User:Lauren

en This user is a native speaker of English.

EDU Grades: University Subjects: Subject Literature School: City University of New York Country: USA

About me

Hi! I'm Lauren! And here is a picture that I took with my XO:

See also:

• Very old web page.
• Official work page and bio.

Projects

XO User Map

Did you know? There's a Google Map for XO users: link

If you have an XO (or are getting one soon), you should add yourself to the map.

Content Bundle Tools, Documentation, and Storage

Description

The experience of entering a library, either in real life or online, should be one of overabundance-- of infinite resources for learning, unlimited access to knowledge, and unbounded pathways of discovery. The OLPC content library must replicate this experience, and the first step towards replicating this experience is creating more content bundles. To this end, content bundles must be easier to make. We need user-friendly ways to create new content bundles, up-to-date documentation for the bundling process, and a selection of online repositories for storing and evaluating content bundles.

The first part of this project relates to the actual process of content bundling. Until now, the various components of the content bundle -- the library.info file, the index page, and the xol file -- have had to be created by hand. This part of the project will result in a set of web-based content bundling scripts:

1. DONE: A web form that generates a library.info file.
2. A form that allows a user to upload an index.html file or create one if no html file exists.
3. A form that accepts other standard bundle formats (OCR, SCORM, etc) and converts them to .xol bundles
4. A web-based script that runs a basic bundle checker suite on uploaded collections : metadata, bundle format [manifest], links. More complex validation can be developed as needed.
5. IN PROGRESS: A web-based version of the bundler script that creates the bundle directory structure, zips it, then renames it as an xol.
6. A wikibot that adds new bundles to the collections/activities pages.
7. A featured content portal, and wiki-pages for reviewing and assessing the best materials.

The second part of the project proposes to revise the content bundle specification to reflect updates to the content bundle format. This part of the project would include updates/revisions to:

1. IN PROGRESS: Creating_a_content_bundle
2. IN PROGRESS: Sample_library.info_file
3. DONE: Library.info
4. IN PROGRESS: A revised metadata standard for .xo[l] bundles that includes new needed fields (see talk:bundles)
5. Collections update
6. The creation of new pages about the library template system.

The third part of the project is a longer-term solution to bundle storage, and this is to create OLPC tags or areas on various educational resource repositories and to place tagged content bundles there. This would create an OLPC presence on these OER repositories, ideally fueling more content bundle creation, as well as encourage users of these repositories to evaluate the bundles and/or incorporate them into their own learning projects.

Emphasis on:

1. Curriki/JM. Developing a presence for content bundles and learning activities on the site; encouraging tagging and rating.
2. Meneame/PF. Work with Uruguay team to develop a site for sharing, tagging, and rating resources. Spanish and English versions (companion sites and/or localized versions).
3. Moodle/ML. Emphasis on school server needs. Integrate with content repositories. Export-to-content-bundle module?
4. Flickr/SW. Test case of collaborative content bundling.

Timeline

Part One: Content Bundling
1. Done.
2. One week to one month, depending on complexity.
3. Needs additional research.
4. One week. By 2/8
5. One week. By 2/1.
6. One week. By 2/15.
7. Ongoing.

Part Two: Documentation
1. One day.
2. One day.
3. Done.
4. One day. By 1/25.
5. One day.
6. One week. 

Part Three: Community Resources
Ongoing, emphasis on:
1. Curriki/JM
2. Meneame/PF/Uruguay
3. Moodle/ML
4. Flickr/SW

School Server use cases

Description

What goes on a school server? What kinds of tools do kids need to learn? This project addresses the issue of content for the school server-- software, tools, library materials, etc. The goal : a disk image of a "starter" school server that can be customized for local, regional, and national deployment.

Starting from the top-level description of the XS Server Software, I will research, specify, and then configure software including (but not limited to) the following:

1. Tools for collaborative learning, including Moodle, MediaWiki, as-yet-unspecified blogging software, and a global annotation system.
2. An annotated, expanded XO Activity set, including media players and tools for filesharing.
3. An enhanced and expanded content library, including maps, reference, curated OER content, and documentation (with links to external repositories).

