Utah Phillips
blog and discussion

Rad Geek People’s Daily 2008-05-25 – Last train headed West: R.I.P. Utah Phillips: "Utah Phillips, a seminal figure in American folk music who performed extensively and tirelessly for audiences on two continents for 38 years, died Friday of congestive heart failure"

I'm parking this link here, so that I can play the first audio clip as part of a discussion of "why we should study media history."

(I'm not at the computer that posts to my usual blogs.)

Press - SugarLabs

This site collects news clips about Walter Bender's OLPC spinoff focused on the software system originally designed for the XO computer.

Technology Review: $100 Laptop Program's New President: "Charles Kane, OLPC's finance chief and a former software company executive, is stepping into the role of president and chief operating officer following last month's resignation of president Walter Bender. Bender had adamantly opposed efforts by the organization's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, to depart from a pure open-source-software approach and include a version of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system on the laptops."

One Laptop per Child Appoints Chuck Kane as President and Chief Operation Officer: "One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries “learn learning,” announced today the appointment of Charles (“Chuck”) Kane as President and Chief Operating Officer."
... "Before joining OLPC, Kane held a number of positions in which he oversaw mergers and acquisitions, negotiated deals, restructured organizations and directed financial operations."

Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops - New York Times:

"...school officials here and in several other places said laptops had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores at a time of increased pressure to meet state standards. Districts have dropped laptop programs after resistance from teachers, logistical and technical problems, and escalating maintenance costs.

"Such disappointments are the latest example of how technology is often embraced by philanthropists and political leaders as a quick fix, only to leave teachers flummoxed about how best to integrate the new gadgets into curriculums. Last month, the United States Department of Education released a study showing no difference in academic achievement between students who used educational software programs for math and reading and those who did not."

Walter Bender summarizes a learning philosophy:
"I was very much influenced by Seymour Papert and his constructionist theories, which can be summarized in my mind very efficiently by two aphorism.
"One is that you learn through doing, so if you want more learning you want more doing.
"The second is that love is a better master than duty. You want people to engage in things that are authentic to them, things that they love.
"The first is more addressed by the Sugar technology [the OLPC operating system]; the second is more addressed by the culture around freedom."