User:Ndoiron/Mongolia-Ideas

While I am working as an English teacher, I would also work on some projects for OLPC Mongolia ( Хүүхэд бүрт компьютер )

Here is a Top 5 for OLPC Mongolia

1. Literacy

Teaching English is about reading, writing, and storytelling.

I would use programs such as LibriVox.org and the International Digital Children's Library to improve students' reading.

Students can write essays and make short books for each other. It is one thing to write an essay, and another to tell a story. Notice how this video tells a story without words. What stories do students have, and how will they tell them?

Also, I would continue work on XO BookReport - a project with members from the US, Sudan, and Uganda - to connect the XO laptops to libraries and students' reading history. We should help students keep track of their reading, collect their book reports, and recommend new information to them. They should win game points when they read a difficult book or recommend a book to a friend.

2. Maps

Computerized maps improve geography skills, help explain environmental issues, and prepare students for work in the many industries which use maps for planning. I have experience creating and teaching mapping activities with the XO laptop.

I have developed online maps which work with Google Maps, Microsoft's Bing Maps and ESRI ArcGIS (a professional mapping system).

3. Translation and Localization

The laptop project needs new translations of good websites and activities. "Localization" goes beyond translation and requires a close-up understanding of the needs of OLPC Mongolia (for example, localizing Typing Turtle includes adding the Mongolian keyboard and words)

4. Websites

I can develop websites allowing students and teachers from around Mongolia to go online for new information, story-writing contests, or lesson ideas. I have created several websites for OLPC and the XO laptop, including a wiki, a social network, environmental maps, a Facebook app, and a text-messaging service.

I can also help tell the world about OLPC Mongolia with an English-language blog and participation on wiki.laptop.org ( this wiki website )

5. What do you need?

When I visited Uganda, I had new ideas about how to help. Also, teachers told me their ideas, and we worked together on those ideas.

I hope the same thing can happen in Mongolia. Already, I heard that we should work on an XO Dock so laptops can be plugged in during class.