Uruguay becomes first nation to provide a laptop for every primary school student

Uruguay becomes first nation to provide a laptop for every primary school student: "

Uruguay's been a huge fan of the One Laptop Per Child initiative for quite some time, and while we're still unsure if it's the entity's biggest customer, the aforesaid nation is certainly doing some serious business with Nicholas Negroponte and Company. After the first swath of youngsters received their green and white XOs back in May of 2007, the final smattering of kids have now joined the proud group of laptop-toting tots in the country's circuit of primary schools. You heard right -- every last pupil in Uruguay's primary school system now has a laptop and a growing love for Linux, and we're told that the whole thing cost the country less than five percent of its entire education budget. So, who's next?

[Via Digg, image courtesy of oso]

Filed under: Laptops

Uruguay becomes first nation to provide a laptop for every primary school student originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Finding The Best

Today, I watched a slideshow Webinar for the MILI Project that Ms. Lindberg and Ms. Corbin and I are taking through Metronet.  Here are the notes I posted on my "other" blog on the MILI website.  Only MILI participants can get in, so I copied them here:

My notes on the webinar:

I have been using both Google and Delicious for some time now. They haven't been my mainstays for everything, but it is possible that they will become more ingrained in my repertoire of tools in the future. For instance, I began my blog, Infogal, last year when a teacher wanted to try using one for a project he was doing with kids. So, I went in and tried a Google Blog (Blogspot) since I already had a Google Account.

I find that the most growing I do has much to do with what my teachers and students need.

A couple of years ago, our school wanted to get a handle on the research process, so I started teaching the 9th graders how to access the online resources that our district provides.

This led to me teaching the research process and every year as the students progress, we get more in depth with the research and tools we use to get it done. My pitch to the students is that I will make their work easier by showing them tools that will help them manage their time (Research Project Calculator), give them sites that will help them find good resources (ELM databases, etc.) and tools that will make the tedious parts manageable (EasyBib). They really begin to appreciate me when they hear that all of the research does not have to be drudgery!

One of the biggest ideas that I deliver is that if you "grow" your keyword list, you can begin to narrow or widen your topic as needed. So, when I saw the slide with the sheet on keyword sentences I thought it was a great way to get them to do this ahead of time. One of the issues we have is that students, when they come to the media center, expect that they will be working away at the computer right away. They don't expect me to give them a 10 minute overview of the research process (again!) and how important the first few days can be in getting to know their subject in both general and specific ways. Google is something that we discuss and use when we want to find out more about the subject we picked before we do more focused and scholarly research.

I explain to the students the difference between Google and databases. The slides here mirror much of what I say.

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Delicious--- I have had an account for several years now and it's quite personal and professional mixed up. One of my plans for the research and IB program at our school is to start an account for resources that we find that would be helpful for things like AP Research or IB Extended Essays. I haven't quite figured out all of the details or how that would be better than just searching a database (that is constantly updated), but will probably just try it and see how it goes.


Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Finding The Best

View more presentations from LeAnn .

A Day Off?

Well, this was supposed to be a day off for me, but I chose to come in and work on my website. It got tripped up somewhere in the cybersphere and keeps going around and around, but never presents itself on the page where it ought to be. I contacted our good friends down at the district office, and the webmaster there and I have been trying to figure out what is wrong.

As it is, we ended up dumping the entire old site, creating a new Media Center page on North's homepage and then deleting the other links and content to see if that would clear things up. So, I printed everything off so I would have it for the rebuild. BUT, I used my media smarts, too! I ALSO copied (control A to select all from those little editing boxes when you can't see it all) and pasted the information into a Word document... which means I can copy/paste later when I am ready to edit. I do still have all the pictures (thank goodness) that I will need, so I am not saving all of them.

Now, I am to the point where I have the links on the Classroom Pages and on the Academic Programs working... but for some reason I can't get the most obvious page to show-- that is the one on the homepage named Media Center! The webmaster left for the day. Maybe I should, too!

UPDATE: So, I thought I'd try to link to the website from this blog thinking that I would have to change the link because it wouldn't work anymore SINCE I DELETED THE OLD PAGE. Guess what? It worked-- went right to the page. AND, the basic page presents itself now. Go figure. So, something worked... I guess the kernel of goodness here would be use copy/paste features to your advantage. And, things may just take some Time.