OLPC Learning Club - DC

OLPC Learning Club - DC - The Lives of Laptops and Bees

2008-11-09T21:23:41Z

You might be wondering what laptops and bees have in common. Perhaps you think we’re talking about the busy-as-bees OLPC staff and volunteers that are getting ready for the return of the Give One Get One offer through Amazon. Or you might envision hundreds of thousands of children around the world joyously buzzing around their XOs. Those are realities to be sure, but laptops and bees have found each other locally.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, November 15th, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: Arlington Career Center
816 South Walter Reed Drive,
Arlington, VA 22204

Dr. Frank Linton, Sheng Zhao and Matt Gallagher will present a project they did this past summer to gather scientific data related to the health of bees. The project’s title is “OLPC Research Software: A Tool for the Automatic Periodic Capture of Audio Data” and is part of an interdisciplinary effort by the Arlington Public Schools STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Program.

As always, we’ll have news or samples of the latest OLPC-related products. Anyone who wants to get the new software update for their XO can still do so. If you’re thinking about donating to Give One Get One and want to meet other XO users of all ages, our meeting is for you!

Upcoming Meetings:

Saturday, December 20, 10am - 1pm - Gallaudet University
Saturday, January 17, 2009, 10am - 1pm, Location TBD
Saturday, February 21, 10am - 1pm, Location TBD

Visit the club blog for links and updates:

http://olpclearningclub.org/

Mike Lee
curiouslee [at] gmail.com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - FLOSS, Sugar and Sensors for October

2008-10-09T22:17:21Z

Location change! This month we are deviating from our plan and meeting at Nortel Networks again where we have a more convenient environment for doing software updates to the XO laptops.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, October 18th, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: Nortel Networks, 101 Constitution Avenue, Washington, DC 20001

As the title of this post suggests, we’re going to show things related to open source software and hardware. First, we’ll pass around the very first copies of OLPC XO Laptop and Sugar User Interface printed manuals! They look an feel fabulous. These print-on-demand books can be ordered from Lulu.com or you can download the PDFs for free to print yourself or read on a computer screen. The manuals are the result of a team of volunteers working with the FLOSS Manuals project. FLOSS stands for “free, libre, open source software.” The FLOSS web site offers an ever growing collection of community authored manuals for various popular open source packages. More than just PDFs to download, the web site lets you build your own custom PDFs by selecting only the chapters you want. Each chapter is written in a self-contained style. Adam Holt, who called in to the last meeting from OLPC Headquarters spoke at length about the recent book sprint event in Austin during which the majority of t
he content of the two OLPC manuals was authored. I know many of our club members have been pining for good documentation in printed form. Be happy now! Even better, if you don’t think a FLOSS manual covers a topic you need, you can jump in and add content to benefit others.

The bulk of our meeting time will be devoted to helping anyone who wants to upgrade to the new Sugar 8.2.0 update. I’ve been using it for a while, and it makes my XO feel like a brand new laptop with speed and usability improvements as well as a raft of bug fixes. As always, there’s a small gotcha: this new release is best installed clean on your XO wiping out everything on it in the process. If you have files in your Journal you wish to keep, they should be dragged to a USB drive. Customizations such as Adobe Flash, Firefox, Opera, Java, web radio, video players will be lost. We will likely be able to help reinstall some of these customizations, so please let us know in advance (curiouslee [at] gmail.com) so we can be prepared and do post to the discussion forum. This new update is the one that will be shipped with the upcoming Give One Get One 2008 program now being offered via Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/xo.

One very pleasant surprise in this new update is that the Scratch Sensor board now works with Scratch! Scratch was demonstrated a few meetings ago by Richard Bullington-McGuire. It’s essentially a way to program animations and games using pieces of software code that snap together like Lego bricks. The sensor board, now marketed as the PicoBoard for USD$50 plugs into the XO’s USB port to provide light, sound, resistance, push button, and slider inputs to the Scratch environment. One club member suggested an alarm system for a child’s bedroom could be created with Scratch and the sensor board. I hope to demo this at the meeting.

Visit the blog entry for live links and updates:

http://olpclearningclub.org/meetings/floss-sugar-and-sensors-for-october/

I hope to see you there!

Mike
curiouslee [at] gmail.com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - September brings festival and another meeting

2008-09-12T01:17:31Z

Where did the summer go?

