[Squeakland] ideas to promote squeak in telecenters in Brazil

[Marta Voelcker]

Dear Squeakers,

 As one of the researchers from the University that is running the OLPC pilot project in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I was introduced to squeak, last February, when I could bring an XO home during a weekend.

But now,  my work  is related to promote capacity building to the staff of  organizations that run TELECENTERS.

Telecenters, in Brazil, are rooms with an average of 12 computers(PCs) with access to Internet inside NGOs or grassroots organizations, located in low-income communities in Brazil.

I am the coordinator of a Foundation that promotes capacity building to the staff of these organizations, to implement curses in telecenters. Our methodology has the same line of constructionism...
We have been working "IT Basic knowledge"  through project-based learning, now we want to start using Squeak.

In Brazil, schools work on shifts. Children go to school in the morning (8:00 to 12:00) or in the afternoon (2:00 to 18:00). If the child goes in the morning, during the afternoon he or she might get a vacancy in an after school program offered by an NGO or grassroots organization, or religious organization. Government helps supporting these organizations to implement this after school programs. Those organizations are frequently receiving refurbished computers and building partnerships to create their telecenter. Than, they come to us, asking for guidance about what to do with the telecenter.

So, we have telecenters as informal educational environment to work with children and teenagers. We don’t need to relate our work to school curriculum, we can promote any kind of curses, workshop, guided playtime... any thing!

We have about 45 of these NGOs equipped with telecenters in Porto Alegre, already working with us (from a total of 150 NGOs partners from other cities). 

Our motivation is strongly related to develop programming skills on children and teenagers. 

We are thinking about to start with a group of age around 10 and another group around 15. We would choose one  telecenter and plan to  work there ( instead of train their staff).

But what would we teach? Should we keep thinking in project-based learning? When we use  other software we frequently start working with  identity construction, and after some exploration of the software, the group starts a project...

But to understand the basis of squeak, the "drive a car " project seems so important!!!

Well, sorry guys to be so long in this Sunday night! Seems that to write to you already made some goals clear to me!

Ideas, experiences and suggestions are welcome!

regards,

Marta Voelcker