Fwd: OLPC Nepal Weekly Update Jan 23, 2007

[Bryan Berry]

I have forwarded this to the devel-list because we could really use your
assistance w/ this matter over the next month.
We would love to know if you guys have already implemented what we are
planning and how we can later integrate our activities w/ future plans.

As you can read below, we will be working on three activities as proofs of
concept.  The international donors and Ministry of Education like OLPC but
have asked to see basic learning activities on the XO.

Some of you may balk at Jotpad, our activity that we hope will eventually
help kids learn penmanship.  Penmanship may not be a priority in Western
education system, but the Nepali education system places a lot of value on
it

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com>
Date: Jan 23, 2007 10:31 PM
Subject: OLPC Nepal Weekly Update Jan 23, 2007
To: olpcnepal digest subscribers <olpcnepal at googlegroups.com>, foss-nepal
digest subscribers <foss-nepal at googlegroups.com>,
olpcnepal-updates at googlegroups.com

1. We have decided to intensively work on 3 activities for our first
generation of Mero Sano Saathi, our Nepali-language curriculum for the XO
laptop. We intend to have the first version of those activities completed by
the last week of February. Ankur and Shankar are the primary developers and
Rabi will be the project manager. We will need extensive help from the
curriculum team. This first phase will target Grade One activities.

   - Gyankosh -- a wiki (open-source encyclopedia) targeted to children.
   We intend to have all of the stories and poems for Grade One implemented in
   this first phase.
   - Jotpad -- A basic tool that allows children to write in free-hand
   with a stylus and even draw pictures. We hope this tool will eventually
   recognize the text and grade the quality of the child's penmanship. For this
   first phase it will only record the child's writing.
   - Basictivity Maths -- Basic math lessons. We intend to port and
   localize the Gcompris math tools (www.gcompris.net) for this first
   phase.

Please read more about the first generation of Mero Sano Saathi on our wiki.
We welcome everyone to contribute their ideas and to help us develop this
first generation of Mero Sano Saathi.

http://wiki.olpcnepal.org/index.php?title=Generation-1_Activity

2. Himali Kiran has agreed to manage both the OLPC Nepal wiki and our
planned software repository mirror. This software mirror, located in
Kathmandu, will stope a local copy of all the software code from the main
OLPC project and software code that OLPC Nepal develops. This mirror will
allow Nepali developers to download OLPC code substantially faster than
downloading it from the server located in Boston. We are very lucky to have
Himali as a member of our group. He is not only generous with his time but a
genuinely nice guy.

3. OLPC Nepal's next general meeting will take place at 6 PM on Wed. Jan 31.
The meeting place will be Himalayan Techies. There will be a developers
meeting earlier in the week on Monday at 6 PM.
Bryan
OLPC Nepal
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