Educational activity guidelines

This document is a work in progress. In particular, some of terminology has not yet been finalized. In order to signal that we have not yet decided on the particular language of certain terms, we will place the terms in brackets like [this].

Introduction

Who Should Read This Document

These guidelines cover similar ground to the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines but are targeted to a different audience-- the community of educators interested in creating activities, lesson plans, and/or curricula for the XO laptop. These guidelines provide an in-depth view of various features of the XO and its user interface, and focus closely on aspects of the XO that pertain directly to the development of educational activities.

How to Read This Document

Each of you brings a unique set of ideas and experiences to OLPC. Nonetheless, we strongly suggest that you read the this document in full. Many of the terms it contains will be familiar to you, but we urge you to review them anyway. Our approach to [computer-based learning] shifts away from some traditional models, and this document may introduce some unfamiliar ideas around such otherwise familiar terms.

While we suggest that you to read this document once from start to finish, extensive use of both internal and external hyperlinking also allows you to peruse its contents at will. Hopefully, this will make revisiting particular parts of the guidelines quick and easy, and will allow you to move naturally through the details that most pertain to you.

You can view the document in three ways-- in its entirety, by chapter, or by page. To get a broad picture or to print a hard copy, you can view the document in full. Alternately, you can use the integrated navigation to move through one chapter or page at a time.

In order to make the relationship between theory and practice more clear, we often include links to sample activities and to experiences from our pilot programs. Please take advantage of these examples as you develop your own.

Providing Feedback

This document remains in flux as the project moves forward. We value any feedback that you might have, and ask that you share your thoughts and suggestions via the talk pages. Discussions surround each tier of the document; if you have specific comments, please post them in the discussion for the corresponding page. For more general comments, feel free to use the talk pages at the chapter level or for the EAG as a whole. Links to the talk pages reside next to the section headers.

Core Ideas

Activities, Always

On the laptop, there are no software applications in the traditional sense. Instead, the XO focuses children around the concept of the activity. Programs, projects, lessons, games-- these are all activities. On the XO, they are linked in their shared focus on collaboration and expression, and in their common methods of implementation, emphasizing journaling and iteration. Our hope is that children will come to recognize the activity as an intrinsic part of their learning experience.

Presence is Always Present

Everyone has the potential to be both a learner and a teacher. In order to realize this potential, we have chosen to put collaboration at the core of the XO experience. The presence of other members of the learning community on each laptop will encourage children to take responsibility for their [classmates] learning as well as their own. This exchange of ideas both engages children in the learning process and stimulates their critical thinking skills.

In order to facilitate this collaborative learning environment, the laptops employ a mesh network that connects all laptops within a certain range. Because of the mesh network, every activity can be a connected activity. We aspire towards activities that take advantage of the opportunities for communication and collaboration that the mesh network allows. If your activity does not currently take advantage of the mesh network, please consider rethinking it in terms of this connected environment. For instance, [NEED EXAMPLE]. Whenever possible, activities should embrace this connectivity and emphasize the full range of collaborative processes that it makes possible.

Tools of Expression

Starting from the premise that we want to make use of what people already know in order to make connections to new knowledge, our approach focuses on thinking, expressing, and communicating with technology. The laptop is a "thing to think with." We hope to make the primary activity of the children one of creative expression, in whatever form that may take. To that end, activities should focus on the creation of some type of object, be it a drawing, a song, a story, a game, or a program.

As most of us would agree, the best way of learning is by doing. We hope to apply the principle of "learning by doing" to all types of creation. For example, we emphasise composing music over downloading music, writing programs over running them. An essential part of the process of learning by doing is the process of collaborative critique, and the subsequent process of iteration that incorporating relevant revisions entails. A classroom activity based on the model of "learning by doing" should incorporate all three phases-- creation, critique, and revision. A sample activity might be: [NEED EXAMPLE].