GPA-Notes-July-22
Notes from July 22 visit to computer lab GPA with 3rd graders.
By Greg Smith
See all the class notes here: Gardner_Pilot_Academy#Class_notes
Came early and talked with Caroline for 1/2 hour about project management strategy. Will send e-mails to sugar-devel lists with follow up on that. Main points:
- There are still some technical issues to be ironed out for the fall (e.g. USB sticks failing, faster boot, booting on Mac and possibly doing without CD). These need to be tracked agressively.
- Lesson plans idea is good but may not have a lot of lead time from lesson plan creation to class start. Will begin by documenting classes we have already held.
- Most likely classes in the fall are 5th (confirm) grade Science teacher doing science notebooks and 4th grade teacher wanting to keep portfolios of work. That said we aren't sure and may not know until Labor day.
Looking at their windows computers (Win2K) I saw that they have KidPix3 deluxe, Kidspiration (by Inspriation SW) and Investigations. The last corresponds to the Investigations curriculum and uses Turtle/Logo. All apps more than 5 years old but very complete and well designed SW. May not be easy to use but they are pretty. May want to follow up with the makers of Investigations SW: Terc - http://www.terc.edu/
I asked the teacher if they have used the Investigations SW and he said no he had heard it was on the computers but never had a chance to try it.
Walter ran the class. He asked them to plug in the USB stick, start the computers and come back the rug. One new kid needed a new USB stick. Not having the same stuff as the rest of the class was very stressful to him. It looked like he felt left out but looked beter once he got booted with his name and color.
Back on the rug Walter asked if people remembered the Memory game. He asked what did we do with it. Kids answered "played" and on prompting added that they created their own games. More prompting and they mentioned creating pictures and getting pictures. W: "where did we get the pictures?" Kids: "Wikipedia" and "Internet".
Back on the computers, Walter started the kids off by asking them to download Conozco Uruguay. Caroline opened Browse on the right page, bookmarked it and shared browse. All the kids opened browse and found the shared link. It takes a little longer than we would like for the share to be available.
Some kids needed to be reminded to look at the bottom of the screen to find the link. Also,