Re: [IAEP] [OLPC India] Fwd: [bytesforall_readers] OLPC eyes 1 mn laptop sales in India
On Monday 29 Sep 2008 1:52:22 pm Edward Cherlin wrote: Anybody know anything about this? I usually pass up such articles. There are too many weasel words like plans to ... and sources say If this were a properly researched article or press release, then it would have specific details. 300m USD in one year is a big money by local standards (=INR 14b). As a comparison, SSA (ssa.nic.in), the federal group in charge of universalizing primary education to more than 200m children, had an outlay of INR 64b for 2007-08. They have the deepest pockets. Selling 1m units into a market of 300m children is not difficult. But ensuring that the 1m goes to the most needy is a challenge. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] maths instruction
On Thursday 30 April 2009 8:04:37 pm Kathy Pusztavari wrote: I'm of the direct instruction camp. If skills and concepts are not build upon each other correctly, you will get kids that either learn a concept wrong (then they have to unlearn it) or fail and then feel like they are stupid... I hope between the 'instruction' camp and the 'construction' camp we don't lose sight of the learner - the individual! :-). The extent to which the learner has control over the learning process seems to have a big difference in the outcomes. There is a big difference between 'feeling stupid' and being told 'one is stupid'. Falling down and feeling stupid at times are part of the learning curve. Being told that one is stupid because one has not understood the concepts presented in a particular way is not. .It should help nerds (what I loving call you guys) when they program modules. How do you teach a skill or concept when you are not sure the student has prerequisite skills or knowledge? You don't, not if you expect a favorable outcome: http://boyslife.org/jokes/1296/three-scouts-good-deeds/ Kids are both with their syllabus and learn all the time (till they become teens anyway :-)): http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/michael_merzenich_on_the_elastic_brain.html Most cases of bad grades and drop-outs turn out to be a mismatch between the learner's expectation and the teacher's method. The tough question is really about how a teacher can discover the learner's method. Subbu___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] versus, not
On Thursday 07 May 2009 07:00:44 pm Alan Kay wrote: A good goal for the larger system -- which has to include not just what people need in their practical life, but also what they need to understand the issues of their society, how their society works, what their responsibilities as citizens need to be, etc. For example, in the 21st century, a fluent (but not pro) understanding of science, and of the way that science looks at knowledge and knowing is needed to be a holder of the ultimate powers of the society. A good and reasonable goal for a modern society (like the US) would be to have 70% to 80% of the citizens have this medium level of fluency. A large part of what we consider 'modern' today are the results of engineering of consent (Edward Bernays) rather than arising from true 'needs' or 'inner game' (Tim Gallwey). Mass education is now carried out just like mass communication. What we get out of the pipeline are not enlightened people but prisoners of theories. Empowered citizens can emerge only if we invert the control structure. In India, teachers can be Upadhyayas (Pedagogue) or Acharyas (Guide). Upadhyayas build inviduals while Acharyas build communities. Interestingly, Acharyas only take on queries arising from inner quest and refuse to discuss theories (see last part of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n_i4b4Wy-M for an example). Near my city, public school teachers struggle to get middle schoolers to write 2 sheets a week. In one experiment engaging 20 schools and 100+ teachers, the system was changed to let the students set a target for themselves and source their own material for writing with teachers ensuring that they have enough writing supplies for the exercise. Students turned in more than 15 sheets each that week, much to teachers' amazement. Students even actively sought newspapers, non-curricular books for source material triggering a sea change in their reading habits. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Some Comments on Digital Textbooks In California
On Thursday 11 June 2009 09:55:26 pm Sameer Verma wrote: Some people argue that books can only cover so much. Well, paper books are limited. Electronic books are not. Syllabi are designed to address specific teaching goals in limited time. I use syllabi every semester, and I'm not against that approach. However, if books were delivered electronically, and children had free access to content, then learning would take on a different shape...at least for some. An digital math book is still a math book. It doesn't take on long festering problems in the schooling system. We are not looking at the larger potential of digital medium in solving these problems. The subject/timeslots/syllabus system (which makes sense in a college) has percolated down to K7 levels and is doing more harm than good. Teachers want to tagged as 'science teachers' and 'math teachers' and 'gym teachers' forgetting that what every K7 child needs to know is something every teacher should know and be able to teach. Timeslots and lesson plans don't take into account different learning sensitivities of children. They are taught about rains in peak summer because that is the order in the textbook! School bag burden is a serious health hazard [1]. With digital medium, hyperlinked 'digibooks' can be composed, distributed and tailored easily. Teachers can introduce digibooks that are tailored to age/stage/local needs rather than by subject/syllabus, say on a monthly basis. Children chose their own pace and depth while working through the monthlies. Monthlies can be printed on paper for those regions that are not yet ready for digibooks. The school bag burden will disappear. [1] http://www.hindu.com/edu/2006/02/21/stories/2006022100170400.htm Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and Mastering Educational SW
On Monday 29 Jun 2009 10:01:34 pm Alan Kay wrote: (a) the epistemology of science is not at all what most people suppose, and it is rather distant from the normal ways our minds are set up to work, Could you please elaborate it? Isn't the desire to seek the deeper principles behind things and events around us a unique aspect of human mind? If we leave out the last few decades, scientists did pretty well on the whole. What I find disturbing is the 'intermediation' that has crept into the science education in recent decades. It is no longer about direct experience. It is about dealing with text in books, pictures on charts and movies on screen. It is about literacy, not comprehension [1]. [1] http://solar.physics.montana.edu/tslater/montillation_of_traxoline.html Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and Mastering Educational SW
