[IAEP] Learning with the XO

[Donna Benjamin]

Hi Peter,

Yes we're meeting tomorrow.
 Well, later today actually now that I look at the time.
 2-4pm The Hub @ Docklands. 17 Waterview Walk, Docklands.

I'm afraid I can't really answer your questions in any way you'll find
satisfactory, as I'm not much more than an enthusiastic volunteer. 

I think the most useful response I can give you is threefold:

1. Check out the Sugar Labs website and the IAEP mailing list [It's An
Education Project] There you will find a community of passionate
amateurs and professional educators and developers all working hard to
extend Sugar, the platform which drives the OLPC, to other machines and
even to run from a USB stick.

http://www.sugarlabs.org/ 
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep 

2. As you've suggested, please come along to one of our sugar club
meets, to play with the machines, and think about how you can
contribute.

3. Specifically - the constructionist approach behind OLPC is based on
the work of Seymour Papert, Alan Kay and Marvin Minksy. I've found their
writings on the OLPC site to be quite inspiring.

See: 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Learning_Learning 
http://www.papert.org/works.html 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Constructionist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory) 

Finally, I'm sorry you were unable to find us for the March meeting, but
it would seem you were following directions from an old announcement for
our December meet, which was at an entirely different venue. I apologise
for the confusion.  Directions for our meet today - and subsequent meets
on the 3rd Saturday of the month (except in November) from 2-4pm can be
found here: http://luv.asn.au/2009/04/workshop As we share our location
with linux user victoria's beginners workshop .

regards
Donna


On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 19:55 +1000, Peter Raven wrote:
> Hi Donna,
> 
> I missed the March OLPC meeting at the hub, but have emailed Jiri  
> Sabik since about my specific interest, which is the learning process  
> which can be used by children with the XO.  He mentioned that it was  
> probably more in your area of interest than his own.  It would be  
> useful to learn what the thinking is on the constructivist software  
> which can be used on the XO.  Following the information on the main  
> OLPC site, the educational aspects always appear secondary, despite  
> the protestation that its an educational project and not a computer  
> project.  My particular interest is in the use on the Montessori  
> approach as a means of structuring the child's learning process, using  
> the XO and its 'activities'  I work in a voluntary capacity in a  
> Montessori school and am trying to initiate a project which brings  
> Montessori and the XO together, with particular focus on Indigenous  
> children.
> 
> If I succeed in finding the location of the next meeting and you are  
> also there perhaps I can learn something of the educational aspects  
> from you.  I haven't seen any details of a further meeting in Melbourne.
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Peter Raven 
-- 
Donna Benjamin - Executive Director
Creative Contingencies - http://cc.com.au
ph +61 3 9326 9985 - mob +61 418 310 414
open source - facilitation - web services