Kids from a school in Ometepe, Nicaragua sing a song composed to thank Fundación Zamora Teran to provide them with new opportunities with their XO.
Kids in Nicaragua thank Fundación Zamora Teran for giving them XO’s
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Tag Archives: XO
OLPC Shines at Project L.I.F.T. Annual Meeting
By: Torie Leslie, OLPC facilitator at Allenbrook Elementary School
On October 26th, 2012 the nine CMS Project L.I.F.T. zone schools and community
partners joined forces to host the L.I.F.T annual community meeting. This event
included breakout sessions centered around L.I.F.T’s commitment to appropriate
technology for all students. The “OLPC Lounge†stood out as a shining star during
this time as students, their families and community members enjoyed quality time
with XO laptops and OLPC support staff members. All visitors to the session had the
opportunity to ask questions and explore Activities on the Sugar Learning Platform.
One of my favorite memories from this event was when a 4th grade student was
sitting with his sister who is in Kindergarten and he explained how to open the
Speak Activity so she could type in her name and hear the robot speak her name. He
said to her, “You can use my XO for now but you’ll be getting your own soon!”
Check out this video from the evening created by my colleague, Monique Pollock,
facilitator at Ashley Park Pre-K-8.
One Laptop Per Child is part of Rwandan 1st Public Library ever
In his speech, the Minister of Culture and Sport said that “ One Laptop Per Child program is key project with a radical impact to eradicate the lack of a reading culture and writing in Rwandaâ€. Arriving at the library entrance, the first thing you notice is a very nice premise with a larger picture of Rwandan kids using OLPC laptops. That is the outside view of OLPC’s part of the library, branded by OLPC Association and opened in collaboration with the Ministry of education of Rwanda and Rotary Club Virunga.
- View of the Library from the outside and OLPC logos on the windows of the outside glasses of the library.
The Rwanda Library Services Project was started by Rotary Club of Kigali – Virunga with the aim of creating the first ever public library in Rwanda. The members in recognition of ignorance as one major contributor to the horrific genocide against Tutsi in 1994, decided to come up with a project that would contribute immensely to the reconstruction of the country.
This is the place where kids will be learning basic computing skills but also enjoy a constructionist approach to learning. It will also offer Scratch and turtle art lessons, logo materials, robotics for the kids to acquire an analytic approach to problem solving. OLPC sees this as a great opportunity to share the OLPC program with the rest of the country.
Given the school servers are being installed in schools countrywide, OLPC program in Rwanda will echo the library in all OLPC schools through the eBooks they have acquired.
As this OLPC corner in Kigali library will be open for all user of Sugar learning environment, free wireless internet connection will give an opportunity for private schools students who are not privileged by the government’s deployment of OLPC laptops countrywide which targets mostly the public schools.
Kids already using the laptops inside the OLPC corner after the inauguration.
OLPC being a part of the first public library in Rwanda is not surprising because President Paul Kagame has been among the first believers in OLPC technology in education. Since 2009 Government of Rwanda is fully engaged in getting OLPC technology to each Rwandan child in primary education. Before the end of year 2012 they will be closing the deployment of 200 000 Laptops.
By Rwagaju Desire & Intwali Jimmy
OLPC Rwanda learning team
XO upgrade kits update
Thank you for your interest in the XO upgrade kits.
At this time, there is a minimum order quantity of 100 kits. If you are interested in ordering 100 upgrade kits or more, please contact Leah@laptop.org  at OLPC for further details. Make sure you indicate the SKU of the units you want to upgrade.
Unfortunately, due to packing, shipping, customs and warranty logistics, OLPC is currently unable to offer upgrade kits for orders under 100 kits. The costs of shipping individual components packed properly is high.
Order quantities of 1000 kits and larger can be processed faster and at lower cost.
If you have an early XO laptop and would like to see it run better and faster, our latest Operating System release can give it a new life, see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/
We thank you for your interest in the OLPC project.
Spotlight on Druid Hills Academy
By: Emily Swartz, Druid Hills facilitator
Druid Hills Academy is a Pre-K through 8th grade school in the Project L.I.F.T. Zone of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina. This year, all first through fourth grade students will be receiving an XO laptop. The teachers have already received an XO from their summer training, and are working hard to plan for the arrival of the XO’s. There have already been several events held at Druid Hills to drum up the excitement with students and parents about the opportunities that the laptops will bring to these learners!