On Tuesday 30 Jun 2009 5:42:29 pm Alan Kay wrote: ..There I should have said modern science to denote the kind of science that Galileo and a few others started, which Bacon discussed so well as a debugging process for what is wrong with our brains/minds, and which Newton first showed how different and incredibly more powerful it could be from all previous forms of thinking. You mean Roger Bacon, the 13th century philosopher and teacher? If so, then the term 'science' itself is relatively modern :-), a post-Newton era term. (b) that qualitative leaps are changes in kind not just degree, changes in outlook, not just in quantity of knowledge gathered. There have been qualitative leaps (paradigm shifts) before too, esp. in south/east asia where philosophy developed without interruptions for thousands of years[1,2]. Patanjali's treatise [Yoga Sutras] on psychic processes is highly regarded even today. You can see applications of its theory in documentaries like Ring of Fire by Lawrence Blair [3]. I see people like Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Feynman, etc. as part of a long line of paradigm shifters. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_science [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Indian_science_and_technology [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnsMIvp1v0 Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and Mastering Educational SW
On Tuesday 30 Jun 2009 11:23:24 pm Alan Kay wrote: what is more interesting is how well certain ways of thinking work in finding strong models of phenomena compared to others. This is the part that interests me too ... So, if we get pneumonia, there are lots of paradigms to choose from, but I'm betting that most will choose the one that knows how to find out about bacteria and how to make antibiotics. ... and this is where I get stuck ;-), particularly in the context of school education (first 12 years). Unlike the 3Rs, thinking processes have no external manifestation that parents/teachers can monitor, assess or assist. The economic value of deep thinking is not realized until many years later. The latency between 'input' and 'output' can be as large as 12 years and 'evaluation' of output may stretch into decades! Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and Mastering Educational SW
On Thursday 02 Jul 2009 5:19:58 pm Alan Kay wrote: Knowledge - On the other hand, Henry Ford was not nearly as smart as Leonardo, but was born at a very good time and in a good place, so he was able to combine engineering and production inventions to make millions of inexpensive automobiles. As I look out of my window at the smog hanging over the city, I wonder if this is really progress :-). But I digress .. Being around adults who have interesting outlooks works the best for most kids. This was the crux of the point that the farmer raised. He didn't want his kid associating with people whom he thought were ineffective as guides. BTW, his feedback was crucial in fixing some of the lacunae in his school and helped raise the bar. The kid is back in school and making good progress. I was brought up on a farm (a somewhat unusual one), but the farms in the region were not at all conducive for learning powerful outlooks, nor were the schools particularly. However, my grandfather was a writing farmer and had a huge library of books of all kinds in his farmhouse. Parents set a minimum bar. As I pointed out earlier, a school is relevant only to the extent that it can do better than that level; much better. But, if I were trying to make things happen with IAEP, I would try to do just a few main things, and one of them would be to make a program/user-interface which could do a great job of teaching a child to read and write their native language without requiring any more from the adults around them than a little encouragement. This is exactly what we do (sikshana.blogspot.com) but in a way that differs from Sugarlabs. Kids use computer as a tool to discover, to create, to simulate ideas; not as an appliance to be owned. Their projects are accumulated on a personal flash chip, but the tool itself is shared (and changes every year) and augments other learning aids in the schools. We don't know if this is the best way to use a computer. We started with this assumption and will tweak it as we learn more about its effectiveness. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Computer as a tool
Hi, This thread was spun off Re: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and Mastering Educational SW There are differences in the use of computers in schools between Sikshana (sikshana.blogspot.com) and Sugar Labs/OLPC. Sikshana's tech pilot is only three years old and will reach around 6000 kids (grades 5..7) across 120 schools this year. Our involvement in these schools, as community members, was child-centric and focussed on building basic skills set. Supplies shortage is a perennial issue in these remote villages. We introduced computers as digital authoring tools so kids never run short of 'supplies'. There was no pre-loaded content - no physics lessons, no cartoons, no quizzes. A 2GB USB flash memory chip issued to each kid served as a digital school bag. Etoys (customized for vernacular support) ran off the chip while others were installed on the hard disk. The difference between OLPC/Sugar/SoaS in the separation of personal content from the rest of the stack. Computers are not networked, collaboration is physical. The machine, OS, GUI, software tools were all subject to change. Putting OS on the chip would have reduced space for project files and upgrading software on so many chips would be a logistical nightmare! Our field office maintains a pool of computers (notebooks and desktops) from which schools can borrow as many as they can manage in the classrooms. Bite only what you can chew. This system allowed teachers and students to focus on authoring and not get bogged down by IT issues. We didn't try to simplify GUI. It was not even localized though teachers and students knew very little English. We found that kids enjoyed the challenge of mastering GUI. They were thrilled to use the same 'computer' that IT folks use in their offices. English-Kannada dictionary got used heavily. Undo became a much loved feature. They learnt LaTeX encoding to produce Kannada and Math text. Students formed teams to share 'tips and tricks'. Now teachers, across schools, are forming self-help groups to share their findings. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] View Slides an alternative to PowerPoint?
On Thursday 02 Jul 2009 6:21:33 pm Walter Bender wrote:
I still wish there was a
launch-this-project-and-we'll-have-taken-care-of-steps-1–5-below-for-you
Etoys bundle kicking around that we could just ship with the Journal.
