[Olpc-open] RES: Defining success

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 1:54 AM, Kevin Mark <kevin.mark at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 10:43:32PM -0800, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Marta Voelcker
>
>> In fact, in schools where the government has stopped caring or
>> assessing, the teachers actually have more leeway to bring in
>> alternative methods of learning.
>>
>> After six months of trying, I have yet to figure out how my six year
>> old daughter and her classmates can get something like Lego or XO or
>> Sugar into their classroom. This is one of the best funded public
>> schools in San Francisco. Their library has shiny new Windows 7
>> computers that sit idle :-(
>>
> Have you tried to bring a bootable USB or CD to those machines? Do you think
> there would be any obstacle to try it?
>

They are reluctantly open to trying the software on one of their
library computers. Cost isn't an issue, because the school district
gives them software for free. The real concern from the teachers is
that they don't have time to experiment. One of them said that if we
had all training materials available to him and he got paid leave to
go and get trained, he would perhaps consider. Ironically, this was a
teacher who loved Papert's mechanical turtle and Logo back when he was
a kid.

I'm not giving up as yet, but its tough to introduce any creativity
into the classroom that's not already in the curriculum.

cheers,
Sameer

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