[Its.an.education.project] First week at Nepal's Test Schools

[Bryan Berry]

> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 08:54:33 +1000
> From: forster at ozonline.com.au
> Subject: [Its.an.education.project] First week at Nepal's Test Schools
> To: its.an.education.project at tema.lo-res.org
> Message-ID: <200805102254.m4AMsXh1003221 at smtp.ozonline.com.au>
> 
> Bryan
> 
> Thanks for the update from OLPC Nepal
> 
> Some thoughts on engaging learners "Bashuki is undoubtedly the more
> challenging one... even the lure of the cute laptops were not enough
> to entice the students to school" based on my experience teaching a
> low achievement migrant group in a developed country.
> 
> I see the higher order thinking and problem solving of Etoys as one of
> the best activities on the OLPC though I understand you may have not
> started on that yet. If you are unsure about teacher acceptance of
> etoys, you could schedule etoys as a lunchtime fun activity with an
> emphasis on playful learning. (though I have had problems with teacher
> acceptance, the parents have always been 100% supportive)
> 


> This lesson plan is based on GameMaker on a Windows platform but
> should be directly applicable to Etoys as the two activities are very
> similar. Even programming games which is highly motivating for engaged
> learners takes quite a lot of effort from the teacher with disengaged
> students.


The kids aren't "disengaged" from learning or uninterested in school.
They can't get to class because they have to take care of younger
siblings at home. We can't change the fact that 

Was there an attachment to this e-mail? Would love to see the lesson
plan.

That's a great idea to introduce EToys as a lunchtime activity. We have
to make sure that the teachers at Bashuki and Bishwamitra lead these
activities. Our plan is for the teachers to do all the teaching at the
school. If our team starts leading classes, we may take away some of the
teachers' sense of ownership of this program. 

We want to introduce programming w/ EToys in such a way that the
teachers are the first ones to lead classes w/ it and make sure it is
integrated into the curriculum and not a "supplement," i.e. something
that will eventually be ignored. We need good lesson plans to do this.
Any that you can contribute would be most useful.

We need lesson plans for activities perhaps as badly as we need
activities.

> Using a completed game (eg street racer or 1945 in GameMaker) break
> the class into teams to see which team gets the highest score. Next
> get the students to hack the game so they can cheat a higher score,
> allow 5 minutes. Encourage collaboration in teams. Then play again.
> Allow a second cycle, by now some teams will be getting scores that go
> into arithmetic overflow.
> You can also give them various versions of a broken game and give them
> the challenge of debugging.
> 
> These activities are scaffolding for disengaged learners, with the
> goal of having the students eventually engaged in independent project
> based learning with etoys.
> 
> Tony
> 

Awesome ideas Tony. We will have to take our time here to make sure they
become part of the system.