There is a simpler way to 'build a story' using conventional techniques.
Compose each 'scene' on a Playfield and collect them in a Holder (Act). Hide
the Holder. Sketch a Raconteur (or use a small ellipse) and script it to
sequence through the scenes in the Holder.
For timing, use a line and script it to rotate at desired rate. Other objects
can then use tests like ('when line heading is 15 degrees do ..).
Subbu
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics
On Wednesday 01 Jul 2009 6:05:08 pm Alan Kay wrote: An important part of ball drop was the separation of 3-4 months between the math (scripting various kinds of motion for the children's painted cars and dropping markers to reveal the history of their motion), and the science (handling various 3-4 spherical objects ranging from fruits to sponge and croquet balls, and two weights of shotputs; speculating on how they would fall relative to each other, coming up with ways to determine this, and then a range of experiments in which the janitor dropped the objects. This perspective on doing experiments is missing/too brief in the DVD and the online clips. What options were considered? Why were some dropped? Why was this way of learning gravity chosen? Like the first scene in Designing the curriculum. The thinking and planning that goes into such experiments deserves to be shared and replicated on a whole scale. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Computer as a tool
On Monday 13 Jul 2009 7:02:33 pm Caroline Meeks wrote: What sort of results do you have so far? The new academic year has just started. In the prev one, around 75% of the kids learnt to handle the computer well enough to create at least one project in Etoys in a space of about four calendar months (which included holidays and term exams). Around 25% of the children were yet to record their projects. Schools closed (Apr/May) before we could dig deeper into the causes. Technologically: How many USB sticks failed? How many were lost/stollen? None reported so far. For students, the chip is their most precious possession. Did the kids find any places to use the sticks outside of school? Yes. Some kids do, when they visit their relatives in the city. BTW, computers are not tied to the school. With personal data separated from the 'machine', many teachers chose to 'issue' computers to children like books, so that they could 'work' during evenings and holidays or participate in science contests. Do you have any measure of how much content was created? Is there much sharing between schools? Do you have any advice on how to facilitate sharing of created content? Our intention was to equip students with 'infinite supplies' so that they could jot down their personal ideas and stories not for creating content for the classroom. Teachers did not venture to 'correct' mistakes in the projects nor use it towards grades so students could 'tinker' with their pet ideas withour fear or stress. We used the number of projects recorded on the chip as a proxy for the effort. See http://sikshana.blogspot.com/2009/04/digitally-literate-rural-students- enter.html for details. Mentors from our foundation visited schools twice a week and helped them stay abreast of developments in other schools. I remain vary of 'content'. I have seen too many cases of content of dubious value. The teachers and students are quite capable of creating their own content. If they need help, they contact us. That is why I stick to software like Stellarium, Etoys, LaTeX and Inkscape. While early results are positive enough to spur us to cover all 120 schools this year, I remain cautious and vigilant. A program like this has to be run for many years before we can establish an enduring change in the learning environment. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Computer as a tool
On Tuesday 14 Jul 2009 12:03:35 am David Farning wrote: Have you considered using Sugar or Sugar on a stick for your program? The project was conceived before SoaS. We faced severe constraints with power budgets and tech support. Wifi and ethernet couldn't compete with sneakernet ;-). It was a back to basics project. Any use of computer had better be worth all that extra pain; else the initial enthusiasm will fizzle out. This ruled out many games, audio/video/picture work. What have been the issues preventing you from using Sugar? What blockers still exist which would prevent you from using Sugar? LaTeX and Stellarium were two big show stoppers. We just wanted a 'digital kit' that children could use to read/write in their local languages (Kannada/Hindi/English). A lot of work in Sugar was focussed around UI and storage models but not in multilingual support and immersive learning. We picked LaTeX because it allowed teachers and children to generate high quality text for vernacular and Math text. Children as young as 10 taught themselves LaTeX encoding just to be able to get high quality labels for their diagrams. Local culture has deep ties into astronomy and lunar calendar. Stellarium offered an excellent way to connect classrooms to the skies. Students could directly observe planets and track their orbits. Events like the upcoming eclipse on July 22nd would have been missed in the past because of monsoon clouds. Not any more. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sur] sugerencia para actividad clock
On Monday 20 Jul 2009 10:44:23 pm Yoshiki Ohshima wrote: However, my point of making that clock was that each kid should make one to understand it. An objective tick-tock is just one way to understand time. It is the kronos time. However, the round clock face stood for a different concept of time - time as an interval between events. This is a much more interesting story to play out in Etoys. The 12 divisions of a day (and twelve of night) trace back to the need for farmers to predict onset of annual rainy season. Rain leads to floods in the river depositing rich silt along the banks (and ground water) to raise crops. There are approximately 12 full moons between one Rainy season to another and approximately 30 sun rises between two full moons. The same divisions were also applied to day and night. Some cultures (like India) divided day and night into 30 slots each (or 60 slots total) while others divided them into 12 slots each (24 total) and further into 60 minute slices. Some (like Babylonians) divided both day and night into 12 slots. These divisions allowed one reckon and predict the onset of rains. The numbers 12, 24, 30, 60 and 360 became important in math. We continue to divide a circle into 360 degrees (12x30) to this day. The word time itself is from a root word meaning 'to slice, to cut'. The Greek word, kairos means both weather and opportune time. The Sanskrit word for year (varsha) also means rain. Many words in our daily use are tied to this concept of time (hour, minute, temporary, noon, meal, siesta, tide). Of course, 12 moons per year is approximate so an 'extra moon' is added every few years to catch up. This year is one of them, so it is a good opportunity to learn about 'blue moon'. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] GPA Notes 7/23/09
