This is fascinating. I would say that the first triaging you should do to make this a reality for September is to reduce the number of grade levels you target to an absolute minimum. More than 3 would be crazy, two is better. Possibilities: 6/7: pros: 2/3 of the students in a junior high, yet you can count on having most of them there for 2 or 3 years. cons: late grade = lots of testing; jealous 8th graders.
3/4 or 4/5 : good ages, but not good saturation. 3/6 : good variety, more logistics. Once you decide this, a lot more will follow. Also I had a link for you: http://www.ck12.org/ <-- just starting up but has some funding and possibly an inside track to getting more, trying to make open-source textbooks attractive to public schools, worth giving them a call to see if they are interested in (ready to) collaborating with you. Illinois would definitely be a feather in their cap. You need all the help you can get with can get with content. Good luck! Jameson On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I talked with Ryan Croke of Illinois Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn's > office today. They are keen on this project, and would like to arrange > for us to assist in getting the program designed for the best possible > outcome. HB5000 is moving rapidly through the House, and will then go > to the Senate, which is likely to turn it over to the Education > Committee for public hearings. We should organize to bring our XOs and > our children to Springfield for the hearings. > > Among the questions: > > Schools will be allowed to choose from among the available laptops. > The program should capture the differences in outcomes between schools > using different hardware and software, using appropriate measures LG > Quinn's office agrees. Nicholas Negroponte is strongly opposed to > "bake-offs", but the world doesn't work the way he wants. > > We need to work with the legislature, the Education authority, and > with schools on appropriate integration of laptops into curricula, and > provide at least draft versions of electronic textbooks on all > requested subjects. Much of what we want to do has yet to be designed. > In fact, the software that we want to build the textbooks on has in > some major cases yet to be designed. How much can we promise for the > start of the next school year in September? That depends very strongly > on who steps up to do it. > > It is very important in pilot projects to do good experimental design > before hand so that the results contain usable information, not merely > data. We need to talk to people who know something about these issues, > who also understand what we are trying to measure. > > What training can be put together for the summer before? We need to > demonstrate the meaning and value of learning by doing through > collaborative discovery, aka Constructionism. Then we need to provide > the toolkit for teachers to apply it, and provide feedback mechanisms > so that their experience and insights steadily improve the process. > > This program requires dedicated resources, and management, on our side > and several others. That means that we need to look for funding. > Anybody know a good grant writer? > > No Child Left Behind creates perverse incentives that can interfere > with the program. Can we get waivers from the Federal Government for > the trials? > > -- > Edward Cherlin > End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business > http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ > "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay > _______________________________________________ > Library mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library >
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