[OLPC library] Math curriculum for the XO

[Susan Addington]

I am interested in math curriculum for the XO. I asked a year or so  
ago, and got no response, but it seems that things are picking up.

I'm writing a textbook for elementary _teachers_ (hoping to publish  
this commercially). Along the way, I learned a lot about cognition and  
curriculum for children.

So far the math tools and lessons for the XO seem to be some isolated  
cool activities. I'm not entirely surprised that education ministers  
in the targeted countries were hesitant to join the project---there is  
no curriculum that can be handed to teachers and students. I learned  
from my experience writing isolated fun lessons in the 1990s that most  
teachers need training and structure to learn something as new as  
teaching with technology.

Someone asked about MATLAB for the XO. This seems to be way too  
advanced. The XO needs a better calculator, a spreadsheet program  
(apparently one is in the works), maybe a baby computer algebra system  
with a very friendly front end. There is some older, but very well  
thought-out, software called Function Probe designed by the math  
education researcher in the 1990s. It does algebra, tables, and graphs  
in a unified way. She told me that she was going to put it out free,  
in java. Maybe someone could do an XO version.

Please feel free to contact me publicly or privately if you're  
interested in developing some math curriculum.

Susan Addington
saddingt at csusb.edu
Math Department, California State University, San Bernardino



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