On Friday 24 Jul 2009 7:08:05 am Anurag Goel wrote: I feel most kids struggled with this because they had not learned too much about geometry, particularily concepts involving degrees and radii. However, kids experimented with a lot of different values to better predict increments. Some kids realized that if they input a really large number they would get the same result as importing a really small number (ex: 12 and 732). As expected, the kids did not understand why that was. The circular movement is not about geometry but differential calculus. Watch the movie clips on Talking Turtles in http://logothings.wikispaces.com, particular the first part of clip 2. 732 and 12 are numerical encodings of a concept that they have to experience first using their own body movements. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] GPA Notes 7/23/09
On Tuesday 28 Jul 2009 2:25:29 am Caroline Meeks wrote: On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 5:55 AM, K. K. Subramaniam subb...@gmail.comwrote: On Friday 24 Jul 2009 7:08:05 am Anurag Goel wrote: ..Some kids realized that if they input a really large number they would get the same result as importing a really small number (ex: 12 and 732). As expected, the kids did not understand why that was. The circular movement is not about geometry but differential calculus. Watch the movie clips on Talking Turtles in http://logothings.wikispaces.com, The one with the yellow turtle? No, the BBC video Papert and Talking Turtle shown in five parts. See part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk Papert [1:37] : The essential point about the turtle is its role as a transitional object. That is, transitional between the body, self and the abstract mathematical ideas. The turtle, you can identify with it. You can move your body in order to guess how you can command the turtle. So it is related to you, your body, your movement and it is also related to mathematical ideas. Papert's genius lies in creating an environment in which children can not only experience distances, turns and geometrical shapes but also digitize them into countable numbers for operating the turtle. Pen trails help children to detect and correct any encoding errors. In this process, children use principles of differential calculus (countable offsets from current location), integral calculus (accumulate counts), arithmetic (modulo operators) and not geometry (compass-ruler constructions). The teacher in the video summarizes it very well: Teacher [4:13]: The great thing is it provides a mathematical environment for the children. While the children are working around the turtle, if you listen to what they are talking about, it's all mathematical. Verbalization in Mathematics is very important and I think that half of the problems with Mathematical teaching is that students don't communicate mathematically, talk about mathematics and experience mathematical problems... The numbers on the clock (and its shape) encode experiences that many adults take for granted but which inspire awe in children. Why deny them the wonder by jumping into encodings right away? Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Is again Community Influence - Re: Lets Get Satisfaction (was: Community Influence)
On Friday 31 Jul 2009 5:50:48 am Caroline Meeks wrote: I think we have a choice. We harrang and nag the people in the classroom to give us better info, thus chasing away most of them, or we encourage feedback and get a lot of bad data. I just tried SoaS in a virtual machine and found some simple ways to get diagnostic info. If you get to the screen with SoaS 1 text: Pressing ESC reveals startup messages. The last one is important. If you can't get to the graphical screen. Restart and press TAB twice at the message (Automatic boot in 1 second). This will reveal the bootstrap command. Removing 'rhgb' (RedHat graphical boot?) using backspace and pressing ENTER will print diagnostic messages. Removing 'quiet' will print even detailed messages. Again, the last message will suffice. FYI .. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Computer as a tool
On Monday 13 Jul 2009 9:11:10 pm K. K. Subramaniam wrote: On Monday 13 Jul 2009 7:02:33 pm Caroline Meeks wrote: What sort of results do you have so far? The new academic year has just started. In the prev one, around 75% of the kids learnt to handle the computer well enough to create at least one project in Etoys in a space of about four calendar months (which included holidays and term exams). Around 25% of the children were yet to record their projects. Schools closed (Apr/May) before we could dig deeper into the causes. Just returned from a visit to our field office and village schools. The steady state feedback in this first academic quarter is very positive. There is a reverse migration from private to public schools. This was unimaginable two years back. We have also received requests from children who wanted to keep their chip and were willing to fund its replacement. Rs 350/- is a lot of money in these parts - about 100 noon meals. Technologically: How many USB sticks failed? How many were lost/stollen? None reported so far. For students, the chip is their most precious possession. No sticks have failed so far. The sticks were purchased directly from company distributor and came with a replacement guarantee. About 20 stiicks out of 1000 were not traceable. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Computer as a tool
On Thursday 13 Aug 2009 2:12:07 am Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote: What have been the issues preventing you from using Sugar? What blockers still exist which would prevent you from using Sugar? LaTeX and Stellarium were two big show stoppers. We just wanted a 'digital kit' that children could use to read/write in their local languages (Kannada/Hindi/English). A lot of work in Sugar was focussed around UI and storage models but not in multilingual support and immersive learning. Could you outline the issues you have faced while trying out local language support ? I would definitely love some feedback on this area - especially for Indic languages. This will require a separate thread :-(. But briefly, we faced issues in all three aspects - input methods, character encodings and rendering. Schools use the regular US keyboard for entering vernacular characters. SCIM (m17n) was not stable enough when we started. Recent versions are much more stable and we are trying them out this year. Much text work in Kannada is still based on proprietary encodings (Baraha, Nudi). Baraha/Nudi were designed for office documents, not school work. Transition to Unicode/UTF-8 for text is not yet complete. Indic truetype fonts don't blend well with text mixing English and Math symbols. Kannada scripts involve double subscripts giving them a larger average height. Indic text will appear visually smaller in mixed context. You will see this effect in mailing lists like Indlinux-group. Fontography is yet to catch up with Typography. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?