We're going to soak in some of the remaining warm weather as we hang out at the OLPC Learning Club booth at the Takoma Park Folk Festival this Sunday, September 14 from 11am - 6:30pm. We'll be joined by the DC Ubuntu / Linux groups and HackDC who have their own booths. For more information, visit the TPFF web site

http://www.tpff.org

Well, the excitement around OLPC is ramping up again here in the developed world as specifics around another Give One Get One (G1G1) program have been announced. While the details may change, the next G1G1 will begin around November 17th, 2008 and run through the end of the year. It will be the same laptop as last year but with the current stable release of the software. The laptop will not be dual boot with Windows XP. To avoid the delivery challenges of the first G1G1, Amazon will do the payment processing and fulfillment with the first 100,000 laptops guaranteed for immediate shipping from Amazon warehouses. The price is supposed to remain at $399. There is no word yet on G1G1 for Canadians or elsewhere in the world although that has been hinted. As always, visit OLPC News for the latest facts, rumors, speculation and all-out debate on G1G1:

http://www.olpcnews.com

For our next Learning Club meeting, we will have Adam Holt as a guest either in person or by phone. Adam works at OLPC's headquarters in Cambridge as their Community Support Manager. He leads the heroic volunteer support team that fields the many thousands of questions submitted to support@laptop.org as well as moderates their discussion board and wiki. He will help us understand the implications of the next G1G1 and give us ideas on how we can help support the program.

Also, Thomas Doggette and FFM will give a follow-up presentation on the DC-based OLPC repair service, and I will show a complete set of the repair parts that can now be mail ordered from XOExplosion.com and iLoveMyXO.com.

Meetings have been set for the THIRD Saturdays monthly. Below is the schedule as known so far:

Saturday, September 20, 10am - 1pm - Adam Holt from OLPC; Thomas Doggette and FFM on XO maintenance and repair, Arlington Career Center
Saturday, October 18, 10am - 1pm - Gallaudet University
Saturday, November 15, 10am - 1pm - OLPC Research Software: a tool for the automated periodic capture of audio data in a study of bees, Arlington Career Center
Saturday, December 20, 10am - 1pm - Gallaudet University
Saturday, January 17, 2009, 10am - 1pm, Location TBD
Saturday, February 21, 10am - 1pm, Location TBD

Check the blog in the coming week for updated information.

http://www.olpclearningclub.org

Other developments:

This evening (9/11) I met with two electrical engineering students who are forming a student chapter of OLPC at the University of Maryland.

Tomorrow I am meeting with Walter Bender in Providence, RI before we both attend John Maeda's inauguration as president of the Rhode Island School of Design.

A $100 laptop -- for real
http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=3603.msg25540;topicseen#msg25540

Mike Lee
curiouslee [at] gmail [dot] com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - August Meeting

2008-08-14T07:08:51Z

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Hello fall in summer!

I hope you're taking your XOs out into this unseasonably mild DC weather--or maybe even just shutting them off. I know this is a big vacation month and several club regulars will be out. But I want to press ahead with a meeting and I hope to see some of you.

Michael Connet will host us again at Nortel Networks on Capital Hill.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, August 23rd, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: Nortel Networks, 101 Constitution Avenue, Washington, DC 20001

Map:
http://tinyurl.com/692zhz

I'll do a trip report on my recent visit to OLPC Headquarters and the Media Lab and we'll be calling Anna Schoolfield in Birmingham to get an update on the upcoming deployment of 14,000 XOs there. I will also bring the OLPC 10 watt solar panel, which is now being sold by XOExplosion.com.

I'm sure we'll have some other programming for the meeting, so check the blog again in a few days.

http://www.olpclearningclub.org

Mike

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - July Meeting at Gallaudet - XO Tip Swap Yo

2008-07-20T00:01:51Z

Happy summer!

Because we know that using an OLPC XO isn’t always a joyride, we’re going to focus our July meeting on helping club members get more out of their laptops. With the laptop piped into an LCD projector, we’ll swap tips and tricks on navigating the Sugar user interface, demonstrate new or interesting software activities and also talk about the latest accessories for the laptop itself.

There should be a little something for everyone who attends. And if nothing else, you can get help practicing the XO gang sign (see photo on the blog). We will log the discussion points for posting to this blog or our wiki. If you want to demonstrate anything that requires installation on our projector enabled XO, please let us know during the week before.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, July 26th, 2008, 10 am to 1pm
Where: Gallaudet University, Student Union Building, Lower Level, Flexible Room L040 and L041, Washington, D.C. 20002

If this is your first time at Gallaudet, and you are driving, come to the main entrance of campus and check in at the security kiosk where you’ll be directed to the proper parking lot. This time, we’ll have balloons by the entrance to the Student Union nearest to the parking lot.

