[Grassroots-l] [IAEP] OLPC-SF February meeting

[Sora Edwards-Thro]

Hello all,

We're looking for programming help on student writing software; hope some
OLPC SF folks can become involved! I'm over on the East Coast, but I can
join in over Skype / respond to questions via email if folks are interested.

Here are some more details:
Unleash Kids recently received recognition
<http://www.unleashkids.org/blog/> for our iloominate
<http://iloominate-haiti.herokuapp.com/edit> app (shout-out to Caryl
Bigenho for her input and Mike Dawson, whose Ustad Mobile project was also
recognized). The app helps teachers write books
<https://projectrive.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/lascahobas-workshops-final-review/>
for beginning readers by recommending easy words; now we're shifting our
focus to supporting student writers.

There are already several excellent writing activities for the Sugar, which
we're including as we design lessons for a summer writing workshop for our
XO projects in Haiti:

-Labyrinth <http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4078>, a
mindmapping activity that gets kids thinking
<http://www.unleashkids.org/2013/07/31/story-activity-continued-and-the-results/>
about how to lay out their ideas on paper
-Fototoon <http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4253>,
comic-book style creations; a perpetual favorite
<https://projectrive.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/first-week-of-classes/>
-Newspaper <http://seeta.in/j/products/37.html>, an example of how
templates can enable kids
<http://blog.unleashkids.org/2013/08/01/journal-mission-of-hope/> to
explore new formats
-Prompt <http://olpc-yokwe.tumblr.com/post/39897602954/prompt-activity>,
literally just presents students with a random image from a library for
them to write about...proof that simple stuff can be powerful

We want to supplement these great activities with some new stuff, based on
teacher recommendations. A lot of the focus will be on creating templates
and scenarios that kids can use as inspiration - for example, we can
present the kids with a scene of people talking, where the speech bubbles
aren't filled in, and ask them to fill in the speech bubbles. That's one of
many ideas for an effective tool.

We also hope to make use of the XSCE schoolserver installed on-site to
enable the kids to collaborate and share the finished products with one
another.

Our most dire need is help with the programming, but we also welcome input
on any and all aspects.

Thank you everyone!

Sora Edwards-Thro

On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 1:49 AM, Aaron Borden <adborden at live.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> OLPC San Francisco will be hosting our monthly meeting Saturday,
> February 14th, from 10AM - 1PM at the downtown SFSU campus, 835 Market
> Street, Room 597 (the fishbowl).
>
> Our meetings are held on the second Saturday of every month. Everyone is
> welcome to join us for our monthly meeting! We'll be discussing the
> latest in OLPC events and give updates on our local (and global)
> projects. There will be plenty of XO laptops with the latest builds to
> play around with, too. Please post with any additional agenda
> items.
>
> Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/325843320953044/
> Google+ https://plus.google.com/events/crf7g4e84aag78ssn761danaj8s
>
> --
> Aaron Borden
> Human and Hacker
>
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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