OLPC Santa Barbara

About

One Laptop per Child Santa Barbara is a student led organization founded at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It is a collaboration of students and faculty who are actively seeking to promote and enhance the mission and scope of the One Laptop per Child organization, both locally and internationally.

Our primary objectives are listed here OLPC Santa Barbara Objectives.

First and foremost, we will be bringing laptops to local Santa Barbara elementary classrooms, which will serve as a place for us to examine the uses of and effectiveness of the XO in a local, US classroom setting. These classrooms will be a place for us to pilot, test, and evaluate new software that will be developed by UCSB students. We will be utilizing the talent of students and faculty across the disciplines to design and promote educational software that will enhance the elementary student’s educations through the XO. We will be working with teachers to help develop lesson plans around these software programs and the laptops themselves, which can then can be documented and reproduced in classrooms around the world.

We have and will continue to develop International Partner Schools, through which we will facilitate and foster Peer 2 Peer interactions. We are aiming to bring children around the world together, providing local elementary school students with a window in to the lives of there peers across the globe, and giving children around the world a chance to see into the lives of our Santa Barbara students. We will be creating an interaction similar to a "pen pal" program but utilizing the XO technology and starting a "video pal" program. We will connect these classrooms at the individual level, where students truly have the chance to learn from one another. This will be done via teachers creating a curriculum that explores their partner school's geography, lifestyle, weather, daily routines, farming techniques, ect...

We will promote awareness of the XO and its global success, and raise funds to put laptops in the hands of our local Santa Barbara County elementary students as well as students around the world through the give one get one program. We will be giving presentations to high profile individual donors, school boards, and local organizations, in hope of having laptops donated to students in our local and international partner schools.

We feel this pilot provides all parties involved with a great opportunity for learning, collaboration, and education. UCSB students will be learning to collaborate across disciplines and with both local and international elementary schools to make this project a success. Our Santa Barbara Elementary school students will have the opportunity to engage in a new type of collaborative education through the XO’s, with their fellow classmates and with their international peers. It will be a window to the world for them and their international counterparts, and give them the chance to learn and develop through groundbreaking technology and innovation in education.

Website

OLPC, SB website

Current Partners

Technology Management Program, UC Santa Barbara. http://www.tmp.ucsb.edu
University of California Santa Barbara. http://www.ucsb.edu
Kellogg Elementary School, Goleta, CA.

Contact

OLPCSB@gmail.com

Andrew McNamara
Jonathan Kalan
Bill Grant
Susannah Scott
Joshua Chamberlain
Chance Carpenter
Brittany Howard

Resources

OLPC Santa Barbara Objectives
OLPC Santa Barbara Strategic Planning
OLPC Santa Barbara California Partners Plan