It’s also a doable walk from the nearby Metro station.

Links to more information are on the blog post
http://olpclearningclub.org/meetings/xo-tip-swap-yo/

=================================

LOST & FOUND: A small spiral notebook full of handwritten notes was found after the last meeting and it was delivered to my office at AARP Headquarters for safekeeping. I will bring it to the meeting, or email me at the address below if you want to make arrangements to pick it up.

=================================

Other news:

The OLPC Learning Club DC's information table at the Takoma Park Folk Festival has been confirmed. Mark your calendars for Sunday, September 14, 2008.
http://www.tpff.org/

David Rothman, editor of the Teleread Blog on the Ebook industry, is a happy customer of the DC-area OLPC repair service.
http://tinyurl.com/65eqt2

Both of the third-party XO accessory stores will soon offer replacement parts such as keyboards and batteries. XOExplosion will also carry the OLPC specified 10 watt solar panel.
http://www.xoexplosion.com/
http://www.ilovemyxo.com/

LEGO recently announced that a special XO-compatible robotics system for developing countries, the WeDo, will go on sale January 1, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/5r9eha

Students at Duke University organized OLPC GrassCon, the first virtual grassroots web conference. The conference video was streamed live Saturday, July 19. There were some technical glitches and speaker lineup changes, but the presenters' content was excellent in my opinion. I've posted a few minutes of video and screenshots on Flickr. The con organizers say the archived video and chat text will be posted soon.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/sets/72157606254163536/

The Waveplace Foundation has released 30 (!) new video tutorials on eToys. The tutorials are already being used for teacher training in Haiti, Florida and Nicaragua. The videos will also be released as a DVD and book. Currently, it is necessary to sign up on their web site to be granted a password to see all the videos.
http://waveplace.com/resources/tutorials/

The Birmingham (Alabama) Board of Education has voted to accept the remaining 14,000 OLPC XO laptops after piloting the 1,000 received in the spring.
http://tinyurl.com/54sggd

Jim Gettys' most recent OLPC Community News Update is chock full of deployment stories, new software activities and product development progress.
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-July/000134.html

=================================

See you at the meeting or online!

Mike Lee
curiouslee [at] gmail.com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - Last-minute Meeting Info for Saturday

2008-06-26T21:27:45Z

Saturday's meeting at Nortel Networks is coming together nicely. OLPC News Forum regular "CleverGirl" has about 14 adults and kids attending the Nortel Ottawa facility to teleconference with us in Washington, D.C. They've submitted a list of XO-related questions and interests, most of which should be answerable.

We'll be doing a raffle again, and I've also set up the Ottawa folks with tickets and stuff to raffle too.

Once again, here's our blog post about the meeting:

http://olpclearningclub.org/meetings/june-at-nortel-networks/

And the OLPC Canada Forum on OLPC News:

http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?board=52.0

The precocious crew of XO enthusiasts at the Arlington Career Center have started up an OLPC-supported grassroots repair center. Since there are currently no factory-fresh spare parts available from OLPC or its partners, parts are being salvaged from recycled XO machines, of which the Arlington crew has several. For a nominal fee, the crew will replace the screen, battery, touchpad, keyboard and power adapter. They will also fix bad motherboard batteries and the bricking (dead laptop) that can occur, replace the backplate of the XO to colors of your choice, and upgrade to the software build of your choice. The DC repair center is part of an emerging worldwide network of grassroots repair centers that share repair procedures, customer service best practices and spare parts.

If you have an issue with an XO laptop, bring it to the meeting to get a repair on the spot if time permits or have a follow-up appointment or contact arranged. Be sure to copy your data files off the laptop or have an appropriately sized USB flash drive on hand.

OLPC DC Repair has an information page on the OLPC wiki with pricing, repair services and contact information:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_DC_Repair

Directory of repair centers:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Directory_of_repair_centers

For those handy with computer hardware, the repair crew will do a laptop disassembly demonstration at the meeting. And then you can follow the recently updated illustrated instructions on the OLPC wiki here:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Repairs_cookbook

MARK YOUR CALENDARS - The Learning Club has reserved a community table at the 31st Takoma Park Folk Festival on Sunday, September 14, 2008. We need helpers and cheerleaders!

http://www.tpff.org/

Mike Lee
curiouslee (at) gmail (dot) com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - June Meeting at Nortel Networks

2008-06-22T14:38:51Z

__

Jolly June!

