OLPC Chicago
About
The Chicago Interest Group is a way for people in the Chicagoland area to talk about and work together on OLPC. We aren't necessarily interested just in trying to bring OLPC into classrooms in Illinois; we're also interested in volunteering/contributing to the project.
OLPC Chicago IS
- a nucleation point for exchange between local groups, towards the OLPC Boston office and back, and with other groups worldwide
- helping in organizing XOs for the local groups
- supporting and cherishing the autonomy of local groups
- focusing on rough consensus, grassroots involvement, and working projects
OLPC Chicago IS NOT
- going to do a local pilot in your school (although we'll encourage and support you if you want to do one yourself)
- going to tell you what you are and aren't allowed to do (although we're always up for idea-bouncing and brainstorms)
(Thanks to OLPC Europe, from which the above lists are adapted.)
Contact and chapters
Mailing list
We have most of our Chicago-wide, intra-chapter discussions on the mailing list. If you are interested, please subscribe.
IMSA chapter
IMSA is a public high school in Aurora.
MVCC chapter
MVCC is a junior college in Palos Hills.
Future Activities
Past activities
Jan. 22 Meetup
The first COGG (Chicago-OLPC Grassroots Group) meeting was Jan 22, 2008 at Google Chicago (20 West Kinzie St, Chicago IL). Thanks to Kate, Jon, and Fitz from Google and Ian from OpenPlans for setting this up, and to all who came and presented!
rough agenda
- very brief overview of OLPC and how you can get involved
- Project show-and-tell
- students from the Illinois Math and Science Academy Chapter will give rocket-pitch overviews of their projects
- anyone else?
- upcoming events / help wanted
- Chris Brown looking for OLPC presenters in Wilmette for Feb. 5 to demo/explain the program at a teachers' tech conference. More details here.
- OLPC at PyCon 2008 in March; attend, network, present, hack?
- full-time OLPC-Chicago office-hub and repair/service center opening this summer - volunteers welcome
- project brainstorming / hacking time
notes
Comments, blog posts, etc. about the event? Add them here.
- Peter Christensen's blog notes - Smart Kids + OLPC = Better World
- Karen Smith's blog report - World Domination by a Bunch of Geeks, which is crossposted at OLPCnews here.
Hackathon
There's interest in a Sugar/XO/OLPC sprint/hackathon, scheduled for June 2 at the offices of skinnyCorp (4043 N. Ravenswood ave, suite 106) around 10am. We'd get together for a day and work on the project. This would help people become familiar with the environment and share their experience.
There will be pizza. There we be several XO laptops, but you should bring your own laptop as well.
Software
We're thinking about working on Choose Your Own Adventure.