[olpc-nz] 2 Chch laptops now in Wellington

[Tabitha Roder]

Hi Greg

The laptops were first with what are probably the biggest bunch of OSS
hackers in Christchurch, the bunch of companies that call themselves
Effusion (http://effusiongroup.com/) and a Catalyst employee who lives in
Christchurch.

The second trip they were with a girl who was unable to start a group and I
am not aware of her managing to get people together even once to be honest.
When you arrived I gave her your details and asked her to get you involved.
I sent her emails regularly but that didn't seem to help.

I took the laptops to a few TVIC dinners (
http://groups.google.com/group/tvic/) as that is a bunch of geeks who meet
regularly. They were interested in the laptops but had no commitment to
doing anything with them other than at the dinner event.

I also took the laptops to Creative Space -
http://chchspace.nztech.org/<http://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fchchspace.nztech.org%2F&session_token=mDTcmehJ9fL9fHGCUyrgm5E-nLl8MTI4NTExNzIyMQ%3D%3D>(they
have a promo movie if you want to learn about them -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt4UpwUu2bw) - but they didn't seem
interested to be honest.

The reason any of this promotion was possible was because I used to travel
to Christchurch regularly for work. This is no longer the case.

I would have liked someone to take them to the ULearn conference (October
http://www.core-ed.org/ulearn/) and to have had a Sugar workshop for
teachers. Rumour has it someone is going to talk about Sugar, but I don't
have any real details of the depth. New Zealand schools don't have much if
any understanding of Sugar and/or olpc and the potential Sugar has for
developing critical thinking and engaging students. Events like this one are
a good place for us to start.

The realities - it takes a lot of time and energy to get a testing community
setup and to keep it humming. Wellington and Auckland meet every Saturday.
They meet at the same place and the same time. Any changes to those three
variables - time, place, frequency - and the community falters. If you want
to take up the challenge and have the time and energy to commit to it, then
we can send them back to Christchurch. I would dearly love to see a
community in the South Island. There are some XOs scattered about (e.g.
Otago) and a support network locally would be fantastic. If you are up for
the commitment, then please provide a courier address (off list) and we will
send them back to Christchurch for attempt number three.

Kind regards
Tabitha
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