School Uses Video Games To Teach Thinking Skills
Gary Dunn, 2010.06.28
NPR today carried a fascinating story by Heather Chaplin about a New York school named Quest to Learn with a curriculum built around video games. She writes:
Most kids don't need instructions to figure out how to play video games. Something about these games turns kids into phenomenal learners.
"The big idea of the school is we looked at how games work -- literally how they're built and the way they support learning -- and we thought could we design a school from the ground up that supported learning in the way games do," says Katie Salen, one of the executive directors of Quest to Learn.
Although the article credits James Gee as the source for this view, it really began with Seymour Papert. I should also mention that Alan Kay, creator of Squeak, had similar views. In any case it has been a cornerstone of the Open Slate philosophy, right along side the recognition that young people crave socializing and that this, too, should be incorporated into the curriculum. Squeak, by the way, is fundamental to Open Slate.
(full story, with audio ...)
Quest to Learn
Obama administration supports open document formats
Gary Dunn, 2010.03.02
Our friend Marino Marcich of the ODF Alliance mentions in his most recent news letter a memo from Presedent Obama to all federal executive offices layout details on how to implement open access to government. He writes:
U.S. federal government agencies will soon be required to make information available in open formats. According to the Open Government Directive issued by the Obama Administration, each agency will be required to "take prompt steps to expand access to information by making it available online in open formats. ... To the extent practicable and subject to valid restrictions, agencies should publish information online in an open format that can be retrieved, downloaded, indexed, and searched by commonly used web search applications." An open format is defined in the directive as one that is platform independent, machine readable, and made available to the public without restrictions that would impede the re-use of that information. Within 45 days of the publication of the directive on 8 December 2009, each agency was required to identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets. Agencies are required to produce a first draft of an Open Government Plan by April 2010.
The Open Slate Project is a member of the ODF.
2010 begins abuzz about slates
Gary Dunn, 2010.01.04
Every year or so the Apple blogs light up with stories about a possible
rebirth of the Newton. The last time there was anything to the rumors it
turned out to be the iPod Touch, a huge disappointment to those of us
familiar with the oldest and best ever PDA. During 2009 the rumors have
started again,
and 2010 may just be the year we finally see what some have already dubbed
the "iSlate."
Apple's competitors are not about to be left behind. Microsoft is rumored
to have something under development, a folding design called Courier.
Then there is the CrunchPad, a.k.a. JooJoo, which debuted in a cloud of
controversy.
It is fair to include E-book readers in the slate category, and here too
there has been a lot of activity. Sony has been in the market for a long
time; their latest model being the LIBRIé .
Other recent entrants have been the Amazon Kindle
and the Barnes & Noble nook.
Hopefully these products will reach a wide market. This will benefit Open
Slate by legitimizing the slate format, and hopefully will make slate
specific hardware, such as the display/digitizer, low power CPU, and better
batteries, more available and less expensive. Who knows ... maybe one of
these could be used to jump-start the hardware side of the project, or as
an alternative to self-made computers.
Squeak to play lead role
Gary Dunn, 2009.11.08
The Squeak programming language, an implementation of Smalltalk created by Smalltalk's
visionary author, Alan Kay, is the ideal choice for Open Slate. Squeak is open-source,
released under the MIT license, and is actively supported by a team of dedicated experts.
It is the basis for several exciting applications, EToys, Sophie, and Open Cobalt.
I have added a
Squeak section to our wiki.
New hardware forum
Gary Dunn, 2008.04.14
There has been a lot of good chatter on the openslate-brainstorms mailing list regarding a prototype slate. To encourage this activity I created a new forum at our SourceForge site, Open Slate Client Plateform. Please give it a look. You may also find related posts in the mailing list archives.
Home Schooling Conference
Gary Dunn, 2008.02.20
We will be participating in the annual CHOH Conference and Curriculum Fair
on March 14 and 15 (Friday and Saturday), being held at
Kalihi Union Church, 2214 N. King Street, Honolulu. That's at the
West end of King Street just before it crosses over to the mauka side
of the freeway. We were not able to get a work shop slot of our own;
we will just be hanging out with Dick Rowland and our friends at
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.
This conference is put on by the Christian Homeschoolers of Hawaii, and
the subject of most of the presentations is decidedly Christian. Open
Slate is non-denominational and welcomes participation from any and all,
in the same spirit that characterizes the best of what makes America great.
Our goal in attending this conference is to solicit support from the home school community.
March 26 is Document Freedom Day
Gary Dunn, 2008.03.03
The ODF Alliance has declared March 26 to be Document Freedom Day, dedicated to document liberation through international grassroots action. DFD 2008 will give participants the chance to rally behind document freedom -- the right to freely create, edit, exchange, and store documents -- at events organized by local teams around the world.
Open Slate Wiki opens
Gary Dunn, 2008.01.11
The Open Slate Wiki was created primarily to take the first small steps along the path that leads to Chalk Dust. The idea is to have a place where interested people can go and contribute course material. This activity will seed the much larger and more complex Chalk Dust collection.
Please understand that we have had the ribbon cutting ceremony and are in the process of moving in. Over the next week or so I expect to have more structure roughed out. Also keep in mind that I have never worked with MediaWiki, so there is a learning curve to deal with.
Open Source Pizza
Gary Dunn, 2007.11.16
I will be giving a talk on Open Slate at the December meeting of Open Source Pizza,
December 18, 7:00 PM, at the Marine Sciences Building, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
