Hi Tony, I agree that content and activities that are delivered via Moodle should be an important part of this project.  Have you done any research into what content is currently available? Who do you think are our best partners for creating and maintaining a collection of K-8 resources that can be accessed via Moodle?  Curriki?  Merlot?  Which countries are ahead in this? Thanks, Caroline <div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Tony Anderson <<a href="mailto:tony_anderson@usa.net">tony_anderson@usa.net</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Bryan has started a very interesting discussion about what is needed for the XO to support education. I would like to add my two cents worth. We are learning (gaining new experience) every day that we are alive. The traditional difference in education is that it is organized learning. Teaching a topic means to provide an organized tour of an area of knowledge covering what every student should know or be aware of. The XO's primary tool for education, as opposed to learning experiences, is Moodle. The problem is that Moodle for the XO is a tool which is ready and waiting to be used (all dressed up and no where to go). My vision is that there is a repository (website) which contains free (CC or similar) courses covering the core curriculum for K-8. The website needs to be supported by a community of developers (course creators) and moderators (folks who volunteer to assist teachers and students who are participating). This repository should also contain 'elective' courses following the model of Oregon's Saturday Academy (<a href="http://www.saturdayacademy.org/" target="_blank">http://www.saturdayacademy.org/</a>). A Moodle course is divided into sections (topics, weeks, ...). Each section has one or more 'activities' (a word which is very heavily overloaded). Essentially an 'activity' here is something the course creator asks the students to do or experience (e.g. read an exposition on the topic in a wiki page, listen to some music, create an e-toy project, answer some questions, ...). Moodle provides the teacher with a wealth of information on the progress of each student. This organization suggests that course developers could start a new course or add sections to an existing course or add activities to an existing section. It also suggests that teachers in a local community could 'cut and paste' a course from these elements, adding or modifying as needed. The moderators would be new element. In the case of the Saturday Academy courses, they could be the 'teacher' working with a 'cohort' of enrolled students, who could be anywhere in the world. In the case of 'core' courses, they could provide help to the classroom teacher as well as helping to mentor students at the invitation of the teacher. For example, a class in Rwanda studying English could ask a moderator who is a native English speaker to meet with them at a specified time to tell them a story or host a chat. The teacher could ask the moderator to review student submissions (recorded audio or written material) for appropriate pronunciation or use of the language. The primary problem with Moodle at the moment is that there are is not a body of grade school courses available to illustrate how to build them or to provoke the community to 'make it better'. Unfortunately, at the moment, many people in the community do not consider the schoolserver to be essential, existing Moodle courses are primarily aimed at the university or pre-university level, and most of these are behind proprietary walls. Tony _______________________________________________ Sugar-devel mailing list <a href="mailto:Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org">Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel</a> </blockquote></div> -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove Caroline@SolutionGrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax