TACT

TACT is a collaboratory primarily based at Laval University, a French-speaking university based in Quebec City. The acronym stands for Technology for Advanced Collaboration Among teachers. In French, it stands for TéléApprentissage Communautaire et Transformatif. See http://www.tact.fse.ulaval.ca

We have experience with studying student-owned laptop classrooms, and we believe in the potential of laptops for enriching learning environments. Education is the pursuit of emancipation by human beings, and the XO becomes a great tool to this end. We received some XO in the third week of January, and began exploring its affordances: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kronenbourg/sets/72157603777345640/

At this point our contribution takes the following forms:

1) Ten laptops sent to Gabon in February 2008,ones to be used in and out classrooms by six elementary school students, two school teachers, and two normal school teachers. One TACT member, Kaçandre, is spending his semester-break week with them to get them started at the technology level. With the partnership of the university we will use a low-bandwidth videoconferencing system to discuss possibilities at the pedagogical level in the coming six months, including participation in an international climate change knowledge building project that is underway.

Our hope is that the Ministry of Education will notice the value of the XO, and order some for more students. One doctoral student, Hilaire, is also from Libreville, Gabon, and is likely to do his doctoral dissertation by focusing on one aspect or another of the XO use in his country.

2) Senegal is another country where we have contacts, and there we plan to start the XO is one high school with whom we have ties through one doctoral student.

3) With the Office of International Education of Catalunya (Spain), we have a strong partnership going and this Office is very active in the Mediterranean Francophone countries, and our collaboration keeps growing.

4) We offer our help with the Haïti's XO project as these students speak French. Here is a French-speaking blog dedicated to building capacity in the use of the XO: http://collabo.fse.ulaval.ca/olpc/