Thanks to Michael Connet of Nortel LearnIT, we’re back at Nortel Networks’ DC office this month to mesh with each other and teleconference with Nortel’s office in Ottawa where some Nortel staffers will host some XO owners from their local area. We will also attempt to patch in some people via Teamspeak VOIP. There’s lots to report on from recent events such as the 4PC Bakeoff, OLPC Grassroots Jam NYC, OLPC Grassroots Unconference in Boston, OLPC Photo Jam 1, and more.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup

When: Saturday, June 28th, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm

Where: Nortel Networks, 101 Constitution Avenue, Washington, DC 20001 [Map link on blog]

Nortel Networks is a secure office complex so someone will be on the lookout to let people in between 9:45am-10:15am. The building is walking distance from the Union Station and Judiciary Square Metro Stations.

Links and updates can be found on our blog http://olpclearningclub.org/

Mike
curiouslee@gmail.com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - Meeting Saturday 5/24/08 at Gallaudet

2008-05-19T21:51:16Z

Hello,

The next Learning Club meeting is this Saturday, May 24th at 10am with a return to the lower level of the Student Union Building at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

Our guests will be Christoph Derndorfer and Aaron Kaplan of OLPC Austria, and Mel Chua, grassroots organizer from OLPC Headquarters. They'll give us some perspective on the massive changes that have rocked the OLPC organization in the last couple months including most recently the departure of Walter Bender. Walter has launched SugarLabs.org to carry on the open source work on the Sugar user interface for the XO, and OLPC has announced a major alliance with Microsoft to deliver a version of Windows XP as an option for the XO. And OLPC will give a sneak preview of the next generation XO-2 laptop concept tomorrow.

Organizational changes aside, many of us are still very excited to carry the spirit of the mission forward in our local communities. After all, we've only had the G1G1 laptops for a few months or weeks and the educational needs of the children of the world have not diminished.

The Learning Club blog has more information about the meeting as well as a link to an interactive map of the campus:

http://olpclearningclub.org/meetings/summer-blockbusters-at-gallaudet/

The interactive map of the campus shows parking, bus stops, nearest Metro stations and the Student Union Building. Clicking on the bus icons on the marked routes takes you to the Gallaudet shuttle bus schedules. Be sure to pick the WEEKEND schedule to get accurate times.

The university will be in its summer session, so I don't anticipate any problems with entering the campus or parking. Last time, I found it easiest to enter the campus by car from the intersetion of Florida Avenue, NE at 8th St. This gated entrance leads to a security kiosk where after checking in, you'll be directed to the right around Lincoln Circle East. There is a parking lot on the right and the Student Union is to the left. The entrance to the Student Union off Lincoln Circle East is a secondary stairwell. Walk down one flight to the lower level. The multi-purpose rooms where we'll be meeting will be to your right.

Kevin Cole points out that parking is allowed anywhere on campus, but you may need to pick up a permit at the security office (shown on the map at Lowman St. and Switzer Dr.). Ask about this at the security kiosk as you enter and tell them you're attending our user group meeting.

To catch up on all the news on changes at OLPC, successes in the field deployments, and revelations on the XO-2, I highly recommend reviewing the posts for the month of May at OLPC News:

http://www.olpcnews.com/2008/05/

Mike
curiouslee [at] gmail.com

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Jabber Server for D.C. area now available

2008-04-28T14:51:21Z

At our last meeting on Saturday, April 26th, I announced the availability
of a Jabber server for the OLPC Learning Club D.C.

To setup your XO, open the terminal activity and type:

sugar-control-panel -s jabber dc.olpc.obscure.org

Restart Sugar/X (ctrl-alt-erase) and you will connect to the Jabber
server.

You will then see other OLPC Learning Club D.C. users who are online in
the Neighborhood View.

You can read more about this on the wiki page:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Learning_Club_D.C./Jabber_Server

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - April Meeting - OLPC: The Prequel

2008-04-18T23:26:20Z

Dear Learning Club members,

Hopefully this email finds you out enjoying our streak of good weather here in D.C. If you're not in D.C. I hope you're out enjoying nature in some way.

