Ed Tech Day Ithaca College in NY

[Mel Chua]

> far as OLPC goes, though, my impression is that it's not true that most
> of the kids with XOs in the world have the prerequisites for a US
> curriculum fourth grade math course -- maybe we should chat with some

Exactly! And I think that's why Massachusetts 4th grade math standards 
are a good arbitrary first target:

1. we know/have easy access to people - teachers in MA - who will 
probably (we should turn that into a "will") immediately use the stuff 
we make for 4th grade math. (Though "Peruvian students" are a larger 
audience, I only have a dim and uncertain idea of how we'd get our stuff 
to them / get them to use it - though I would *love* for that not to be 
the case.)

2. it puts more pressure on the "lots of kids with XOs don't know enough 
math to use the stuff we just made" bug - now there's a concrete, 
nice-sized, ambitious but achievable, next step to shoot for that's 
pretty easy for most people to conceive and run towards, which is "(make 
something to) get these kids ready to use the 4th grade math material we 
now have."

(As opposed to "make something that prepares these kids for this lovely 
calculus textbook we just made, or "make something that teaches these 
kids 'more math.'" - too large a scope, and too vague, respectively.)

3. it's going to happen already. ;)

--Mel