform for supporting and encouraging teachers who are using XOs. See educators below.

2. Building a community platform for involving volunteers of various abilities and backgrounds (educators, teachers, and others interested in visiting and contributing). See developers below.

For Educators

Audience: teachers currently in the field and those about to receive XOs (along w/ OLPC staff and supporting orgs)

Emphasis: support, self-documentation, journaling/blogging, collaboration and exchange.

Project Ideas

• Educator wiki (or sub-section of wiki)
  • XO Teachers
  • Educators
• Tutorials for teachers, incl.
  • MediaWiki training (take from WikiEducator site tutorials)
  • How to use and make activities
    • See Activating educators#Synthesizing_Info_from_Pilot_Programs
• Teacher Activity in general?
  • See Educational toolkit
  • Syndicated country/pilot blogs
• User page templates...
  • See Activating educators#Expand_presence_of_educators_on_wiki

For Developers

Audience: teachers who want to volunteer/create lesson plans/activities.

Emphasis: constructionist ethos, transparency of information.

Project Ideas

• Ideas for content repository. Features include:
  • Activity/lesson templates
  • Rating system
  • Discussion/feedback system
  • Search/sort/tag by subject, lesson type,
  • Example activities for Activities incl. in base install
• Develop ties to existing companion repository/"Educational Content Management" sites.
• Think about content repository COMMUNITY: who are its members now vs. later; who do we want as members now vs. later.
• What makes sense at this early stage of deployment?
• Create and assess the usability of models... learn with communities. To that end,
  • Sites that do things well:
    • We The Teachers "Lessons and Files": http://www.wetheteachers.com/plans.php
    • Open Planner "Member Built Curriculum": http://www.openplanner.org/sitemenu
    • WikiEducator wiki templates-- a place to send Educators.
    • MaMaMedia lesson templates
    • Connexions bringing together of authors, instructors, and learners: http://cnx.org/
    • Common Content "catalog" of resources: http://commoncontent.org/
    • Curriki personalization: http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/XWiki/lklein
      • add/create/build designations: http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/XWiki/lklein
    • OER Commons "Detail View" (w/ rating, tags, review, notes): http://www.oercommons.org/courses/18th-century-public-sphere-early-newspaper-coffee-houses-political-discourse-from-the-course-history-of-information/
    • WikiTeach "Edit Lesson Plan" format
    • WikiJET sorting scheme: http://jet.wikia.com/wiki/Teaching

• Educational activity guidelines.
  • See Activating_educators#Educational_activity_guidelines

• Lesson Plan Jam
  • See Activating_educators#Educator_Jam
  • Bring educators of early childhood who have experiences integrating computers in constructionist ways, in and out of the classroom. Let them work in teams to build learning activities and lessons.
  • Reflection in action, guideless co-construction, platforms evaluation, etc.

Thoughts on Activities

Several kinds of activities:

1. Digital/collaborative Activities, some w/ corresponding physical activity
2. Activities that expand/enhance existing lessons
3. Local activities vs. those that require internet connectivity

Local work with activities - a preliminary set; and on a Wiki/Web in the global application that will arrive later because we first have to figure out how to work locally with teachers and students who are novices and do not have connectivity anywhere anytime...

General Issues

How to inspire teachers to contribute?

• Not all teachers are eager to contribute. Engage those teachers who are interested in contributing. That's an "old art."
• Even among those who contribute, support and establish the right "voice."

Open Projects

Synthesizing Info from Pilot Programs

• Extrapolate ideas for activities from Carla's reports, including:
  • Activity template
  • Example activities. (See Learning_activities/School_Census).
  • Anecdotes/pix from actual activities. (See Learning activities directory).

To Do

• Complete School Census as example activity.
• Seed more activities with anecdotes. (See [1]).
• Make activity template more constructionist, less instructionist.

Expand presence of educators on wiki

• Begin w/ template for educational org user page.
  • Educational organization template.
  • Educator template.
• Ask specific orgs to seed:
  • WikiJunior
  • OERCommons
  • MaMaMedia
  • E3F
  • WikiEducator
  • CK12? (see also cnx, curriki, &c)

To Do

• Draft letter (in progress)
• Send letter

Educational bundle as part of each release

Emphasis on mixed/multi-media format, composed of:

• Activity
• Sample lesson plan(s) for activity
• Example of activity in use, possibly including...
  • Kid's final product (if generative activity) or
  • Page that documents activity in classroom (anecdotes, pix, etc).
• Explanation of theory behind activity.

First one for a July release? (Or practice w/ eToys for late June).

To Do

• Define vision/spec
• Ask educational orgs to contribute

Reactivate educators mailing list

Self explanatory

To Do

• Compile list of open projects
• Draft/send message

Educational activity guidelines

See Educational activity guidelines.

Ideas to incorporate/inspire:

It's important to realize and emphasize that we are looking at inspiring and supporting two types of constructionist learning-- learning

• ... specifically connected to digital learning with activities with XO laptops in user-communities within developing countries around the world.
• ... in these same communities, that is going on in and out of school, with or without the laptop.

Need to find ways to integrate the laptop as much as possible to as many activities as possible, if it makes sense; but also, we are using the fact that we can talk to these teachers about education reform in general in this context.

Become a constructionist educator - an agent of change to think with about new ways of learning and teaching.

To Do

• Expand "Key Design Principles." See: Educational_activity_guidelines#Key_Design_Principles
• Expand feature walk-throughs ("The Laptop Experience") and "Additional Features." See: Educational_activity_guidelines#The_Laptop_Experience and Educational_activity_guidelines#Additional_Features.
• Add links to example activities.

Educator Jam

Cf. Game Jam, but for educators w/ aim of designing activities for Activites.

Discussion begins 6/18.

To Do

• Complete "How to hold a Jam" doc.
• Decide on:
  • Dates?
  • Locations?
  • Agenda?

Meta-indexing for library

How to be able to search existing content repositories?

• XML spec/namespace?
• thing to embed?

To Do

• Write up 6/13 meeting notes

Comments and Discussion

From MaMaMedia

Emphasis on local network activities

10 activities w/ versions and themes

Aimed at K-2, computer novices We now design for Both teachers and students who are novices.

Emphasis on 3Xs.

Including initial open playful engagement and exploration , combined with structure and learning values, skills, and objectives that are suitable to curriculum and relevant to culture, location and interest.

IN JUNE : LAUNCHING initial set of 3 prototype activities, each with 3 embedded lesson plans (incl. 1 that involves internet).

We also develop a strategy for a Related developer wiki and educator wiki.

Lesson 1 is how to use activities. - open play exploration

Lessons 2 and 3 are how to make your own. - self expression, both free creative flow as well as based on thematic curricular goals.

Lesson 4-5 - Exchanges via mesh.