Archive for XO

Lets Teach our children to fail…

March 28, 2012 community, Contribute, contributions, FOSS, Personal, social, XO No comments

I am surprised by the way the society is moving especially the education system and our young tender years in school.Why do one has to be rewarded only for passing or not to fail ? Why is passing so important for ones well being because with that he does not learn much while one fails he learns a lot. Why are kids who experiment and hence commit mistakes  abhored as wrong when what they are doing is at least trying .

The same pattern emerges when we grow up into young adults where being sucessful becomes so obessesive that people go to any length to be so called  succesful , what i am saying is it’s not bad to be desiring for sucess but the way it’s played out is not ok . We as a society has laid a wrong precident in the young minds trying to so impinging our values and belief systems on them and how to fail is bad and sucess is the only way to Learn .

Every Kid in this world has a moral right to fail because that’s the only way we Humans learn if you stop that i think it’s an impediment to ones learning process and ultimately shows about the society and times we are living in , where in the name of competition Students are under tremendous pressure and loose the whole point of Learning.

So learning to fail and learning from failing should be our motto… think

 

OLPC Site visit

April 24, 2010 community, Contribute, contributions, FOSS, Netbook, OLPC, Sugar, XO No comments

I was invited for a site visit of OLPC in Chennai India , Arani is town around 150 Kms from Chennai here is a route map Route Map , and pictures below

OLPC in Chennai

, overall the visit has been fruitful saw sugar @ work kids discovering and learning new things on there own , there were some 10 Xo’s which attracted around 200 kids from in and around the village.

The weather was too hot and dry i did not feel the humidity like Chennai so suggested them to install water cooler . The most popular activities were Paint , Wikipedia , lack to Internet is something which needs to be looked into to get these kids talk out to the world.

on 20th the next day i visited one more school which is a govt school which is under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme of govt of India , here i learned about the ABL ( activity based learning ) which is similar to activity based in Sugar but it was more structured in the sense of the kid goes from one class to other after he has completed a set of activities in on subject or class. In this school the four XO’s are provided the programme is schedule to begin after summer holidays.

things to be done in coming days , XO’s need Sugar upgrade. Teachers need training , identify kids who can teach other kids , get Internet connection so that they can connect to the larger OLPC community .