On Friday 14 Aug 2009 7:40:30 pm Caroline Meeks wrote: For Physics I think I want a really simple challenge that I can demo then have students solve it fairly quickly. then I want a couple levels of additional challenge where students can solve problems in different ways. For best results, pick something from the students' immediate environment and get them to analyze it in detail. The fun is in creating models of real-life events and predicting their behavior under changes. Often times, getting a 'false' answer reveals more than getting the 'right' answer so I wouldn't aim for a quick solution. See http://sikshana.blogspot.com/2008/09/magic-straw-of-kallahalli.html It could be a bouncing baseball (why do subsequent peaks reduce in size. Is there a pattern in reduction?), building a pile of books (staircase style), why does it collapse? play of light on shadows, motion of strikers on carrom coins and so on. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?
On Sunday 16 Aug 2009 9:42:39 am Bill Kerr wrote: Is there are real danger of students getting the wrong idea about science from using the physics program? I'm not really sure - some will, some won't - but I think my students see it as a game type program rather than a reality show. Their spontaneous response was to make games with it. The risk here is one of distraction. Models on computers are no different from pictorial models in books. Science is not like literature to be studied from books or like a Magic show to be entertained through mis-direction. Scientific study is rooted in experience that motivates one to think deeper (what? as in experimental science or why? as in theoretical sciences). An event that entertains but does not lead to contemplation is no different from a Magic show. It is easy for a young learner to get mis-directed and miss the essential events. The issue of teaching real science depends on awareness. I don't see a science simulator as a bad thing in itself. Easy fun rather than hard fun (Seymour) but should all fun be hard? I don't think so. Much of this thread has been about adding science simulator like features to physics There is nothing wrong in having fun - hard or soft. But it would be a mistake for teachers, parents or volunteers to confuse affective entertainment with learning processes. BTW, those who think pendulum swing times doesn't depend on the weight should try experiments with same sized balls made of cotton and metal. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] 40 maths shapes challenges
On Friday 04 Sep 2009 10:12:36 pm Maria Droujkova wrote: Circle is one of the hardest in Scratch. Unless I am missing a command. Maria, Could you be more specific please? hardest to understand through Scratch or hardest to create after having understood? Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] shape 31
On Saturday 19 Sep 2009 8:27:45 am Bill Kerr wrote: http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2009/09/shape-31.htmlSo, I realised this was a nice challenge in real maths and understanding of the application of variables, measurement, ratio, proportion and fractions I see this as a good example of where constructionist methods are necessary and instructionist or conventional textbook methods could not work Shape31 is essentially a 4-petal pattern using greek-T as a generator instead of petals. It can be drawn with a single trace. repeat 4 [ self tau: 75 ] where tau = [ :arm | self forward: arm//5. self amble: arm. self amble: arm*2//3. self amble: arm]. amble = [ :dist | self forward: dist. self turn: 90 ]. A purely constructionist approach to patterns can be found in India (particularly in the south). Lookup Kolam in Google or Wikipedia. Kolams are intricate geometric patterns laid on the floor or board by running off rice flour thru the fingers. Large patterns require the artist to turn/move around in a way reminiscent of Papert's early experiments with children. Skills are acquired by observing, imitating elders and (lots of) practice. Beginners use a grid of dots to estimate magnitudes and proportions. Traditional kolams used only pure rice flour as paste or powder (as offerings to hungry small insects and birds). These days, people also use color powders, much to the consternation of the elders :-). Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] The Youngest Headmaster In The World
On Tuesday 13 October 2009 08:27:24 am Caryl Bigenho wrote: From BBC news tonight. Unbelievable, wonderful, inspiring story. Don't miss it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm Inspiring indeed! Early this year, he won the IBN CNN Real Heroes Award: http://www.cnnibnrealheroes.com/youth.html Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] scratch gone missing
On Saturday 07 November 2009 09:18:05 am Bill Kerr wrote: No but it should be there since Scratch has a far better UI than Etoys I have seen kids play with both Scratch and Etoys and I wouldn't pit them against each other. They appeal to different sets of children. Scratch appeals to a younger lot (6-9yrs) as the built-in sprites are more concrete. Etoys morphs are more attuned to older kids (9+) that are transitioning from concrete to abstract ideas. I wish we had a smooth transition in terms of visual themes and controls for Tuxpaint (3-6) - Scratch (6-9) - Etoys (9+) Just my take .. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] For Example: Re: Any ideas how to make an image with a transparent background inSugar?
