[OLPC-SF] note from April meeting

[Sameer Verma]

Hello everybody,

Attached are notes from April meeting. Really!

We have six potential projects to keep our interests and energies
focused. This approach is similar to what OLPC and Sugar aim to do.
Focus around activities. If you take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OLPC-800px-Frame.jpg you'll notice
that children in a group are grouped around an activity. We, as a
group are not very different. We have over 130+ members on this list.
Some new ones, some a bit more seasoned. However, we all volunteer (or
intend to volunteer) precious personal time towards this project and
we all need focal points. In discussions with Karen, Ted, Joachim, and
a few others, we figured that an enthusiastic "newbie" needs to know
what they are signing up for. I'm told that the "hippie group hug"
goes only so far :-)

Just like a group of children cannot be in a group unless they have
something interesting to do, we as OLPC-SF needs to champion certain
projects. At the April meeting, we made a list of six potential
projects and people who have agreed to champion the efforts (see
attached picture for proof):

1) Maroantsetra, Madagascar deployment (Alex, June, Sameer)
2) Starr King Elementary, San Francisco (Ted)
3) OLPC-SF Repair Center (Joachim)
4) Ramping up for newbies (Carol, Tim)
5) Kid camp (Christian)
6) OLPC-SF lending library (Karen)

Karen suggested the structure to gather basic information for Starr
King. Its something like this:

   1.  What problem(s) can we identify that schools have and we can help solve?
          * Teaching tools?
          * Access to technology?
          * Integration of learning at home and school?
   2. What is the project success measurement?
          * Frequency in Use of Laptop?  Of Software (i.e. Sugar on a stick)
          * Integration with classroom?
          * OLPC or XO awareness?  A program that can be carried to
other schools?
          * Fundraising?
          * Community participation?
   3. School Selection:

          o What is the criteria?
                + Needs laptops?
                + Looking for new education tools?
          o What would be the requirements placed on the schools?
                + Classroom integration?
                + Use in out-of-class environments (ex the library)
                + Use at home and in the school?
                + Teacher involvement?
                + Parent involvement?

   4. OLPC-SF responsibilities
          * Where will laptops come from?
          * Who manages the interaction (both launch and ongoing) with
the school?
          * Do new people need to be recruited to OLPC-SF to launch
project?  If so, who.
   5. Project Sales and Marketing to Schools
          * Materials to explain OLPC, the XO and associated support?
          * Materials to explain software and features
          * Need to explain it relative to macs and pcs for technology
aware customers – why is the XO better and/or different


If we can come up with similar info on each project and post it to the
wiki (I can do this if you send me a Word or OpenDocument document)
then we can list these six projects on the OLPC-SF page.

Of course, feel free to comment on any of these ideas and identify if
you would like to be on any of these teams. Too many projects means we
won't get critical mass for each project. Too few, and we don't have
enough focus.

If you are running a bit low on faith, take a look at this youtube
video. Perfectly safe for work. Just don't cry :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ojFcZIqRU

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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