On Thu, June 2, 2011 4:58 pm, Tim McNamara wrote: > Are you able to expand your thoughts once you get to a computer?
I can, and no doubt Valerie can also. > I recently started a discussion around making OERs easier to use. Sugar > Labs have quite an opportunity to make a large impact here. One goal of the Sugar Labs Replacing Textbooks project is to integrate Sugar into the curriculum in all subjects at all levels, and to research what concepts can be taught in earlier grades than is done today so that children can learn more effectively and with much greater understanding. This includes finding out which explanations in current textbooks do not explain their topics adequately to children, and where the children need assistance, or more practice than they get from a textbook. We propose to begin with fairly conventional materials and work our way toward that goal as we see how to do it. The first example I like to cite of what we are trying to do comes from OLE Nepal. Bryan Berry explained to an OLPC meeting at headquarters that children in Nepal in the XO program were mostly several years behind the official curriculum in arithmetic, and that teachers and OLE workers determined that this was because they could not tell how many things were in a small group without counting. So OLE Nepal created a counting practice program (screenshot attached). Children reportedly practiced for as long as several hours at a time, throughout the following weeks and months. Most of them advanced several years in their arithmetic classes during that time. We cannot expect such astonishing results every time, but we know that we can deepen and extend children's understanding of almost anything complicated and confusing in school. Peter Hewitt/mulawa1 has been programming a variety of games for Sugar that teach some concept of mathematics or programming, or the art of exploring and discovery, among other things. http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/user/2246 We also intend to create teacher training materials that make use of the best practices that we know of for integrating XOs and Sugar into existing curricula for use with existing textbooks, in addition to the use of our (we hope) vastly improved materials. > On 3 June 2011 01:11, Valerie Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: > >> There are so many OERs and so little time that most educators who would >> use them don't. Cross reference with curriculum is a huge opportunity but >> slow to start. Are you working on something like this? We intend to develop modular materials keyed to curriculum standards, and we are thinking about how to index them so that teachers can find what is most relevant to their needs. We will also produce materials _not_ keyed to curricula where we find a better approach, or we find topics not currently taught that we believe are essential for children to learn. Don Cohen's Calculus By and For Young People, for example, or how to tackle corruption in developing country governments. It's a bit like reinventing the library catalog. You can see a great many approaches being taken by organizations listed at http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/OER and by organizations that they link to. Another piece of the puzzle is to create lesson plans around specific software and OER documents, and key them to standard or alternative curricula also >> Sent from my iPhone >> _______________________________________________ >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
