[OLPC-Chicago] Introducing Jason

[Mel Chua]

Folks,

I'd like to introduce you to Jason Hoekstra, an OLPC volunteer who grew 
up in - and is moving back to - the Chicago area. He's interested in 
getting some local pilots started and has plenty of experience in 
drumming up grassroots initiatives and making community-run programs 
happen - but needs help doing so. Jason, can you introduce yourself and 
share some of your ideas with the list about what you'd like to do and 
what you need? (The same goes for everybody here, really - what are you 
interested in?)

One promising option is to start slowly by running workshops, weekly or 
biweekly, in the fall. Each week a different topic, with a different 
organizer, taught with the XO as some component of it - one week it 
might be a sociologist talking about relationship networks and having 
kids look at Myspace/Facebook/Linkedin profiles to talk about how people 
show their connections, maybe another week a speech pathologist can use 
Speak to talk about phonetic systems in different languages... This is 
mostly the approach being taken by a school in Boston that is planning 
to launch a full-scale, one-grade-saturation pilot in the spring term.

The library in Evanston was interested in doing something and might make 
a great host for this, but I've been woefully terrible at following up 
with that what with moving to Boston recently and all. I'll get back in 
touch with them this weekend, but if you're interested in this (Hans and 
Bob, I know you are) please let me know (or holler to this list) so we 
can all coordinate instead of swamping the library in queries and offers 
of help. ;)

-Mel