User:Vtaylor/XO curriculum
XO Notes : : : User:Vtaylor/Sugar_Replacing_Textbooks_Project#Curriculum_mapping
Source: Volusia county curriculum maps and guides - Elementary (K-5)
Contents
Activities, activities, demos
There are two schools of thought. 1. provide direction and examples to guide the learning. 2. allow the learner the freedom to base their learning on their own needs and interests. But how do I know what I don't know? That is where the "guide on the side" comes in - not to direct learning but to help the learner explore what is possible and develop the skills to use the resources to determine what needs to be learned in order to learn what the learner wants to learn. For example, there are many steps in the progress from middle school science to becoming a nuclear physicist that are not going to be obvious to a 7th grader.
Here are some suggestions for discovering learning with Activities.
- click every button and pull every lever - this is the whole point of discovery learning. If we tell you what to do, you won't discover new and interesting things that the developers never thought of.
Journal
- titles, search - The first use of titling Journal entries is to be able to search for important work. Have you tested the search functions in the Journal toolbar? They are not Google, or even Google Mail, but they are fairly effective. They search not only titles, but also tags and comments, a fact not immediately obvious to the user who does not click every button and pull every lever.
- reflection - middle school in Dorchester, MA. The kids spend five minutes writing at the end of *every* class, including gym. Even if they never use "that metadata", the act of reflecting is important.
Turtle Art
- direct turtle's path, draws lines, also accepts input, does calculations
- activity http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art/Manual
- what you can do / try this / example / why would you want to - square, circle, triangle - think about shapes, understand outline, straight lines, angles, curves, action / reaction
- projects / challenges - http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art#Challenges - recreate pictures yourself
TamTam Mini
- fun, powerful way to perform music and play instruments. It is simple enough to be used by even the youngest ages.
Memorize
- classic memory game of finding and matching pairs, but with a twist: the items in a pair can be any multimedia object, such as images, sounds and text. You can play existing games as well as create new ones.
Record
- a simple way to take pictures, view slide shows, and record video and audio—all content that can be shared with others.
Kindergarten Curriculum Maps
Language Arts, Mathematics, Music Physical Education Reading Science Social Studies
Activities / curriculum
- Read
- Write
- Draw
- Memorize
- Chat
- Calculate
- TamTam
- Journal
Optional extras, sensors
There are a number of add-ons for the XOs that can lead to an even wider range of learning activities.
- sensors
- input devices
- wheels and motors
Don't forget that XOs have built-in capabilities
- position awareness, measurement
- camera
- audio recover
- networking
Learn more...
Many contributors write great stuff in the email lists. Some are reproduced here grouped by Activity.
Journal
Every serious explorer, scientist, and other discoverer keeps a journal or log of everything significant, whether or not it seems to be important at the time. These documents are frequently invaluable to their authors and to later workers. When you are chasing an idea, you need to record every twist and turn in the paths you try, even those that seem to be dead ends. It often happens that an exploration that fails to answer one question or reach one particular goal becomes important to some other. It is important in every possible subject, including gym, where one should record one's progress in training and note areas to investigate for further improvement.
One of the best places to grasp the value of such notes is in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. It is not that we can all aspire to either the quantity or quality of his discoveries and inventions, but that he shows us so well how it can work, five centuries later, to inspire further discoveries. Kepler's detailed account of his twenty years wrestling with the orbit of Mars is another excellent example, though not as immediately accessible. (De Motibus Stellae Martis, The Motions of the Star Mars, in Astronomia Nova, The New Astronomy). --Edward Mokurai
Portfolio
Resources
delicious - xo.teaching
Teacher training
English Language Learning
- Open Learning Exchange - OLE Nepal http://blog.olenepal.org/index.php/archives/411
- E-Paath is a collection of digital education materials prepared by OLE Nepal. Digital content is the backbone of ICT-based education. Providing laptops with relevant and localized education content increases the possibility of their being used regularly in the classrooms.
http://www.pustakalaya.org/external-content/static/epaath/epaath/