Open House
On Thursday, August 23, students and parents from Druid Hills Academy came to kick off the new school year at the Open House Carnival. Students were able to meet their new teachers, play in bounce houses, eat pizza, and of course get their first look at the XO! OLPC was there with ten XO’s to let students see and explore their new tool. Parents and students were both excited to hear that all first through fourth grade students would be getting a laptop this year. There were a lot of questions that were fielded by our project manager, David Jessup, and the site facilitator, Emily Swartz.
Second Grade
Another exciting event at Druid Hills was the opportunity to give a second grade class a sneak peak at the XO’s. Due to overcrowding, a small class of 11 advanced students was created to challenge these students and enrich the academic services they receive. Since this class is so small, we were able to provide each of these students with a loaner laptop. After weeks of anticipation, the students were cheering when they got to put their hands on their very own XO for the first time. The students have been so excited to explore and get to know their XO’s. Currently students are working on exploring an activity on their own and then explaining the functions of the activity to their classmates. It is amazing to see the students learning so much on their own and the excitement to share their knowledge with others.
Curriculum Night
North Carolina made a transition this year from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study to The Common Core Standards. The Common Core Standards are national standards that provide a clear and consistent understanding of what students are expected to learn. They are rigorous and relevant to the twenty first century. The Common Core Standards reflect the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. Druid Hills designated a whole night to informing parents about The Common Core Standards and how their student’s education will be different this year. This provided a perfect opportunity to inform parents about the XO and how it fits in perfectly with the goals of The Common Core Curriculum. We got to speak to parents in every first through fourth grade class to inform them that their child would be getting a laptop and the benefits that the laptop would bring to their child’s education. After the information sessions, our OLPC facilitator was able to attend the pasta dinner that was served and talk with students and families in a more personal way to discuss questions and opportunities that came along with the XO. This was another great step forward as we seek to inform our school and the community about our exceptional educational tool.
Day to Day
Teachers at Druid Hills continue to surpass our expectations each day. Although at this point there are only a limited amount of laptops at the school, Druid Hills teachers are using creativity and teamwork to ensure that students are getting exposed to the XO laptops. First grade teachers have combined all of the teacher laptops to create learning centers with the XO’s. Second grade students have a 15 minute block everyday that they get to explore Activities on the XO. In third grade, teachers are flex grouping their students and giving opportunities to work with the XO and the local newspaper. And in fourth grade, pairs of students can be found rotating through a computer station where they are playing and creating memorization games. It is exhilarating to see the XO’s everyday as we travel through classrooms! Check back for more updates on Druid Hills Academy and other schools in the Project L.I.F.T Zone.
OLPC OS 12.1.0 SW release focusing on improving the XO-1.75 user experience
OLPC OS 12.1.0 is a new software release focusing on improving the XO-1.75 user experience, and undertaking a much-needed technological shift for Sugar’s internals to GTK+ 3.x. Additionally, XO-1.5 and XO-1 continue to be supported in this release, and we include a variety of new features and fixes.
GTK3
During this development cycle, we have spearheaded efforts within the Sugar Labs community to make Sugar GTK3-ready. The changes you will see as a user are few. This work was limited to the back-end platform only. As we continue the transition in future, you’ll receive efficiency improvements, and activities will improve in quality from having more direct access to a wider range of system libraries.
Write to the journal anytime
Recent Sugar versions have shown a “naming screen” upon stopping a new instance of a Sugar activity. The idea was to encourage the learner to provide a good name for their work, and perform some self-reflection in the details field. However, some found this confusing (stopping an activity should be as simple as possible).
Sugar-0.96 changes this – the naming screen is no longer displayed. However, all activities now have a button in the toolbar that allows a description to be set. We hope that this will continue to encourage self-reflection while not being as intrusive as before.
Text to speech
A new icon in the Sugar frame allows for any currently-selected text to be dictated by the internal speech engine.
For more details on all the improvements visit the wiki here.