[OLPC-SF] learning implode...

[Tom Wadbrook]

No internet happening, at least while we're here on this current visit, unfortunately. We have pursued several avenues which had all led to dead-ends until the last couple that we have going right now, both of which are sounding promising for a later date. There is a non-profit hotel and conference center on the edge of the city of Thies, about five miles away over pretty flat land that have agreed to host a DSL line for us - from there we can go point to point using Bruce Baike's green-wifi.org setup. That and the other option both depend on telecom provider and local government support to happen so we aren't out of the woods yet. Nothing happens without a few hoops being jumped through here.

Today I was teaching the teachers in the village again, this time we reviewed their homework assignment, shared it with a partner, added a photo via Record, then explored some other activities including Memorize, Draw, Moon (which is unfortunately not localized into French). Definitely a harder lesson to teach today without a translator, but we all agree that it's worth the effort to spend the time together with the laptops even if we struggle to communicate a little.

These systems do freeze frequently and it seems some do more than others - anybody have any tips? Do I just re-install Sugar? I have to say that if I were a teacher, I'd get frustrated by the frequency of it. Also, any tips on the trackpad wiggy-ness? Dust and sweat, which are both here in large doses, are a kiss of death to the functionality of the trackpad! 

I have two more days here, and the group I'm with are here for a further week, so I'll be handing teaching over on Friday to one of the high school teachers, Jenny Nauss who is awesome and much better qualified to be doing this than I am. If you are wondering who we are... almost 30 teachers and students from Drew School and Lick-Wilmerding School in San Francisco, (both high schools), doing a variety of service learning / development work in the village of Keur Sadaro, Senegal over the course of three years worth of repeat visits. One project is the deployment of 25 OLPCs (and hopefully more if things go according to plan).

Thanks all,
Tom


-----Original Message-----
From: sv3rma at gmail.com [mailto:sv3rma at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Sameer Verma
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 4:14 PM
To: Tom Wadbrook
Cc: olpc-sf at lists.laptop.org
Subject: Re: [OLPC-SF] learning implode...

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 1:41 AM, Tom Wadbrook<tomwadbrook at drewschool.org> wrote:
> I'm sitting in my hotel room planning a lesson for about an hour from
> now - eight teachers from the primary school in the village of Keur
> Sadaro, Senegal. It's lesson four, I've been here in Senegal a week now
> deploying 25 XOs to the school and things are going fantastically. We're
> moving quicker than we ideally would, but considering we have only one
> previous computer user among the eight, we're making great progress. And
> your email arriving right now made me realize that today we will play
> some games, including Memory and Implode (after sharing yesterday's
> homework - a short essay titled "Ma Vie", which we will share,
> collaboratively correct, and maybe insert a self-portrait). Wish me
> luck, up until this point I've had French and Wolof translators and
> today I'm on my own!
>
> Tom
>
> Tom Wadbrook | Director of Technology | Drew School
> 2901 California Street | San Francisco, Ca | 94115
> http://www.drewschool.org  | 415-409-3739 x122 | cell 415  370 4207
>
>

Hi Tom,
We were wondering how the Senegal trip was going. Thanks for the
update. Sounds exciting. In terms of games, my anecdotal observations
have been with Memorize (has a tab to create your own square pairs),
Implode, Speak (maybe try the french accent?), and of course Record

How's the connectivity from the village to the outside. Were you guys
able to set up the wifi link?

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/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: olpc-sf-bounces at lists.laptop.org
> [mailto:olpc-sf-bounces at lists.laptop.org] On Behalf Of Sameer Verma
> Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:06 AM
> To: olpc-open at lists.laptop.org; OLPC SF; iaep; Sugar Labs Marketing;
> Sugar-dev Devel
> Subject: [OLPC-SF] learning implode...
>
> My daughter, who is 3 years and 7 months old has largely stayed away
> from the XO (or for that matter computers in general) other than
> mimicking me by turning on the XO and giving our guests/visitors an
> unexpected short speech on "let me show you this computer. This is the
> one laptop per child". She still likes her crayons and Lego blocks.
>
> She's on her summer break at home these days, which has forced me to
> get creative and keep her engaged. I introduced her to implode
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Implode) today. I showed her how to move
> the "arrow" (she insists that I call it an arrow and not a mouse
> because calling it a mouse is just silly) start a new implode game and
> select three or more blocks of the same color. The goal is to get that
> smiley face at the end of the game. One demo, plus some hints, and in
> under three minutes, my daughter has become an implode player.
> I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E !!! She even taught her mother how to play the
> game later this evening.
>
> For all the arm chair naysayers out there, get with the program!
> Children are amazing!!!
>
> 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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