In some ways, this project is one that must be defined as it unfolds. Rather than a "needs assessment" approach, I envision an organic process of development that will evolve through conversations with trial schools and the OLPC community.

Timeline

Part 1: Tools for collaborative learning, specification, installation, and configuration - three weeks, concurrent with

Part 2: XO Activity Set, annotation and mirroring - two weeks, in parallel with 3

Part 3: Expanded content library, specification, formatting, and installation - two weeks, in parallel with 2

Part 4: User testing - ongoing, accompanying Part 1 (via community content team).

Global Learning Activities

Description

As large-scale deployments begin and the G1G1 laptops make their way around the world, the global community of XO users will need ways to connect to each other. One of way to do this is through shared learning activities, in which children from all over the world participate in the same learning activity and then share their results and experiences with others. Potential projects include: local Bug Blitzes shared through ZipcodeZoo.com, additional Our Stories recordings shared on the now-live ourstories.org, classroom newspapers using the Journalism Activity and published to the web, etc.

Projects could be explained and announced on the wiki, or through a once-weekly email sent to a mailinglist, or both.

Ideal results? Kids talking to (and learning from) other kids, discussions about learning centered around shared experiences, initiating presence on various web sites with a "swarm" of OLPC-related contributions, models for future shared learning activities.

Timeline

Ongoing

Deprecated

Library Automation

• Write to l10n list abt localization issues
• Add geodata to .info spec
• Make better interface for bundle creation/submission.

Curators and Coordinators

• Draft email to curators
• Add obvs missing ones
• Set up RT for curators.

Our Stories

• Do poll-builder activity, then
• Send back to MMM for feedback

Learning Activities

• Do vertical activity template
• Poll-builder (above)

Educators Portal

• Work on it

Administrivia

• Respond to wiki talk
• Respond to various educators wiki pages.

Activating Educators

Moved to Activating educators

Related:

• Re-org of:
  • Educational content ideas
  • Educational activity ideas
  • Contributing content
• Wiki template and/or form for content submission
  • In progress: Template:content submission

Educational Activity Guidelines

• Guidelines for activity development (cf. OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines).
  • In progress (and should get a name change): Educational activity guidelines

Organizing organizing

Moved to Organizing organizing

How-tos

• Ideas for how-tos:
  • Laptops
    • What are they?
    • What are the main components
    • Keyboard and touchpad
    • Antennas and wireless network
    • Taking care of your laptop
    • What do you do when something goes wrong?
  • Starting to use them
    • Applications
    • Mesh and friends
    • Username
    • A browser and the internet
    • Google and finding content
    • Email and creating a gmail account
    • Wiki for kids?
  • Safety
    • Handling power
  • Resources
    • OLPC's website
    • Wikipedia
    • Dictionary (Marriam Webster)
    • Google's image search
• Good how-to how-tos
  • http://forrest.apache.org/docs_0_70/howto/howto-howto.html
• Webclippy? Have webclippy people convert startup sheets, which involves...
  • Locating startup sheets (Adam Brandi) (emailed 5/24)

Ideas for lowercase "a" activity development

• List of resources available
  • Base Activities/content
  • Additional Activities/content
  • Online resources/content repository
• Ideas for projects/activites
• How to adapt your existing activity/curriculum/lesson for use w/ XO.
• How to create an activity for use w/ XO.
  • Sample activities
  • Links to models for activity creation/development (cf. three x's).
  • Conceptual templates for types of activites (research, games, etc).
• Specific projects
  • Storytelling/Center for Digital Storytelling
    • Info abt. storytelling opportunities
      • Available Activties
      • Relevant resources
      • Examples we like
  • Mapping (Baktiar)
  • Language instruction
    • Avallain
    • Individs (Tim VanSlyke)