[IAEP] #Documentation SL Funding Committe

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi Folks….
The funds referred to in the Dept of Ed announcement (2 years old) are Title I, II, and III funds. These are allocated to schools annually based on certain criteria. For example, if the student population of a school comes from largely low income, disadvantaged homes, the school will be eligible for Title I funds. Most of the schools in LAUSD (where I taught for 30+ years) now qualify for Title I funding.
Thus said, if someone is working with a Sugar/Sugarizer project at aTitle I school they may wish to use some of the funds on educational technology. But, keep in mind that these funds are also used for things like Teacher's aides, parent education, field trips, and the like. There is a lot of competition for the money. 
If you were a teacher with a class of 36 disadvantaged students would you rather have an extra hand to help in the classroom (an Aide) or would you rather have 36 laptops/tablets? If you have ever worked in such a classroom (as I have) you would know the answer… it's a "no brainer," you will take the Aide, thank you!
The iPad fiasco in LAUSD was incredible! Supt Deasy lost his job over it.  I talked with several teachers about it and they said it was crazy. The teachers did not receive proper training in advance to be able to use the tablets effectively with their students.  Some schools kept them locked up most of the time. For the ones who checked them out to students, the accountability was terrible and hundreds, maybe even thousands of the tablets simply "disappeared."
Even in Uruguay, where there was excellent training for teachers, great parent and community involvement, and a pretty good accounting system, machines disappeared and many teachers didn't really "buy in" to the use of the XOs with their students. 
We saw that on some of our visits to classrooms in Uruguay during EduJam  in 2011. In one classroom in Montevideo, a teacher gave the students a math graphing assignment to do on their XOs using data they had collected during a recent vacation break. Few of the students did the assignment. Most went directly to the internet to play games and tend to their "webkins." (Another reason for having IIAB!) 
Yet, a few days later we saw what was essentially the same lesson at a school in rural Durazno where the students were all very involved with the lesson and presented excellent individual results. The second classroom was that of Rosamel Ramirez Mendez, one of the finest teachers I have run into anywhere.  
At EduJam, we also got to see some of the great science experiments Trinidad Guzman used with his students. And, now his guide to doing it is available in English too, thanks to Tony Anderson, Laura Vargus, and Sebastiain Silva.
Teacher training and "buy-in" is essential for Sugar/Sugarizer to succeed no matter what platform, language, or country you/we are working in.  This is where SugarLabs has been remiss. Until we address it "Big Time" we aren't going to see much progress.
Caryl
From: walter.bender at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 01:12:46 -0400
To: dave at lab6.com
CC: laura at somosazucar.org; iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: Re: [IAEP] #Documentation SL Funding Committe

I agree with Dave. It is really oriented towards school programs (in teh US) and professional development. I don't think it is a good match for Sugar Labs.
-walter
On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 9:00 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:


On 5 July 2016 at 20:56, Laura Vargas <laura at somosazucar.org> wrote:
Please read:
http://tech.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Tech-Federal-Funds-Final-V2.pdf 
Nice find! Its great to see support for Open Educational Resources and that school districts can get federal funds to buy computer devices. However, I'm not sure SL would be eligible for any of those funds?


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Walter Bender
Sugar Labshttp://www.sugarlabs.org




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