[Grassroots-l] Grassroots Digest, Vol 7, Issue 14
Edward Cherlin
echerlin at gmail.com
Mon Feb 25 07:05:52 EST 2008
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Jakob Neergaard Hausted (jh1372333)
<jh1372333 at edu.dpu.dk> wrote:
> Hello grassroots.
>
> My name is Jakob Neergaard Hausted. I study educational anthropology at the Danish Educational University (DPU). I'm planning to make an anthropological fieldwork from September to November 2008 at one of the schools where the XO is being launched. I'd like to go to Birmingham Alabama, but I don't know who is in charge in the OLPC project Birmingham. I'm therefore searching for contacts and co-workers in this area. Some of my objectives in my fieldwork are to see how the XO influences the people's daily life - students, teachers and parents as well. How does the XO affect the relations and interactions between the different actors? How do they use the laptop, and what meaning does it produce to them? Which learning strategies do the pupils make use of, and is it possible to say something about the children's educational strategies? How does the XO affect the teacher's authority and his educational strategies? This is just some of my thoughts and new questions will most likely appear in the OLPC project depending on the given context.
Thanks for your efforts and your support.
> If there is anybody who's connected to the project I Birmingham I'd like to hear from you. Looking forward to work with all of you.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Birmingham
> Best regards,
>
> Jakob Neergaard Hausted
>
> DPU Aarhus, Denmark
>
> Email: jh1372333 at edu.dpu.dk <mailto:jh1372333 at edu.dpu.dk>
>
> Skype: jakobnh1
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Fra: grassroots-bounces at lists.laptop.org på vegne af grassroots-request at lists.laptop.org
> Sendt: lø 23-02-2008 18:00
> Til: grassroots at lists.laptop.org
> Emne: Grassroots Digest, Vol 7, Issue 14
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. OLPC Europe News -- Issue 1 (Chris Hager)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:20:02 +0100
> From: Chris Hager <chris at linuxuser.at>
> Subject: [Grassroots-l] OLPC Europe News -- Issue 1
> To: grassroots at lists.laptop.org, community at lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID: <47BF1252.4050104 at linuxuser.at>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hey all,
>
> This is the first OLPC Europe newsletter, which is supposed to be a
> regular (monthly) update on our activities and meetings, as well as
> about plans, ideas, developments, and so forth :) You can find more
> details on all points here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe.
>
> This issue covers the following topics:
>
> 1. What is OLPC Europe
> 2. Communication
> 3. Meetings & Events
> 4. Grassroots Organisations
> 5. Current Developments
> 6. Ways to participate
> 7. Software Projects
> 8. Next Issue -- Please Contribute :)
>
>
> 1. What is OLPC Europe
> Nothing but than a communication layer and a networking platform. The
> aim is to make commonication easier, basically between local grassroots,
> but also with the MIT.
>
> This can result in less work for everyone, and in a stronger focus on
> our common efforts and goals. We believe that communication has enormous
> potential for collaboration on projects and general information
> exchange, and also supports smaller grassroot organisations not to get
> lost in the mess :) Our written vision can be found here:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe/Vision
>
> At the moment there are around 20 people volunteering for the basic
> setup of this platform -- and can be found here:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe/Community#Volunteers
>
>
> 2. Communication
> Our primary communication channels are:
> - Grassroots mailing list: http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots
> - IRC in #olpc-europe, #olpc-groups on chat.freenode.net
> - As there are people involved from all the world, we have regular
> IRC-meetings (all 2 weeks). The next takes place on 6. March 2008, 17:00
> UTC (18:00 CET)
> - We archive summaries and logs of all the meetings
> - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe/Meetings
> - In the last meeting, we agreed to set up contact at olpc-europe.org as a
> contact point. Mails there are currently being forwarded to Holger,
> Bastiaan, and Chris.