On Friday 02 October 2009 08:22:22 am Alan Kay wrote: I saved each stage for you to look at using Export in in the menu handle as a PNG (you can also choose BMPs, JPGs, etc.) But PNG has a color for transparent. Copy-n-Paste should also work on a halo-ed morph. Very handy for attaching or embedding images in emails. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] sounds in Speak
On Monday 14 December 2009 09:00:23 pm Aleksey Lim wrote: Hello everybody, This afternoon, I had an interesting conversation with a Montessori teacher, about Speak. She asked me why Speak says a when a is pressed and not the sound of the letter a. Montessori teachers teach the shape and sound of letters first, and then the name of the alphabet. I did not have an answer for her, but I wondered if it would be possible to have an option in Speak to do so. not sure it could be done in existed Speak(it just passes string to speak engine). But it could separate activity or mode in Speak which teaches alphabet. Isn't Speak an overkill for such basic lessons? Montessori teachers would find Scratch or EToys useful for such exercises. They can prepare a list of words and record their associated 'a' sounds. Script word objects to respond with the appropriate sound when letter 'a' is dropped on them (or the 'a' key is pressed with the mouse hovering over a word) . This puts more control on the quality of pronunciation in the hands of teachers. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Need in Haiti: inexpensive portable projectors for OLPC/XO classrooms
On Wednesday 03 February 2010 11:58:27 pm Adam Holt wrote: Aside from this wonderful home-made prototype, that unfortunately overheats, what's achievable? http://blog.laptop.org/2008/11/16/hardware-hacking-first-pass-at-an-xo-proj ector/ Have you considered LED monitors? Monitors (= 23) are quite affordable these days and good enough for a class of about 25-30 students. For large gatherings (30+), you could spread multiple monitors around the room. The monitors can be used with a long VGA cable and no separate projection screen is needed. They are cheaper, better (picture quality), need less power and their brighter displays means the room need not be darkened. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [FIELDBACK] Etoys
On Friday 26 February 2010 12:12:19 pm Cherry Withers wrote: It's definitely a balancing act trying to get them to focus on finishing up something and getting them to explore. Once they realize that they can affect the object by scripts they just want to do everything they can possibly do in one sitting (dragging and dropping tiles in one script window ..then I'm in fire fighting mode). Too much resulted in chaos in my class. Not doing THAT again. I now give them some time to go nuts on exploration then pull them back in to finish a project. Now I'm introducing just a max of two concepts (or tiles) in one 40min. session. When a new tile is introduced, kids tend to use it over and over many times before they get to a state where they can use it in a project. This is par for the course. Alan's car demo script starts with commands. When the script says forward 5 what exactly is 5 in that blank space? Introducing watchers before commands helps ease the up ramp. Learning about watchers for shapes (length/width/heading), color and border and then position (x,y,..) allows kids to grasp spatial and angular dimensions gradually. BTW, I wouldn't worry about kids finishing a project in the first few sessions. Curiosity and experimentation will dominate the sessions. Only when they reach a zone of comfort with the system will they become receptive to tips on saving their projects. My experience is limited to non-English students in rural India using the English GUI. I don't know how much it would apply to students in other regions. YMMV .. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Thank you
Hi, Sikshana (http://www.sikshana.org) won a best NGO award from the citizens of Bangalore for its initiative to improve the quality of public education: http://citizensalliance.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/good-samaritans-some-of- bangalore-recognised One of the key empowerment initiative in Sikshana revolved around using Etoys on a memory stick (as a personal soft computer) to get children to express their ideas freely unhindered by the fear running out of (precious) supplies like paper, pen or paint. The pilot started in a handful of schools in 2007 and then spread, by popular demand from teachers, to 120 schools today with many more waiting in the pipeline. Details are in http://sikshana.blogspot.com. Sikshana is a tiny organization with only 15 employees guiding 250 school and 30k children. That we were able to scale to this level is because of the support of patrons and volunteers across the world. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all developers, past and present, of Squeak and Etoys and let them know that their work is making a big difference in the lives of middle school children in the remote village schools in India. Thank you .. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [FIELDBACK] Etoys
On Tuesday 02 March 2010 02:28:42 pm Simon Schampijer wrote: An interesting possibility is to get old students to create animated flashcards/sounds clips to teach a topic (say English) to younger students. Traditional flashcards just present a letter as a block. Instead, one can use a bug to create letter shapes with its trail so the children can also perceive how letters are formed. Thanks for that idea. Is there a tutorial for creating flashcards you know of? No. But if you pose it as a challenge for the students I am sure they will figure out a way. Letters like C, D, I, J, L, M, N, O, V, W, Z are easy while A, B, E, F, H, K, T, U, Y may stump them for a moment. S is really difficult and may need some help. Know why S is difficult is part of the fun (cf. Digital Typography by Don Knuth, chapter 13). Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Request for Feedback and Ideas on teaching Algebra
On Saturday 03 April 2010 11:36:17 am Steve Thomas wrote: If you have any ideas for problems I can use and/or suggested lesson plans/books/curricullum please let me know. Having helped my daughter deal with algebra last year, I can share my first- hand experiences of the 'confusion' that kids face with the subject. It starts with the name - 'algebra' - sounds like a magical incantation. Most books on algebra begin with notations :-(. Let me digress a bit here. I have often watched kids struggle with divisions dealing with zeroes: ___ 3) 6024 If I ask the same kid the following questions (no pen and paper, just head math): a) How would you split 6000 Rupees equally amongst three friends? b) How would you split 24 Rupees amongst the same friends? c) How much will each friend get if you distribute both 6000 and 24 Rupees amongst the same friends? Kids who struggle with the former have no trouble answering the latter Qs. Once they play this game a few times, they have no trouble solving division sums on paper. The rules of the game are understood intuitively. What they see on paper is a picture of what they carry in their head. Notation is no longer a barrier - 6024, 6000+24, 6000+20+4 are all the same thing in the head. Back to your question. The origins of algebra lies in the games that kids used to play in India with seeds (the subject continues to be known as Seed Arithmetic in India). A bag containing different types of seeds constitutes the alphabet and arithmetic gives us the rules for composition. Kids get to make up different riddles using the alphabet and rules. Algebra is just Arithmetic for Fun. If a pile with 5 red beans and 10 yellow beans cost 20 pies and another pile with 20 more yellow beans cost 40 pies, how much does each bean cost? Advanced riddles make use of bricks, tiles, blocks, or rope lengths instead of seeds but the rules remain the same - simple arithmetic. See Julia Nishijima's exercise in page 13 of http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2007006a_olpc.pdf After a few such riddles are solved in the head, the 'reduce and balance' algorithm is intuitively grasped by kids. Now the notation can be introduced without confusion: 5r+10y = 20, 5r+10y+20y=40 Introducing notation before thinking leads to all kinds of confusion. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Data vs Critical Thinking - Can Sugar give schools both?
