Monday, March 31, 2008

1 more day to Enroll!

Just wanted to give a quick update on my status -- I arrived in Delhi a few days ago and was whisked away from the airport around midnight by some new friends - the principle of the Chiragh Grammar School (in Meerut, India) and her son. Over the past few days we've been getting ready for the new school year to start- April 2nd is just around the corner!
(This is the quality picture taken from the OLPC laptop -- click for full resolution.)
(Side note: I'm posting this from one of the OLPC laptops that the school had donated from friends in the US. Lots more to come on these gems, but the current point is that I can't post pictures from them to the blog, although I can post video from them to the blog, see entry a day or so ago. So I'll have to edit this post to add pics separately, bummer.)

The current plan for teaching is to try to elevate the student's understanding of electricity and magnetism. These subjects are covered in their science class and text books in class 6, 7, and 8, to varying degrees. Since I'll have the small, combined 7th and 8th graders, I have some freedom with respect to the depth of coverage. I'm going to try and let the students complete some hands-on-hardware experiments, as well as software simulations on the laptops. As such, the first few periods are set aside for the students to 'explore' (that's code for play with) the laptops -- then it's down to business! Keep checking back as I may try to post some of the documentation generated in the course.

For more info on the laptops I've got, check out the following:
www.laptop.com
www.olpc.org

More to come!
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2 comments:

  1. EdwardApril 1, 2008 at 12:41 PM

    How do the kids like the digital oscilloscope display in the Measure activity? And the instant Frequency Analysis?

    Can we talk to you about creating a Free electronic textbook on electricity that combines your simulations with real-world experiments? We can get volunteers to help. NumPy and SciPy Python libraries will be standard in future distributions.

    Anybody who is interested can join the Library and Development mailing lists at http://lists.laptop.org/.

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  2. hbonwitApril 1, 2008 at 6:55 PM

    Thanks for the tip, Edward! As the first day of school starts in a few hours here, I have yet to see how the XOs are received! I'll keep this blog up to date!

    Your query about the textbook / lesson plans makes sense, and I'm happy to help. Since my time here is limited, I can't promise too much. What I will do is document experiments, etc., and keep my eyes open for good places to post the content.

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