XO Teachers

Letter to XO Teachers

Hi, my name is Lauren, and I've just joined OLPC for the summer. During the year, I teach at Queens College, part of the City University of New York. But for now, my big project is to work on ways to support you-- the teachers involved in OLPC pilot programs around the world.

I'd like to begin by learning as much as I can about how you use the laptops in your classrooms, and how the project is going so far. What's worked well? What's been difficult? What activities and uses are you particularly proud of? And is there anything that you're excited about for the future? I would love to hear from you!

Best, Lauren

PS: Eventually, I'd like to think about ways to share ideas for activities and lessons, and ways to share advice between teachers and with the OLPC development team. I would also love to hear your thoughts on this. You can email me, or you can add your ideas directly to the OLPCWiki: XO_Teachers#Ideas_for_classroom_materials_and_support

Ideas for classroom materials and support

What kinds of materials would be helpful for you to have in your classroom? Training manuals? Lesson plans? Examples of activities from other OLPC classrooms?

• Sample activities/lesson plans
• Examples of activities/lessons from other classrooms

Ideas for information about other pilot programs

What kind of information would you like to have about other pilot programs? Ideas for activities? News and reports? Photos and videos from other classrooms? Ways to ask questions and share advice?

• Profiles. Kids take self-portraits with their XO, and write about their favorite thing about their laptop.
• The XO map. Where are all the other users?
• A aggregated blog of individual blogs like this one: http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/

Ideas for collaboration between pilot programs

How would you like to be linked to classrooms around the world? Through a map? Through a blog? Through a wiki? Or not at all?

Ideas for support

And in terms of support, what kind of resources would you like to see from the OLPC development team? A technical contact? A way to ask for help? Something else?

• Discussion/support forum of some sort.
• An OLPC-specific education network.