[Squeakland] Kathleen's notes from NECC

[Rita Freudenberg]

Von: Rita Freudenberg <rita at squeakland.org>
Datum: 3. Juli 2009 18:35:24 MESZ
An: squeakland at squeakland.org
Betreff: Kathleen's notes from NECC

Hello All,
I wrote these notes/email during the NECC conference. Rita thought  
they might be of interest to others on the Squeakland list so, here  
they are. kh
June 30
It is a big conference, really big, and the exhibit floor is full of  
expensive fantastic technology everything from thin client to ways to  
keep track of student's every keystroke. I saw a demo of the  
Polyvision gadget I will use this morning and it is a short throw  
projector and a board, $1500 for a classroom model with an Eno.

I went to hear the Starlogo group yesterday but none of them showed, I  
thought just one had food poisoning and that the others would be  
there. The room was large and must have had 75 people waiting to hear.

I talked to three people in the DC OLPC Learning Club. One of them is  
starting a summer school lab program of enrichment using OLPCs at a  
Boston school. He is part of Walter Bender's volunteer army. He had  
not looked at any of our materials but I think he might after I talked  
about the kinds of projects there. We are all Sisyphus.

July1
The poster session went very well. The Polyvision is not an  
interactive board like a smart board but it made a great LCD screen  
about 5x6, bright and clear.

There were a lot of people looking for materials for elementary  
schools. Lots of knowledgeable people, lots of good questions, and  
favorable comments. Very interested in the lesson plans and the web  
site library collection. When I mentioned that I hadn't found many  
programming materials for young students, that most seemed to start at  
11th grade even though they were labeled K-12, lots of heads agreed.

The postcards were very popular and many commented that they were a  
smart way to show and to provide our web address. I brought about 150  
I think and they were all gone in the first 90 minutes. I started  
early though, since the space was available when I got here at 8:15, I  
was up and running by 8:20. Built the poster wall with push pins and  
examples of postcards, lessons plans and ads for Squeakfest LA. I had  
people take things off the board or off the table top. When I ran out  
of pretty cards I handed out the blank postcards and many people noted  
the web site on their program or a notebook they were filling with  
ideas. I wrote on scraps of paper, and programs. I saw board members,  
classroom teachers, administrators, tech managers, from all over the  
US and a few from other countries . . .Minnesota, Turkey, India,  
Japan, WV, Indiana, Illinois. Oklahoma.

Many people were so happy to know it (Etoys) was free and that the  
materials were free and that they had been used by young students and  
that the students could do well. Many people said things along the  
lines of. . . that was done by a 2nd grader! I think they might have  
been over stimulated with sell, sell, sell. Elvis was singing on the  
exhibit floor and there were so many sounds, lights, flashy demos and  
sales reps hoping for big orders, it felt very competitive.

Maybe a few of these people will go ahead and look at our site and our  
materials. Right now I feel like it was worth the trip.

July1
PM

I did not have time to meet the Scratch-ed presenter this morning, I  
will send her a note. I think it was good for us to both be there  
because we echo each other and amplify ideas.

I talked to a prof from Lehigh who had his students write reports  
about 1:1 computing and most of them are about OLPCs. He said he  
posted them on wikibooks one-to-one but I can not find it. I know it  
is there, one of the reports we glanced at is about the Birmingham  
school 14000 adoption, another about NYC, Peru, Portugal etc. He knows  
Tim Falconer and is meeting him next week so I can still track this  
down through Tim.

from a response to Tim's questions . . .
I estimate I could have given away another 100+ handouts. it was a  
good crowd and they were very interested in the kinds of learning they  
could see in the student projects. Numerous people commented about the  
kinds of thinking and the age of the students. Close questioning about  
whether these were done by gifted students or not.(not identified as  
gifted but you look at their projects and wonder why not kh 070309)  
Also questions about length of lessons and how many years worth of  
learning to produce the projects I showed. Many of the projects I  
chose to show were done by 2nd graders, it made it very easy to show  
beginner projects done by children using Etoys starting in 2nd grade  
with a 40 minutes lesson, once a week.

The CS4K5 lesson plans I showed include NETS, NCTM Focal Points, and  
Blooms Cognitive domain as reference standards. It meant some thing to  
a lot of people to see the standards there, although I don't think the  
NETS standards are really for programming but rather broadly focused  
on computer literacy. Anyway it was worth the time and thought to  
include them.

One of the handouts was a postcard with an screen print of a student  
project and the projects I showed on the Polyvision screen were only  
those 30 projects so that it was easy to see connections and the  
postcards are beautiful and have the EtoysIllinois web site address on  
them. I was hoping beautiful would stand out from commercial and would  
be more likely to be taken home rather than discarded at the end of  
the day. People chose the card they wanted from among all of them  
scattered on the table top. I am assuming their choice was meaningful  
to them either by project, subject or beauty. I also handed out lesson  
plans and SqueakfestLA posters.

One man I met in the presenters lounge teaches at Lehigh and has a  
meeting with you, Tim, next week. He is from Bethlehem PA. I can't  
think of his name. His students did reports about 1:1 computing and he  
was going to email me the URL in wikibooks. I didn't get anything from  
him yet so please make sure you get it when you meet with him, the  
brief glance I had at it looked like it would be interesting reading  
for the ed team.
Regards to you all,
Kathleen