Projects/EnfantsEducation

Project Web Site - http://www.enfants-education.org

Project Objectives:

Give the opportunity to a group of children from one of Montreal's underprivileged neighbourhood to participate in building a brighter future by:

   - learning about the state of children education worldwide
   - experimenting with technologies developed to increase education accessibility in poor countries
   - envisioning possible solutions to the problem of universal access to primary education
   - sharing their thoughts and findings using the new social media (blog, social networks)

Why is this project needed?

Universal primary education is one of the United Nations Millennium Objectives. We believe that children should engage in the efforts to reach that goal. At the same time, we believe that this is a positive opportunity for children from a difficult neighbourhood to help other children.

Locally

In Montreal, getting children to stay in school is still a challenge. In 2008, in underprivileged neighbourhood, about 40% of the students are leaving school without a diploma. This project will help children to realize the importance of their own education and hopefully keep them in school longer.

Project Details

This project takes place in the Montreal public school La Dauversière. From October until March a class of fifth graders will learn about children's rights, the state of education in the developing world and technologies that could help reaching the important goal of having primary education accessible worldwide.

The children will learn about the XO project and how to use the XO itself. They will use it to do some research, write texts, create small videos to present their vision of education and describe the solutions they imagine to make universal education possible and post the results on the project blog.

Output to the OLPC community

Documentation regarding the project activities will be posted on the blog. Pictures and videos of the children working on the project will also be posted. The objective is to give back to the OLPC community all the teaching and activity material that is created within the scope of this project.

Activity Details

Objectives

   * To understand the importance of education as a fundamental right for children.
   * To understand the problems that prevents millions of children to have access to primary education.
   * To discover technical and ideological solutions.
   * To understand the importance of collaboration and sharing to solve complex problems.
   * To realize that children can and should be active citizen in there community.

Session 1

Objective

   * To introduce the project context and the XO.

Activities

   * Presentation of UNICEF and OLPC.
   * Presentation of the project topic: Children for education.
   * XO initiation - How to open, browse and create a video.

Session 2

Objective

   * To use a technological too used in developing countries.

Activities

   * Create a short video in which each student presents himself. (Interview in teams of 2)

Session 3

Objectives

   * To learn and understand children's rights.
   * To realize that some of these rights are not always respected.

Activity

   * Activity related to children's rights. Each team learn about a children's right and must present it to the class.

Session 4

Objective

   * To explore more XO functionalities.

Activity

   * Game - XO Rally! - Each team must accomplish a list of 5 to 10 simple task using the XO by exploring the interface.

Session 5

Objective

   * To solve in a creative way, education access problems.

Activity

   * Each team learns about a specific problem (posted on the project web site) and has to come up with one or many solutions.

Session 6

Objective

   * Communicate effectively a solution to a complex problem.

Activity

   * Create a poster summarizing the problem and the possible solutions.
   * At the end of the session, UNICEF will be presenting their real world solutions.

Session 7

Objective

   * Introduction to Creative Commons.

Activity

   * Game on Creative Commons (TBD).

Session 8

Objective

   * To apply the sharing commons philosophy to education.

Activity

   * Create a short video on possible application of creative commons in education.
   * At the end of the session, some real world project OpenEd, wikipedia, will be presented.

Session 9

Objective

   * To discover technology related to sharing information (internet, wiki, blog).

Activity

   * Quiz of 10 to 15 questions (some easy, some really hard) first without, then with access to the internet.

Session 10

Objective

   * To realize the importance of being an active citizen and to discover some worldchanging tools (social networks, blogs, microblogging).

Activity

   * Publication of the "Last words" on the project's blog by the children.