Updates from OLPC Greece: multimedia, programming, and plans

Since 2009, OLPC Greece has provided one laptop per child in 35 classes and groups around the country.  580 XOs in all, with the inolvement of many teachers.  They have kept us updated via our wiki and regular emails, and shared some interesting work from their students.

My favorite post is from the 3rd graders at the Sminthi School —  they made large tiles of stencil art, rearranged it on a school wall, and turned it into stop-motion animations with Scratch (video).   Their professors Psychogios, Rigas, and Aspioti, brought this work into with their math, informatics, and art classes.

Recently the OLPC Greece team published a short summary of their work from the first two years, and their goals for the coming year.  They note the need for local hardware labs, software updates, and technical support.  You can follow their work, in Greek, on the public mailing list for the pilot.  (An excellent practice!)

Students and teachers work on a stencil in Sminthi

Students and teachers work on a stencil in Sminthi

 

 

OLPC NYC meeting this weekend

This Saturday, Bergen Community  College is hosting a free and open-source education event, HFOSS@BCC, with discussions and presentations about OLPC and Engineers Without Borders.

This event will bring together students, members of OLPC groups in NYC and Princeton, and Computer Science teachers in the CSTA across the US and NJ.  The OLPC project at Princeton will discuss their recent OLPC library in Ghana, and math teacher John Sincak will talk about his work with XOs.  Lunch is included.

For those taking the train: a few people are travelling together from Secaucus Station (just W of Penn Station) and meeting promptly at 7:30 AM on Saturday, most taking the 7:14 Northeast Corridor train (#7821) from Penn Station.

For those driving: the event is at 400 Paramus Road, Paramus NJ 07652, in the Technology Education Center – Room 128