Talk:OLPC Greece/October 2011

Action in a nutshell

35 classes from schools across the country hosting 580 XO observing a ratio of 1 to 1 computer to student. The mission of XO was completed in April 2011, soon formed several educational activities were accompanied by several hours of use both in class and at home. The main activities can be grouped as follows:

- Collaborative text writing, conceptual diagrams and conversation

- production and sharing of audiovisual material (eg, audio interviews, photo collection actions)

- creating more complex applications based on microprogramming (eg film frame by frame, scripts geometry)

- Play skills development (eg remember, orientation, sensory toys)

The complete description of the initiative is on the websites of OLPC United Kingdom ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Greece ) initiative and the XO in Greek schools ( http://www.re-public.gr/olpc/ ). The analysis, discussion, support action in classrooms is a matter primarily of teachers with students.

As of September 2011

After initial contact with the majority of teachers and colleagues, that all schools have started or plan to run some activities within the first week of the new school year. This is despite the change of classes for teachers and because the previous year were used in all classes of the core activities while several of them were on the spot workshops, games.

Worth noting some conclusions from the words of seeing teachers to use the XO:

- Creates a window of excitement to the children on which they can work themselves

- gives an opportunity for children to acquire a leading role in the same class, and others to participate in activities while before there is any difficulty (eg due to language or dealing from the class)

- Under certain conditions, supply the entire class with a series of experimental possibilities for collaborative action in all subjects

Next (?) steps

It is obvious that this network, anrthopon and equipment, has acquired an embedded functionality and, thus, the initiative will continue to support the communications, conversations, visits, tests, labs and basic technical support. After the failure of upgrade and expansion of equipment and the establishment of local networks, technical support of the action is important to proceed and the following:

- Upgrading the software of the XO 1.0 in their new version which will require specific resources and programmers to add new educational applications

- A place for XO laboratory upgrading and maintenance of equipment and software

- Custom keyboards and other equipment changes and new applications

Warmly,

Arlen Paul Thanasis * 2