Pen Pals in 2015: Where will Kids' Stories/Photos/Maps End Up?

• <NinaStawski> three questions
• <NinaStawski> who the audiences
• <NinaStawski> what the delivery system is
• <NinaStawski> and what is the take-away / action
• <NinaStawski> the school blogs
• <NinaStawski> when we set it up - in Kenya they weren't really blogging - they didn't see any utility in this
• <NinaStawski> it started from us in Canada doing it, then it came to the comp supervisers with students and then came to students
• <NinaStawski> in Kenya they did their first video and uploaded it to Vimeo
• <NinaStawski> a couple of months ago
• <NinaStawski> it was too long
• <amptron> the video was for a fundraiser
• <NinaStawski> we had to ask them to redo the video, cause that was not captive for our audience
• <NinaStawski> when Adam talks about stories - are we talking about someone at the schools facilitating video with the kids or we talk about the kids producing their own content for themselves - we don't know
• <NinaStawski> call for the discussion
• <amptron> the administration wants the children to create the video but it puts pressure on the children to create something that doesn't quite express themselves
• <NinaStawski> there might be a way of building an interface that is very interactive
• <amptron> this topic is open for audience discussion
• <NinaStawski> there is a discussion, hard to transcribe, so I will try to transcribe it later from audio I record
• <NinaStawski> if you're going to aggregate something, there should be some consistency
• <amptron> balance between tight and loose framework
• <amptron> Framework <-------------> Freedom
• <NinaStawski> balance between framework and freedom
• <NinaStawski> wiki has the same problem, it doesn't enforce any kind of structure
• <amptron> consistency helps frame the question and the take-away/action
• <amptron> goes back to question #3 "What is the take-away/action?"
• <NinaStawski> there is a twitter account and a blog for Kenya
• <amptron> the blog would tell the story of who they are
• <amptron> the blog connected them to a school in england, leading to support, help, equipment, and pen pals
• <NinaStawski> Paraguay
• <NinaStawski> there are a lot of blogs
• <NinaStawski> they are posting what they are doing with their XOs
• <amptron> each teacher had their own blogs, posting once or twice a day
• <NinaStawski> a week
• <amptron> this lead to tons of content, and only recently have they been able to aggregate all the posts
• <amptron> another example is http://planet.ubuntu.com
• <NinaStawski> how narrow you want to make that aggregation system?
• <NinaStawski> Pablo: Uruguay - I've seen a lot of very good things that were made with Scratch and other activities - there i a wide variety of contect that may be shared
• <NinaStawski> and it's very good
• <NinaStawski> I think that blogging is one of the most elementary tools for children to work
• <NinaStawski> it's very easy
• <NinaStawski> they do not require any special skills and you can blog for special things that you can do in the classroom
• <NinaStawski> there's a blogging project that works on top of Moodle
• <NinaStawski> (didn't catch the name)
• <NinaStawski> using blogspot or wordpress is not so straightforward for children and teachers
• <NinaStawski> so there should be something is easier
• <NinaStawski> .....
• <NinaStawski> while you stay at the site you document professionally what happens and you teach people photography and blogging etc
• <NinaStawski> you are actually really providing education
• <amptron> Q: so what happens in 2015?
• <NinaStawski> some talking about a tablet
• <NinaStawski> ...
• <NinaStawski> india project - they've taken documentary of what's going on
• <NinaStawski> and made interviews with kids - asking them to tell about their families
• <NinaStawski> and got tons of information
• <NinaStawski> each child has his/her own story told in separate way
• <NinaStawski> if you can have a children-to-children connection
• <NinaStawski> ..
• <NinaStawski> we have a lot information and the question is is there need for something more
• <NinaStawski> is there a need for aggregation of the stories?
• <NinaStawski> http://olpcmap.net/
• <amptron> provides a map, and contact info, simple description
• <NinaStawski> a map that shows your location and allows you to find other people / deployments and contact them
• <amptron> includes individuals as well as deployments
• <NinaStawski> so for now, at least by location we can find each other (Marina)
• <NinaStawski> there's a need to know more of what's going on at deployments
• <NinaStawski> to see the kid's faces and what they do
• <NinaStawski> we need a tool that is accessible easily from OLPC XO
• <NinaStawski> it would be great if there was a very simple sugar interface that will allow to add a picture, voice etc