This month's meeting will be hosted by Jeff Elkner at the Arlington Career Center in Virgina. The topic is "OLPC: The Prequel."

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, April 26th, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: Arlington Career Center
816 South Walter Reed Drive,
Arlington, VA 22204

I will distill several years of visits to the MIT Media Lab into a photo log on the culture of innovation and invention that gave rise to the One Laptop Per Child project. To make more tangible some of the lab’s work, several commercially available products from spinoff companies and sponsors will be demonstrated including the Ambient Orb, Clocky, LEGO Mindstorms, Scratch Sensor Board, Hyperscore, and E-ink.

Then we’ll cover the news on OLPC’s software Update.1 for the XO laptop and help install it for the brave. Much meshing should ensue.

We’ll also bring back the raffle with some XOView Camera Viewfinders.

Please visit the blog entry about the meeting for many links to background information about the Media Lab and directions to the Career Center.

http://olpclearningclub.org/meetings/olpc-the-prequel/

PARENTS!!!
I am planning a weekend mesh-enabled XO field trip focused on having our club's kids experience a mobile learning exercise. This might happen later in May or early June. All grownup kids will be welcome to participate too, but parents, if you are interested, please email me (Gmail below or talk to me at the meeting) so that I can bounce some logistical questions off you. I'll make a general announcement on the blog about this project soon.

FUTURE MEETING LOCATIONS:
We've been "core sampling" the area over the last few meetings visiting a variety of locations. This is so we can get a sense of where the various pockets of XO fans are as well as try out variations on meeting room setups. All of the meeting locations have been great, but the favorite seems to be Nortel Networks, who has offered to be a regular spot for us. The Nortel LearnIT team just posted a cool video of our meeting there:

http://www.nortellearnit.org/One_Laptop_Per_Child/XO_Learning_Clubs/

We'll definitely return to Nortel, but I'd also like to have gatherings at the Human Computer Interface Laboratory (HCIL) at the University of Maryland College Park:

http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/

and Google's DC offices:

http: HREF="mailto://www.flickr.com/photos/22632149@N04/tags/googledc/">//www.flickr.com/photos/22632149@N04/tags/googledc/

Well, enough for now,

Mike
curiouslee [at] gmail.com

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OLPC Learning Club - DC - March meeting at Gallaudet University

2008-03-11T22:50:58Z

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I hope this email update finds you eager for spring and still enjoying your XO. The next meeting of OLPC LC-DC will be hosted by Kevin Cole at Gallaudet University in DC.

At the meeting, Richard Bullington-McGuire will demonstrate the MIT Media Lab's Scratch animation program which also runs on the XO. Richard has created a number of Scratch courses that he has taught to gradeschool children in Virginia. Richard will give a quick overview of the class he's teaching, show some of the classroom materials, explain how he got the seminar series started, and show what some of the projects students have done. He'll also report on the alpha implementation of Scratch on the XO, with a quick explanation of what works and what doesn't.

Here's a screenshot of one of Richard's student projects, a capture the flag game:

http://tinyurl.com/24vccq

Richard's web site is:

http://www.obscure.org

In addition to Richard's presentation, we'll be offering technical support and an opportunity to mesh with other XOs.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup

When: Saturday, March 22nd, 2008, 10 am to 1pm

Where: Gallaudet University, Student Union Building, Lower Level, Flexible Room L040 and L041, Washington, D.C. 20002

Kevin has created a detailed interactive map of the campus showing parking, bus stops, nearest Metro stations and the Student Union Building. Clicking on the bus icons on the marked routes takes you to the Gallaudet shuttle bus schedules. Be sure to pick the WEEKEND schedule to get accurate times.

http://tinyurl.com/2ldf52

Kevin points out that parking is allowed anywhere on campus, but you will need to pick up a permit at the security office (shown on the map). You will need to present your driver's license, registration and insurance info.

Here's a diagram of the floorplan of the lower level of the Student Union:

http://tinyurl.com/2x2tz4

And a hot tip to close this email: Amazon is now offering the Targus re-labeled iGo Auto/Air Power 40 car adapters for only $8.99! The original price was over $40 before they were discontinued. This product comes with the "D00" tip that fits the XO perfectly.

Targus 40-watt Automatic Air DVD Charger - APD51US-10

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Q9GTKU

Mike
curiouslee [at] gmail.com
http://www.olpclearningclub.org

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