Re: Ed Tech Day Ithaca College in NY
far as OLPC goes, though, my impression is that it's not true
that most
of the kids with XOs in the world have the prerequisites for a US
curriculum fourth grade math course -- maybe we should chat with some
Exactly! And I think that's why Massachusetts 4th grade math standards
are a good arbitrary first target:
1. we know/have easy access to people - teachers in MA - who will
probably (we should turn that into a "will") immediately use the stuff
we make for 4th grade math. (Though "Peruvian students" are a larger
audience, I only have a dim and uncertain idea of how we'd get our stuff
to them / get them to use it - though I would *love* for that not to be
the case.)
2. it puts more pressure on the "lots of kids with XOs don't know enough
math to use the stuff we just made" bug - now there's a concrete,
nice-sized, ambitious but achievable, next step to shoot for that's
pretty easy for most people to conceive and run towards, which is "(make
something to) get these kids ready to use the 4th grade math material we
now have."
(As opposed to "make something that prepares these kids for this lovely
calculus textbook we just made, or "make something that teaches these
kids 'more math.'" - too large a scope, and too vague, respectively.)
3. it's going to happen already. ;)
--Mel