On Tuesday 20 April 2010 06:01:33 am Caroline Meeks wrote: Why can't computers for children both give them the means for creation, independent learning, collaboration etc etc. and give their teacher detailed, nuanced, actionable data on what skills they have mastered and what they are still struggling with? Computer-centric vocabulary is becoming obsolete today. Talking about computers today is a bit-like talking about DC/Induction motors in our homes. We don't think of mixers, juicers, grinders, washing machines etc as motor machines, do we? Kids don't think of mobile phones as computers. They think of them as phones, cameras, voice recorders, mp3/mp4 players etc. Problem solvers, groundbreaking pioneers and visionary leaders need to know their phonics and their basic math skills. We have the capability to build tools that help teachers know and track which students are struggling with what skills, and provide the collaborative framework for them to collect data and share it to determine what works to teach those skills to all students. Just a few weeks back, I had a discussion with village school teachers about using smart machines to enliven language lessons. The discussion veered around using mini-speakers with mp3 player in classrooms. The players, about 4 cube take in 2GB USB flash, SD card or micro-SD cards and play for 5 hours on a single charge. They cost about $8-$10 here and 2GB card can easily hold about four-five years of language lessons. Neither teachers nor 6-9 year olds think of them as computers. We could also think of using portable mp4 players (for visual lessons) or smartphones (for data collection). These machines don't exclude the use of laptops for authoring lessons and give more options for children to learn languages, math and science. [Apologies if this is OT on a RTI thread] Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Data vs Critical Thinking - Can Sugar give schools both?
On Thursday 22 April 2010 07:33:25 pm Caroline Meeks wrote: 1. Software that assess students, track and displays results, quickly and efficiently without using up a lot of instructional time. 2. Software and a content library that analyzes these results and gives students the right learning objects/experiences for their current level and learning style. #1 is straightforward programming. #2 is a grand challenge! Not really. #2 is amenable to statistical methods. See www.assetonline.in, for instance. Diagnostic tests are different from grading tests in that they do analyze wrong answers too and report to teachers and parents about potential areas of confusion. They do have a drawback - they can detect confusion but not prevent them. Getting it right the first time requires systems like Montessori that put the learner in charge. All statistical methods come with outliers - 'exceptional' or 'laggards'. Then you have a problem of dealing with them :-(. Automation can only take us so far. A teacher instructs and listens. The former service can be done through a computer while the latter is difficult. For many students with difficult backgrounds, the teacher is the only source of hope and guidance. We are still a long way from empathic computers ;-). Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?
On Tuesday 28 Sep 2010 2:59:57 am Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote: The 5th graders took pretty well to Etoys. It is the drawing piece that hooks them, and then the scripting part that really challenges them. And the 7th and 8th graders love Scratch. It is interesting to me because they also do plenty of painting of sprites and backgrounds, but something about the bricks seems to match their thinking process. This could be due to Stroop Effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect 5th graders may prefer to doodle with colors, shapes, icons and physical models. They can spend more time with manipulating morphs directly and creating patterns in Etoys. 7th graders, with their language dominant modes, look upon this as kids stuff and would dive right into programming. For the literates, Scratch is much easier than Etoys. I am getting ready to introduce my current 7th grade classes to Scratch and am looking forward to that I came across some cases where this doodling actually helped boost learning levels (across the board). So don't give up on Etoys yet :-). Dual modes (visual/textual) may be a good thing. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] First evaluation results from OLPC Peru
On Friday 01 Oct 2010 6:39:09 pm Christoph Derndorfer wrote: * demand for better teacher preparation * low percentage of pupils who can use the laptop outside of school (~50%) * lack of connectivity (only 1,4% of schools have Internet access, Mesh use is very limited) * lack of technical and educational support in schools Thank you for the translation and the abstract. These observations deal with what goes into teaching and with the perceptions/opinions of people around the learners. Is there anything in the report about its impact on motivation towards learning, thinking, expressing, writing, reading, reasoning etc. in the young learners? I realize it is too early in the cycle to arrive at any definite conclusion, but I am only seeking trends at this time. Is there anything in the trends that reveal the unique contributions of an XO i.e. outcomes that would be difficult (uneconomical) to achieve without it? Thanks .. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] NN, Mitra, and the role of the teacher
On Friday 29 Oct 2010 3:21:55 pm Teemu Leinonen wrote: On 26.10.2010, at 20.12, Caryl Bigenho wrote: I watched Negroponte on the Colbert show last night. Nice. He seems to have toned down his former we don't need teachers... kids will do it all line a bit, but it is still implied. Sugata Mitra implies the same in his TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.htm l I think the latest TED talk of Sugata Mitra is much more interesting and relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html One has to understand the context of Mitra's experiments. There is a old saying in India about how kids learn: Quarter from the teacher; quarter from peers; quarter from self-study and quarter over time (i.e. from rumination and experience) In the last forty years, schools in India have become teaching-centric. Teachers are expected to adhere strictly to a curriculum set by a committee and are held accountable for its completion. This has lead to schools becoming a place where teaching happens but not learning. Students vote with their feet :-(. In my own interventions in schools, I have met many teachers who are frustrated by the situation. Mitra is drawing attention of the authorities to these disappearing opportunities. Schooling should assist learning and not interfere with it. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] NN, Mitra, and the role of the teacher