>
>
> 3. Meetings & Events
> We also try to meet in person, primarily at free software / open source
> events across Europe. Events, where someone from OLPC Europe is
> participating are listed here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe/Events
>
> The next event is FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developer European
> Meeting) in Brussels, lasting from 23. to 24. February. The OLPC event
> takes place on Saturday, 23. February, from 15:00 to 17:00 -- room H.3227
>
> After that, plenty of people will be at the CeBIT 08 in Hannover, which
> lasts from 4. to 9. of March. The OLPC event here is on Saturday, 8.
> March, 11:15 a.m. @ LinuxForum
>
>
> 4. Grassroots Organisations
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe/Countries), which feel part of
> OLPC Europe: (add yours :)
>
> * OLPC Austria
> * OLPC Belgium
> * OLPC Bulgaria
> * OLPC Croatia
> * OLPC Denmark
> * OLPC France
> * OLPC Germany
> * OLPC Greece
> * OLPC Netherlands
> * OLPC Poland
> * OLPC Russia
> * OLPC Switzerland
> * OLPC Slovenia
> * OLPC Turkey
> * OLPC UK
>
>
> 5. Current Developments
>
> - OLPC France ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_France )
> Nico, Massoud and Florian have been at the Solutions Linux in Paris,
> giving a presentation about OLPC and the XO Laptop. Current work include
> trying to port sugar to openwrt, making a marvell driver, etc. One cool
> project to mention might be USB2SVGA
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Adding_USB_SVGA). Laptops needed! :)
>
> - OLPC Denmark ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Denmark )
> People from Denmark are forming a local OLPC group at the moment. On
> February 2nd 2008, they had a presentation at the education conference
> in Copenhagen. Videos Available at the wiki page.
>
> - OLPC Catalonia ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Projects/olpc-catalonia )
> Jaume Nualart from OLPC Austria (who is from Catalonia and currently
> living in Vienna) is giving impulses for the kick-off of OLPC Catalonia.
> Catalonia is a Spanish Autonomous Community in the north-east of Spain,
> with Barcelona as capital. The first meetings will take place on
> march-april 2008, currently collecting people and organizations, mainly
> from Barcelona. Soon, there will be a mailing list and also a page in
> moviments.net. People involved are: Jaume, Victor Guillam?n and others.
>
> - OLPC Bulgaria ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bulgaria )
> Rationales to concentrate effort on Bulgarian education include
>
> 1. Unsatisfactory results from PISA (www.pisa.oecd.org)
> 2. Lack of fruitful use if ICT in Bulgarian primary education
> 3. Wide variance in performance by children of different ethnic,
> social or economic status.
>
> Efforts also include translations into Bulgarian, presentations and
> promoting the project in the country.
>
> - OLPC Netherlands ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Netherlands )
> Have currently received 2 XO B4 laptops which went this way:
> MIT -> Customs Denmark -> Copenhagen (Jesper, Rut) -> Amsterdam
> People from the Netherlands are at FOSDEM.
>
> - OLPC Russia ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Russia )
> The first OLPC Russia meeting took place on 3, Feb, 2008 in Pereslavl.
> A short report in Russian is at
> http://community.livejournal.com/ru_olpc/4923.html?mode=reply
>
> - OLPC Switzerland ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Switzerland )
> Finally received two XO B4 Laptops from Austria on February 14th. This
> wiki edit is written with one of them... ;-) Next conference closeby
> will be the OpenExpo in Bern (12. and 13. March 2007)
>
> - OLPC UK ( http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_UK )
> Currently, only a small number of developers have OLPC hardware in the
> UK. The Telepathy system for activity sharing on the OLPC is being
> developed in Cambridge, UK, by [Collabora]. The BBC has been covering
> the launch of the OLPC laptop.
>
>
> 6. Ways to participate
> Feel welcome! The spirit of OLPC includes one core thing: the
> community. This includes everyone, from the children and their families
> to their teachers and everyone who is collaborating towards the success
> of the project.
