Day at Mall for Mom's & Dad's while Kids go to Apple Camp!

Who wouldn't love a nice stroll around the mall, without kids? Well Apple announced today that they are holding FREE workshops at their stores for kids! Yeah! Looks like it will be a nice quiet summer around here! :) But, you know what happens when you let the kids look around an Apple store.. Can I get an iPhone, touch iPod, new laptop, upgrade the computer we have, new digital camera to use with iPhoto, new digital video camera to use with iMovie.. etc.. and so on and so on! So all you parents out there.. hold strong on the new products and take advantage of the great learning experiences for your children.

Walter Bender leaves OLPC - Reasons

Interesting! Once the word Microsoft was spoken, a lot of controversy started with this project.

According to a NY Times article, Walter Bender left the One Laptop per Child initiative because:

After the article was published May 16, Mr. Bender sent a letter to The Times, taking issue with Mr. Negroponte’s comment and elaborating on his own views: “Mr. Negroponte is wrong when he asserts that I am a free and open-source (FOSS) fundamentalist. I am a learning fundamentalist.”

I talked to Mr. Bender last Friday to discuss his views at more length and give them a broader airing.

“Microsoft stepping in is the symptom, not the disease,” he said in the interview. The issue, in his view, is whether the tools that bring computing to children are “agnostic on learning” or “take a position on learning.”

Mr. Bender is a founder of Sugar Labs. Sugar Labs is an open source software company, that designs free software to encourage collaborative learning.

Emotion Graphing - Cool Lesson

Very cool lesson! I read Tom's twitter message that he had posted a new blog, so I checked it out! I am so glad I did. What a great idea! I am so excited to share this with my math and language arts teachers at my school. I think it will really keep the kids engaged and learn with some technology to boot! So creative.

Podcast - Last Class

Here is the link to the podcast of my very last class at Plymouth State University. My teacher was Jeff Utecht and I learned more than I can even write about here! I have made contacts, friends, worked on collaborative projects, learned how to use wiki's, blogs, web 2.0 tools, etc.. You name it, I did it.. all in the short 11 weeks or so we were together. What a great experience. Thank you to Jeff for opening my eyes to a whole new world.

Well..Here's a Twist to 21st Century Learning.. Does it Really Matter?

Interesting points in this revived blog about education today compared to years ago. Just wanted to put it out here. Any thoughts? How will we change this public education system we work for? Who will be the one to "take action"? Does it really matter?

I can answer that it matters to me. I think it matters to a lot of the people who I have come across through my twitter network as well as people I have met through technology conferences. I think it matters to a subgroup of people. Are we strong enough? Can we make change happen? Is it more important than the "test"? Where is the balance?

And then I read my RSS feeds.... Here is a flip side to the story.. we are gaining, we are becoming mainstream, so to speak!

Video - 1:1 initative AWESOME!

Article link with video from 60 minutes

(Thanks Sherry for the video from your blog !)

Charge it with a crank, salad spinner if you run out of battery charge!
Waterproof, heat resistant... Wow!

The video makes great opposing points.. about security, (stolen from a child.. stops working after 24 hours) etc.. What about internet signal? Hidden costs?

There is also some new competition to this program (Intel - classmate, and a computer made in India as well as other companies looking at low cost alternatives).

"Over all goal for the program is for every child in the "world" to have a laptop!" - Nicholas Negroponte

Give 1 to Get 1

Hot off the presses: According to an eSchool News article, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has revived their program as of May 20th, and has disclosed plans for a second generation of "XO" computers. If you pay $400.00 , you will purchase one laptop for yourself and then you will provide another laptop to a child in a developing country. The original program was trying to offer the computers to each child for $100.00 each. The price right now is estimated\ at $188.00. So far, over 600,000 of them have been sold and 162,000 were purchased through the "give one get one" program. The second round of the "give one to get one" program will begin sometime this summer and anyone can participate.

I think this is a great opportunity to teach children about global issues our world faces today. What would be better than having some type of fundraiser to raise $400.00 for this program. Why not donate both computers? Just something to think about!

Check out this post from the Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy blog about the 1:1 initiative and how they might be switching the platform over to microsoft windows!

Some people think that laptops for children may not be a good idea. Read this article. What do you think?