On Sunday 31 Oct 2010 9:25:30 am Caryl Bigenho wrote: Actually, Mitra's Grannies may not be actual grand parents and they do have a curriculum. True. A Grannie need not necessarily be a grand parent of the learner but a curriculum-driven learning is very limiting, esp. in India with its extreme social diversity. Sugata's high tech props distracts us from seeing the facilitative aspects found in the environment. Grannies do three things that facilitates the learning process. Firstly, they are there during learning[1], Secondly, when a child completes a task, they celebrate the culmination of the process regardless of the economic value of the outcome. Thirdly, they guide the child to select the next process that is *meaningful* to both the child and the *social context*. Such appreciation and mentoring are invaluable in helping children learn faster and better. A centrally planned curriculum applies a linear model of learning over a large number of children in different social contexts. It assumes that there is only one way for the next level. In practice, a child is faced with lots of choices on what to pursue next. Notice the slip in TED teaser's last statement - results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching. We have a hard time treating education as a learning process. [1] In Sikshana, our school intervention project, the physical presence of an friendly adult in the classroom turned out to be the most important motivator for learners. One such Grannie volunteer was a young village girl in her twenties who was so impressed with this transformation that she joined our project and is now replicating the model across a cluster of 15 schools. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] NN, Mitra, and the role of the teacher
On Monday 01 Nov 2010 9:43:28 am Yamandu Ploskonka wrote: Are y'all familiar with the RIVER Project? (Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources) their website doesn't do quite justice on how concepts like this multi-age social-based mentoring that is being shared have in a most appropriate approach to education in poor areas. http://www.river-rv.org/ Thank you for this link. It is good to know of other efforts towards educational reforms. MGML is already in place for grades 1-3 in all public schools in my state and is being expanded to higher grades every year. MGML is a problem only in curricular-driven environments. This is how children learn, say, in homes or in playground. Grouping happens naturally by level of competence and interest rather than by age. Previous efforts that I tracked did not close the loop. That is, they would train teachers and expect changes to happen but did not verify if learning actually happened. No method works for every child. That is why Sikshana decided to work backwards - ensure every child is able to learn and keep learning and support teachers to use their own masala (mix) of methods. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] NN, Mitra, and the role of the teacher
On Monday 01 Nov 2010 2:07:49 pm Rakesh Biswas wrote: Thanks Subbu for the great link on the Rishi valley initiative. err... It was Yamandu Poslonka who posted the link. .. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Granny Cloud
On Tuesday 02 Nov 2010 8:17:34 am Caryl Bigenho wrote: Hi All... Here is a concise article that summarizes Sugata Mitra's work with the Granny Cloud. Note he says a 1 to 1 model doesn't work. He uses 4 to 1. http://dnc.digitalunite.com/2010/07/29/granny-cloud-to-teach-children-via- the-internet/ I would be wary of reaching any specific conclusion from such experiments. This is not to discourage new experiments but to highlight the fact the need of the hours are interventions that ensures that the number of students who are *not learning* should provably *decrease* during a three year window. When we throw technology X or method Y at the education problem and make the top two quartiles learn better but leave the bottom quartile out cold, then such a tech/method is a nice but unimportant development for tacking education issues we face today. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] 90% fluency Re: Granny Cloud
On Wednesday 03 Nov 2010 3:43:35 am Yamandu Ploskonka wrote: hmm, sure..., sorry What does it mean? 90% of the children get 100%? Is there a sliding scale / bell curve? what is fluency, anyway? fluency in what? I can share my experience in helping out Sikshana (www.sikshana.org). Sikshana sends out people (mentors) to assist public school teachers to do a dip stick check at 4th and 7th in four areas: * expression - does he/she speak freely? do he/she open out to teachers and peers for help in getting supplies, seek clarifications etc? If so, check * writing - can he/she write down thoughts and needs? Spelling and grammar errors are ok as long as the meaning comes through clearly. * reading - can he/she read (unseen) sentences, paragraphs, written requests, understand and be ready to act upon it? * numeracy - can he/she perform division (arithmetic) of three or larger digits and verify the result? These checks take only a few minutes per student and serve to indicate if he/she has started learning and build a foundation for life. We do this for the primary language in 4th and check bilingual/trilingual skills in 7th. A list of students who fall short is drawn up. We don't spend time on analyzing why the gap occurred but ensure that each student is adopted by an adult - a teacher who has stepped forward to take up this challenge or a local volunteer or a teacher assisted by a local volunteer. In a typical cluster of 15 schools (~1500-2000 students) around 25-30% fall short even with tech infusion. But with personal attention, the numbers drop below 10% in a matter of months. The bar is then raised slowly so that no student is left behind. The exact method used to attain fluency is left to the teacher. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
