EduJAM/2011

This page is for planning the summit in Uruguay May 5th to 7th 2011. All subject to modifications.

Main goals

Focus on developers. It does not mean at all we're not concerned about educational aspects, but as a developers community we have huge challenges and the summit will be more of a working instance than a "reflection" instance.
Exceed OLPC and Sugar. The developers community goes beyond OLPC and Sugar, and this could be a good instance for bringing "non-olpc organizations" to the conversation.
Focus on South America. Bring as many south american developers as possible to Uruguay.

Program

A first sketch of the event (very preliminary) is as follows:

Thu 5th:

18:00 Opening

Fri 6th:

9:00 Keynote speaker(s)
10:30 Workshops and talks in 2 tracks (general topics)
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Workshops and discussions in 2 tracks: 1) Sugar activity development, and 2) Sugar future
19:00 Friday night social

Sat 7th:

9:00 Deployment exchange
11:00 Unconference
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Unconference
18:00 Event closing

Program committee:

Andrés Ambrois
Walter Bender
Gabriel Eirea
Pablo Flores
Gonzalo Odiard
Fernando Sansberro

Pre-Summit "Conozco Uruguay" Exploration Tour

We're organizing a set of in-person activities for those who want to know more about the Uruguayan/Ceibal experience, visiting different points of the country, meeting with families, teachers, etc.

This will happen during the 5-6 days prior to the summit (from Saturday April 30th to Thursday May 5th) for independent and resilient travelers, committed to "anthropological" learning through patient exploration -- details are emerging here!

Assistants

Martín Abente
Walter Bender
Gabriel Eirea
David Farning
Pablo Flores
Adam Holt
Bernie Innocenti
Anish Mangal
Gonzalo Odiard
Andrés Ambrois

Possible Attendees

Aaron Borden
Caryl Bigenho (aka Carolina)
Cecilia Alcala
Chris Ball
Christoph Derndorfer
CScott Ananian
Daniel Drake
Ed Bigenho
Fernando Sansberro
Harriet Vidyasagar
Nick Doiron
Richard Smith
Sameer Verma
Sascha Silbe
Simon Schampijer
SJ Klein

Accommodation

We'll put here some information about possible places for staying. At the same time we'll make a volunteers hosting program, so Uruguayan volunteers can host some of the attendees. More information soon.

Uruguay (generally) uses 220V European electrical outlets so please consider bringing a small converter.

Wifi access will be sought where possible, but not guaranteed.

Registration

Details to follow shortly. Rest assured you can buy your flight today, as pricing for this community event will not be expensive. Flight prices will rise, so we we strongly encourage you to book your flight to Montevideo (MVD) today, and add you name to the above list!

Uruguay

Visas are not required for most US, Canada, Europe, Australia citizens.

Direct flights to Montevideo (Carrasco Airport) from:

US: Miami
Europe: Madrid
Most of South America
Nearby hubs: Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Santiago

There are also nice ferries from Buenos Aires: http://buquebus.com

An airport departure tax of $30+ may be charged upon leaving Uruguay, if not pre-paid within your flight ticket.

Touristic information: http://www.turismo.gub.uy

Don't forget to register for "Conozco Uruguay", our pre-summit eduTRIP! (Saturday April 30 - Thursday May 5)

Discussions

Use this space to share your ideas for things you would like to do at the EduSummit

Some fun and crazy ideas for stakeholders participation in the EduSummit from Carolina in California:

The gathering in Montevideo May 5-7 is an excellent opportunity to explore some of the lesser used features of the XO. With so many people in one place having access to the laptops it should be easy and fun to bring people together... teachers, students, and parents... to experiment with using the XO as the powerful science tool it has the potential to be, and to also explore its use in making and learning about music.

I work with small Contributors Program projects in several places, including, among others, inner-city children in Los Angeles, CA, Native American children on the Ojibwe and Northern Cheyanne reservations and a project with children in rural Guatemala. All of the four mentioned are interested in doing science with XOs in their projects. So here are some ideas of things it would be nice to explore:

Participants could do some work with a microscope interfaced with the XO like Cherry Withers was able to do at the Southern California Linux Expo. They could collaborate on creating science and health lessons to coordinate with curriculum. Cherry could probably write up some instructions about how to get the microscope working with the XO.

Participants could also so some experiments with Turtle Art With Sensors or Measure[1] on the XOs, building on what has been done and creating science lessons with it. They would probably need to make the sensors ahead of time. Maybe they could create and test some lesson ideas using the sensors for hands-on real science experiments students could do with their XOs.

Another crazy idea... I wonder if there is a usb telescope that would connect and work with the XOs. How about an XO star party using the Star Chart Activity on the XOs and a telescope hooked up to one. Wonder if the skies are clear at night in May in Montevideo? Actually this could be fun just with the XOs with the Star Chart Activity and a regular telescope!

If some of the stakeholders have experience writing and modifying Sugar Activities, maybe everyone could collaborate to create a science version of Conozco that could be used all over the world... Conozco los planetas. People who know different languages could do versions in those languages. Once more people learn to do this, they can make more versions of Conozco to share later.

I love the TamTam suite! Wouldn't it be fun to spend some time really getting acquainted with all four parts and how they can be used with students? The group might actually do well enough to "perform" for other event participants. Has anyone had any success using an inexpensive usb music keyboard with TamTam? How about a keyboard overlay on sturdy paper showing the standard music keyboard?