[Olpc-socal] Rare Opportunity...Uruguay eduJAM! 2011: A Vibrant Summit With A Diverse Range Of Offerings

Mon Mar 21 17:35:12 EDT 2011

Hi all you Southern California  OSSIE fans!  

If you have the time and would like an unforgettable travel adventure featuring Open Source Software In Education, this visit to OLPC deployments in Uruguay, where every elementary school child has an XO, (they call it "Plan Ceibal") followed by a weekend (or week if you can stay) of Sugar software programming (think Python), this should be of interest to you!

The trip is about 6 weeks from now, still time to get your tickets to South America (my husband and I are traveling on frequent flier tickets). The gateway city is Montevideo, Uruguay, but if you want to visit Argentina too, Buenos Aires is a good option. There is a ferry that makes several trips daily between the two cities.  

If you are interested in the entire event, it will include the "Conozco Uruguay" tour (April 30-May 5) that will visit many schools and talk with many educators in Uruguay; the "Summit" (May 5-7) where there will be sessions about the deployments and software, and programming sessions; and the "hard-core" developers "code sprint" (from May 8-11 or whenever they finally drop!). 

You can also participate in the Summit and JAM without the tour, or the Summit alone, if you wish. While most of the sessions will be in Spanish, there will be many bilingual folks there to help you understand everything that is happening.

If you are interested, the best places to find more information are on the SugarLabs wiki.  For the Summit, check out: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Uruguay_Summit_2011

If you also would like to attend the pre-Summit Tour, check this: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Conozco_Uruguay_Tour

If you have other questions, send me a message in a reply to this email and if I don't know the answer, I will find someone who does.

If you think you would like to and be able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to meet and work with open source developers, deployers, and educators from many different different countries, information for sign-up is on the links above.  Some of the links in the article below may not be active. 

Caryl, OLPC and Sugar Labs Support Volunteer

See below for an official "press release" about the event:

We are very excited to update you with the latest information about the eduJAM! 2011 summit. It is great to see that the different pieces of the puzzle are coming together for what will undoubtedly be a landmark for the international community of educational free-software developers. Many of the main developers behind the Sugar platform will be present (Walter Bender, Aleksey Lim (alsroot), and Bernie Innocenti among others). Additionally, people working on different OLPC deployments will be there which guarantees an excellent environment for moving the area of 1-to-1 computing in education projects and related discussions forward.
More than anything we aim to make the summit an event to create and amplify relationships in this community.Place
The summit will take place at the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay (UTU) and more specifically in its brand-new PAOF building which is located in Ciudad Viaja, the historic and commercial heart of Montevideo. Apart from this allowing us to work within a comfortable and versatile space, it also provides opportunities to enjoy this beautiful part of the city during free hours.
ProgramThe summit will begin in the afternoon of Thursday, May 5 with an informal reception aimed at allowing us to get to know each other as well as catch up.
On Friday, May 6 the intensive work begins. This day will be organized in two tracks. In the morning we will focus on a broad vision of the core challenges encountered when designing a software platform aimed at learning in school environments in general and in 1-to-1 scenarios in particular. We can revise and revisit these experiences in light of the experiences made within this context in the past few years. What has and hasn’t worked when it comes to the software? How can we support the creation of effective learning communities? How can we make the development processes in such a diverse and distributed community more efficient? Which applications are we still missing? These are some of the questions which will be on the table.
In the afternoon the summit will turn sweet as we fully dedicate it to Sugar. On the one hand we will hold a “Sugar Camp” where will discuss the current state of developments, local labs, the roadmap and how to optimize the work in the community.
Simultaneously on Friday afternoon there will be workshops aimed at people such as students and newcomers who want to learn how to develop for Sugar.
On Saturday, May 7 the morning will be focused on the various experiences made in 1-to-1 projects. There will be talks by people working on different deployments, explaining what they have done and discussing the necessities and requirements when it comes to software platform. We consider this to be an important input for planning future work.
This afternoon will be run in an “unconference” mode. This means that there will be different talks, workshops, and discussion rounds which will be planned and decided upon by the participants on the spot. We thereby hope to learn more about the various ongoing projects, discuss roadmaps as well as form small development and investigation groups.
Conozco Uruguay TourIndependent of the summit, a variety of activities will take place in the days leading up to it. These activities are aimed at people who want to explore the experiences Uruguay is making with Plan Ceibal in more depth. They will take place between Saturday, April 30 and Thursday, May 5. Together with RAP Ceibal and OLPC we have developed the following itinerary:
Saturday, 30: Welcome dinnerSunday, 1: Visit to Tala, Canelones, its rural school and Proyecto Aurora. Asado included;-)
Monday, 2 (morning): Visit to and activities at Escuela 173 in Las Piedras, CanelonesMonday, 2 (afternoon): Meeting with members of Flor de Ceibo, a project by the Universidad de la República which supports Plan Ceibal
Tuesday, 3: Visit to and activities at Esciela 33 in La Paloma, DuraznoWednesday, 4 (morning): Montevideo city tour
Wednesday, 4 (afternoon): Visit of Euskal Erría school and the RAP Montevideo Center as well as meeting with RAP Ceibal volunteers
This agenda is still subject of possible changes but the start (Saturday, April 30) and end dates (Thursday, May 5) have been confirmed. We are also working on possible changes to include a touristic activity such as the visit of a Uruguayan winery.
More information is available at: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Conozco_Uruguay_Tour
Sugar Code SprintThere are also plans for an activity aimed at Sugar developers to take place after the meeting. The days between Sunday, May 8 and Wednesday, May 11 will be focused on intensive Sugar programming sessions in collaboration with developers from Sugar Labs, OLPC and hopefully also other deployments.
A vibrant summit to unite and grow the communityThe eduJAM! 2011 organization is progressing at full speed. We are also making calls to volunteers to help us in the organization and logistics, for example to host some of the international participants and thereby help them reduce their cost as well as allowing them to learn more about the local realities.
All of this is made possible thanks to the grand efforts by ceibalJAM!, the collaboration of the communities around OLPC, Sugar Labs, and RAP Ceibal, the coordination of Creática, the sponsorship by Activity Central and the many volunteers who are lending a helping hand in organizing the summit as well as the activities before and after it.
Don’t miss it! Register and buy your tickets for travel! In case you have any questions please write us at edujam2011 at ceibaljam.org.

_______________________________________________
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep 		 	   		  

_______________________________________________
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep 		 	   		  
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