User:Lauren

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Revision as of 22:28, 14 December 2007 by Lauren (talk | contribs) (→‎Description)
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en This user is a native speaker of English.
EDU Grades: University
Subjects: Subject Literature
School: City University of New York
Country: USA


About me

Hi! I'm Lauren! And here is a picture that I took with my XO:

Lauren and tree

See also:

This Week

Projects

XO User Map

Did you know? There's a Google Map for XO users: link

If you have an XO (or are getting one soon), you should add yourself to the map.

Content Bundle Tools, Documentation, and Storage

Description

The experience of entering a library, either in real life or online, should be one of overabundance-- of infinite resources for learning, unlimited access to knowledge, and unbounded pathways of discovery. The OLPC content library must replicate this experience, and the first step towards replicating this experience is creating more content bundles. To this end, content bundles must be easier to make. We need user-friendly ways to create new content bundles, up-to-date documentation for the bundling process, and a selection of online repositories for storing and evaluating content bundles.

The first part of this project relates to the actual process of content bundling. Until now, the various components of the content bundle-- the library.info file, the index page, and the xol file-- have had to be created by hand. This part of the project will result in a set of web-based content bundling scripts:

  1. A web form that generates a library.info file.
  2. A web form that allows a user to upload an index.html file to be converted into an index.tmpl file (or allows a user to create an index page if no html file exists).
  3. A web-based script that runs a basic link checker on an uploaded index page and reports broken links. (More complex validation can be developed as needed).
  4. A web-based version of the bundler script that creates the bundle directory structure, zips it, then renames it as an xol.
  5. Some sort of process (implementation tbd) that adds the new xol to the library grid.

The second part of the project proposes to revise the content bundle specification to reflect updates to the content bundle format. This part of the project would include updates/revisions to:

  1. Creating_a_content_bundle
  2. Sample_library.info_file
  3. Library.info
  4. Library_grid

and the creation of new pages about the library template system.

The third part of the project is a longer-term solution to bundle storage, and this is to create OLPC tags or areas on various educational resource repositories and to place tagged content bundles there. This would create an OLPC presence on these OER repositories, ideally fueling more content bundle creation, as well as encourage users of these repositories to evaluate the bundles and/or incorporate them into their own learning projects.

Timeline

Part 1.1: One day, completed by 12/14

Part 2.1-3: One week, completed by 12/21

Part 1.2: One day to one week (b/c involves poking around jinja), completed by 1/4

Part 1.4, One day, completed by 1/9.

Part 2.4, One day, completed by 1/9.

Part 1.3: One day to one week (depending on complexity), completed by 1/25.

Part 1.5: One day to one week (depending on technical limitations), completed by 1/25.

Part 3: Ongoing, beginning 1/21

School Server Disk Image

Description

What goes on a school server? What kinds of tools do kids need to learn? This project addresses the issue of content for the school server-- software, tools, library materials, etc. The goal is a disk image of a "starter" school server that can be customized for local, regional, and national deployment.

Starting from the top-level description of the XS Server Software, I will research, specify, and then configure software including (but not limited to) the following:

  1. Tools for collaborative learning, including Moodle, MediaWiki, as-yet-unspecified blogging software, and a global annotation system.
  2. An annotated, expanded XO Activity set, including media players and tools for filesharing.
  3. An enhanced and expanded content library, including maps, reference, curated OER content, and documentation.

In some ways, this project is one that must be defined as it unfolds. Rather than a "needs assessment" approach, I envision an organic process of development that will evolve through conversations with trial schools and the OLPC community.

Timeline

Part 1: Tools for collaborative learning, specification, installation, and configuration - three weeks, concurrent with

Part 2: XO Activity Set, annotation and mirroring - two weeks

Part 3: Expanded content library, specification, formatting, and installation - two weeks

Part 4: User testing - ongoing, accompanying Part 1.

Global Learning Activities

Description

As large-scale deployments begin and the G1G1 laptops make their way around the world, the global community of XO users will need ways to connect to each other. One of way to do this is through shared learning activities, in which children from all over the world participate in the same learning activity and then share their results and experiences with others. Potential projects include: local Bug Blitzes shared through ZipcodeZoo.com, additional Our Stories recordings shared on the now-live ourstories.org, classroom newspapers using the Journalism Activity and published to the web, etc.

Projects could be explained and announced on the wiki, or through a once-weekly email sent to a mailinglist, or both.

Ideal results? Kids talking to (and learning from) other kids, discussions about learning centered around shared experiences, initiating presence on various web sites with a "swarm" of OLPC-related contributions, models for future shared learning activities.

Timeline

Ongoing

Deprecated

Library Automation

  • Write to l10n list abt localization issues
  • Add geodata to .info spec
  • Make better interface for bundle creation/submission.

Curators and Coordinators

  • Draft email to curators
  • Add obvs missing ones
  • Set up RT for curators.

Our Stories

  • Do poll-builder activity, then
  • Send back to MMM for feedback

Learning Activities

  • Do vertical activity template
  • Poll-builder (above)

Educators Portal

  • Work on it

Administrivia

  • Respond to wiki talk
  • Respond to various educators wiki pages.

Activating Educators

Moved to Activating educators

Related:

Educational Activity Guidelines

Organizing organizing

Moved to Organizing organizing

How-tos

  • Ideas for how-tos:
    • Laptops
      • What are they?
      • What are the main components
      • Keyboard and touchpad
      • Antennas and wireless network
      • Taking care of your laptop
      • What do you do when something goes wrong?
    • Starting to use them
      • Applications
      • Mesh and friends
      • Username
      • A browser and the internet
      • Google and finding content
      • Email and creating a gmail account
      • Wiki for kids?
    • Safety
      • Handling power
    • Resources
      • OLPC's website
      • Wikipedia
      • Dictionary (Marriam Webster)
      • Google's image search
  • Good how-to how-tos
  • Webclippy? Have webclippy people convert startup sheets, which involves...
    • Locating startup sheets (Adam Brandi) (emailed 5/24)

Ideas for lowercase "a" activity development

  • List of resources available
    • Base Activities/content
    • Additional Activities/content
    • Online resources/content repository
  • Ideas for projects/activites
  • How to adapt your existing activity/curriculum/lesson for use w/ XO.
  • How to create an activity for use w/ XO.
    • Sample activities
    • Links to models for activity creation/development (cf. three x's).
    • Conceptual templates for types of activites (research, games, etc).
  • Specific projects
    • Storytelling/Center for Digital Storytelling
      • Info abt. storytelling opportunities
        • Available Activties
        • Relevant resources
        • Examples we like
    • Mapping (Baktiar)
    • Language instruction
      • Avallain
      • Individs (Tim VanSlyke)