Enough Sugar in Your Educational Technology Diet?

I've heard more than a few people say they are confused by the XO's user interface. Biggest hint for working with Sugar: think verbs rather than nouns. (More on this below.) Learning the Sugar GUI is an intellectual challenge-- we are so fascile with the Mac and PC interfaces that we forget there are design decisions behind them. Just as learning a new language helps you understand your native language better, contemplating Sugar will make you think about what's behind the GUIs you are familiar with and human-computer interactions in general.

David Thornburg wrote a thoughtful paper Is There Enough Sugar in Your Educational Technology Diet? (available here: Scribd) that revisits the development of the graphical user interface (see a screen shot of the first from Xerox) and explains how the XO's Sugar evolved based on the question: What interface works best for kids? Seymour Papert advised that a computer for children would be verb (action) oriented rather than noun (object) oriented. Instead of folders and documents (nouns) on which familiar UIs are based, think writing playing, chatting, drawing (verbs) and time (journal: what activities did I do yesterday?)

Other small computer designers are looking at kids as kids rather than proto-adults, and are grappling with appropriate design-- Check out SNS Project Inkwell, which imagines a variety of computing devices designed especially for children. Take a look at PI's functional requirements for student devices (pdf).

Photos from the XO Camera in VoiceThread

All the features of VoiceThread function here - poke around!



You must give VoiceThread a try! I was introduced to it by Terry Smith, an outstanding teacher in Hannibal, MO. Free accounts for schools! Become a contributor who comments on this photoset in voice or the written word HERE.

Focus on Solutions

Imagine a conversation that engages thousands of students and other community members about their shared future. Now imagine the dialogue leading to real action--action that just might save the planet. That's the idea behind Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America. Here's how it works. On Jan. 31, at K-12 schools and college campuses across the country, business as usual will be replaced by a national teach-in on global warming. The emphasis is on solutions so that students will come away informed and prepared to act. This is a chance to put real-world, project-based learning strategies into action. Intrigued? Check out the Focus the Nation site to learn more about webcasts for K-12 schools, video chats with politicians, and the wealth of resources available to help inform the conversation. And if your school is taking part, please tell us about your plans--and the actions your students decide to take.

Name Your Top 10

Which tools for learning are at the top of your must-have list? The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies is asking educators to help answer that question again in 2008. The first international poll led to the widely popular Top 100 Tools for Learning, which shows Firefox, del.icio.us, and Skype in the top three spots for 2007. The survey also captures user comments about the tools. Will be interesting to see which Web 2.0 tools rise and fall as educators embrace or reject them for classroom use.

The XO is here!

It's amazing the excitement this little computer inspires! Many XO recipients tell personal stories of its highly-anticipated arrival and the fun that ensues... For just a few reactions, visit the Eugene, Oregon and Classroom 2.0 XO user groups.
My story? I got home from Mexico on the 20th to find the computer had arrived. I was impressed with the packaging-- no bubble wrap or foam peanuts, just a little bit of recyclable cardboard and two sheets of paper. I plugged in the XO and got familiar with the Sugar GUI using the trackpad (nice) and tiny keyboard (oy). First application I looked at was the measuring tape, whereby two XO computers spanning a space can calculate the distance between them using the thin mesh network capability. Now I just need to find another XO in my "neighborhood" to really appreciate the interactive nature of this computer. I couldn't get on the Web right away because the GUI doesn't support WPA (yet). My husband found the shell script and configured the wireless and now I'm up! (This sounds easy but the script was a little broken (since fixed) and the XO wouldn't recognize the USB thumb drive so we installed using an SD memory card instead.)
For another user's experience (more technically smart than I, and boy he's having fun) check out Wesley Fryer's podcast interview with Colin Davitt. Also, this OLPC Wiki page about the XO software is really helpful.
Still playing, and more later, but what are you learning? What do your kids think?

It's Here!

Our book Reinventing Project-Based Learning is finally here! We hope you'll give it a look (and consider purchasing a copy for yourself or a teacher in your life).
Details are at the right of this post.
Here's wishing you the best during this wonderful holiday season.
-Jane and Suzie

Foggy Ideas

Most of us know about disruptive technologies—those innovations like cell phones and MP3 players that upset the old way of doing things. Disruptive technologies often start in one domain and then jump to another as creative users put them to new purposes. Inevitably, these technologies make their way to the classroom where educators can either embrace them as learning tools or spend time trying to outlaw or confiscate them.

But what if we turned the tables and went looking for disruptive ideas to shake up learning environments? Here’s a wild idea that seems ripe for borrowing—at least metaphorically.

In the desert highlands of Chile, villagers use a device that looks like a giant volleyball net to harvest clean water from the cloud cover that hangs over the region. Fogcatchers use polypropylene mesh to capture this precious resource, one drop at a time. Water droplets eventually fill community reservoirs, supplying this once-parched region with a clean, sustainable source of water for drinking and farming.

What does this have to do with education? Imagine being able to somehow “harvest” those learning opportunities that seem just out of reach. A fogcatcher for the classroom—can’t you almost see it? Don’t you want one?