Kevin, I also grew up in that world. I fondly remember my first computer class in high school (1978), learning FORTRAN on the big teletype machine.
When those remarkable moments of learning on the XOs are happening, I know we are doing the right thing. And I point them out to the students and the teachers so that they can see what I do. This has been an effective strategy for bringing others into the conversation. Gerald On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Kevin Mark <kevin.m...@verizon.net> wrote: > > > I wanted to share that we have faced the same criticisms in our school > regarding the XOs. For the last four years, the teachers and students have > complained that the devices do not connect well or reliably to our wireless > network. > > Obviously, in our case, we have a wireless network and essentially > continuous access to the internet. But, what I have had to fight against is > that this is the most basic use of any computing device. > > The only way I have been able to stem this tide is to come up with > projects and programs that made use of the XOs as standalone or mesh > networked devices. For example, we have done a lot with Memorize and Etoys > and Scratch (and beginning to work with TurtleBlocks). I have found that > once the students and teachers are involved with these activities, the > internet stuff goes away. > > But the bigger point that is missed in the story, and the broader > conversation, is that the XOs and Sugar tap into non-traditional methods of > teaching and learning. When this invisible line is crossed, real magic > happens. It is the conversations which illuminate this invisible line that > is tough. > > I grew-up in a world before google and before the internet but after > computers became affordable by homes. We had different expectations of > these devices. > This is something that affect the teachers, kids and media pundits today: > they have seen (even in the remoter parts of the world) 'high speed > computers with always-on internet with shiny video game worlds'. The is a > good thing and bad thing. It means that they know an end-point that they > want to reach but are unsatisfied with what they have. But they don't know > what I and others of my age knew -- the learning and imagination that was > done with disconnected clunky machines with 8-bit graphics. Which is > sort-of what the XO appears to be by comparison. And also the fact that > learning with computers is not the same as playing world of warcraft and > you can do the former with an XO and don't need a 3GHZ pentium 7 with the > latest video card. >
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