[OLPC_Boston] Invite to an E-Toys Training

Caroline Meeks caroline at solutiongrove.com
Wed Feb 9 22:11:36 EST 2011


Dear Boston OLPC Community,

What: Class to train adults to train teachers/create content with E-Toys

E-Toys is a childrens’ programming environment used extensively around the
world including Haiti with Waveplace.org.

Who:  Techies interested in education, Educators interested in technology.

We are working on a project at the Haitian Coalitian and the Clarendon Hill
Apartments housing project in Somerville, and we need your help! Read on if
you're a techie, teacher, Haitian translator, or anyone else who's
interested in educational software.

The focus of this class is an educational program called eToys - I'm sure
many of you have heard of it. For those of you who haven't: eToys is a
multifaceted program that is currently being used in courses in Haiti on XO
laptops. With it, kids can learn basics of programming, animation, and
logic, but it's so much more than that. Waveplace has created an innovative
curriculum that extends eToys to virtually every subject...math, science,
social studies, even language arts.

Teach Kids in Somerville: Our goal is to run our own eToys classes for
children here in Somerville. For the kids of all ethnicities at the
Clarendon Hill Apartments, we want to run an eToys course on storytelling
that will use a similar curriculum to that being taught in Haiti.  We have
donated computers for the students to use.

Teach volunteers who will be going to Haiti this Summer: We would also like
to run a series of classes for those interested in traveling to Haiti to do
their own training - namely adults at CHA and possibly local high school
students. That's where Sprout comes in - we need your help to run these
"train the trainer" sessions! These trainers would then bring their
knowledge to Haiti to enrich childrens' education.

Create Curriculum for Haiti: There are a good number of curriculum units
available and being used in Haiti with E-Toys, but the need is extensive!
 Curriculum needs to be written, turned into interactive E-Toys projects,
and translated into Haitian Creole.  Somerville has a wealth of people with
each of these skills. We would like your help bringing them together to
provide free educational materials for children in Haiti.  All content will
be under open licence and will also be available to be translated for use in
other countries, and of course here in Somerville!

Learn More about E-Toys and the Existing Curriculum:  You can find examples
of existing curriculum and students' projects at an Illinois school here:
http://etoysillinois.org or some tutorials from Waveplace here:
http://waveplace.com/resources/tutorials/.

We will be running an eToys training class soon for anyone interested in
learning more about eToys or working with us and the Haitian Coalitian.
You'll get to learn how to use basic eToys functions, from creating sketches
to animating them by using scripts. You can even create your own games -
eToys is LOTS of fun! You will also learn more about education work in Haiti
through organizations like Waveplace and locally with the Haitian Coalition.


When and Where? Soon and in Somerville! We will be working with interested
people to figure that out.  Please contact me at redfern.derek at gmail.com or
Caroline at caroline at solutiongrove.com if you're interested.

Thanks for your help!

Derek Redfern/Caroline Meeks

-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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