[olpc-nz] 2 Chch laptops now in Wellington

[Gregory Baker]

Hi Tabitha

I'll take some time to think and discuss this with a few people, then get back to you. 

Cheers

Greg 



On Sep 21, 2010, at 1:13 PM, Tabitha Roder <tabitha at tabitha.net.nz> wrote:

> 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/ (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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