>
> Get in touch with local OLPC groups, join the mailing lists and the IRC
> channels :) http://wiki.laptop.org <http://wiki.laptop.org/> is the central web-page for the OLPC
> Project and http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe for the european
> activities.
>
> About participation on software projects
> Most projects need a lot more than only programmers. From ideas,
> content, testing, translating and organizing, ways to participate
> include helping with documentation, artwork, sound, mechanics, ... One
> good approach is to first think about what you enjoy doing and what you
> are good at -- and then on how to contribute with this to a project
> you're interested in.
>
> Possible first steps:
> # Get an overview of current projects
> # Think about which project you'd like to support
> # Get an overview of that specific project
> #* visit the homepage
> #* download and run the code
> #* think about which part of the project you'd like to work on
> # Get in contact
> #* say hi in #olpc-europe on irc.freenode.net
> #* drop a few lines to someone from the project -- expressing that you
> are interested in spending some time to the project, and shortly
> describe your field of interest and your experience. A mail-address
> usually can be found somewhere on the homepage.
>
> Projects and ideas can, for example, be found here: [[Software_ideas]],
> [[Developers/Projects]], [[Activities]]
>
>
> 7. A few Software Projects from Europe
> = bombski =
> * About: http://www.assembla.com/spaces/bombski is a bomberman-like
> multiplayer game. Fast paced fun, written with very effective pygame
> code. Short loading times and minimal cpu load will make it a very good
> experience on the xo laptop. The mesh and/or twisted is used for
> multiplayer action.
> * Status: Name not yet fixed :) . Multiplayer on one machine is working
> quite well. Inputs: keyboard, mouse, joystick are working
> * Todo: Get started on the multiplayer / networking side of things
> * Help Wanted: Basically, from game design, mechanics and programming to
> artwork and sound, any help is very welcome!
>
> = KeyBash =
> * About: A game for very young kids -- they enjoy banging on the
> keyboard so much -- give some visual (and audio?) feedback -- perhaps
> with colors and splashes. Maybe using pygame?
> * Status: Initial Brainstorm, and looking for a name :)
> * Todo: Thinking about and creating the concept
>
> = OpenWRT =
> * About: http://wiki.openwrt.org <http://wiki.openwrt.org/> is a Linux-based firmware program for
> embedded devices such as residential gateways. A few OpenWRT developers
> ported it to the xo-laptop, and it boots from USB key into an X-Server
> in something like 15 seconds.
> * Status: Kernel 2.6.24 is running, but without graphic support --
> Preparing to work on geting sugar running on .23.
> * Todo: Sugar, Kernel .24 graphic support
> * Help Wanted: Developers experienced with X-Server, OpenWRT, and/or
> other linux distributions.
>
> = Segregation =
> * About: http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/segregation is a game from
> the [[Nordic Game Jam]] 08, and won the community award for the best
> game. It's written in pygame and a lot of fun.
> * Status: Working stable and well on linux and windows; very slow on the
> xo laptop. Display size is only 800x450
> * Todo: Speed up things on the xo, enlargen the background to the xo
> display size: 1200x825 (900 - 75 from the Toolbar on the top = 825)
> * Help Wanted: Optimizing, Improvements
>
> = xo-get =
> * About: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Xo-get is a very simple package
> installer for the xo laptop.
> * Status: Currently working very well
> * Todo: there is a long list of improvements to make it perfect :) --
> especially at the PyGTK user interface side of things
> * Help Wanted: Programming and design help would be very welcome
>
>
> 8. Next Issue of the Newsletter
> The next newsletter is planned to be ready between 10. and 20. of march
> 08. There will be plenty of content from FOSDEM and CeBIT, and we
> encourage all groups to add infos to the coming newsletters -- to inform
> other people what is going on in your group :)
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Europe/Newsletter/Draft
>
>
>
> Thanks for all your efforts!
>
> Chris Hager
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> End of Grassroots Digest, Vol 7, Issue 14
> *****************************************
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--
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay
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