Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

Ever since I learned about the One Laptop Per Child organization, whose ambitious goal is to provide 150 million children around the world with inexpensive laptops by the end of this year, I have been totally captivated by the vision and the implication of what this would mean in terms of transforming the current education model.

Imagine what might happen if we empower all children, their families and teachers in the poorest of nations and the poorest of counties in the United States with the ability to learn 24/7?

What if we could actually remove the obstacles and barriers that block learning and create a learning environment and community that celebrates the universal human right of education? What might happen if we provided children with an environment that supported learning and developed creativity for the entire family?

This is what OLPC is really all about and what makes it such an exciting initiative. My excitement has continued to grow over these past three years for OLPC, especially since I recently attended the 2008 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education Conference that was held in Las Vegas just a few weeks ago from March 3rd through the 7th.

At the closing session on March 7th, we were privileged to hear Antonio Battro, current Chief Education Officer of OLPC cast a vision of allowing children, as young as four years old, to own a durable, low-cost laptop that comes with 100 e-books loaded on it, a digital still and video camera and built-in capability to connect with a local server and the Internet and collaborate on projects and share knowledge with their peers from their school and with children all around the world.

Battro, from Argentina, talked about his OLPC conversations around the world with heads of state and kings and indicated that there are now 50 countries involved in some phase of exploring or implementing the use of the OLPC laptop. He emphasized that the OLPC initiative is not about giving children a technology tool but about the creation of a learning community where education is everywhere, available to everyone. To Battro, education is as basic to improving the human condition as is fresh water and food and must be provided at the same time.

If you’d like to learn more about OLPC and get involved and support this effort, please check out the links in the blogroll to the right. I hope you’ll be just as captivated as I am with how creating a learning environment with this simple technology tool can be a revolutionary agent of change in the lives of so many children and families around the world.

If you’re like me, you might be relatively new to the world of social networking. I’m hoping that getting involved with these networks will expand both my knowledge and ability to share what I’ve learned about helping children reach their learning potential.

While I don’t have a Facebook or MySpace profile yet, I did learn over a week ago that a link to this blog was featured on the Ning, Our Gifted Online Conferences: A Gathering Place for All Things Gifted.

The day after I first saw a link to my blog on this Ning, I attended the IL-TCE Conference on February 28th in St. Charles and learned that there are around 170,000 Nings (social networking sites focused on a single interest). I also learned that the number of Nings is growing daily and that Nings are quite easy to create. If you’re interested in creating your own education related Ning, I’ve included a link in the Blogroll on the right that will help you get started.

Joining Our Gifted Online Conferences, http://giftedonlineconferences.ning.com/, will let you get involved in an active online gifted community where you can share resources and information on many aspects of giftedness. If you’d like to get connected with other parents and teachers who are interested in “all things gifted,” this looks like a great place to start.

Please let us know about other Nings that might be of interest to teachers and parents – I’ll list these in the Blogroll. Thank you!

Getting involved in social networking can be a powerful tool for parents and teachers. I’m looking forward to learning more about how these networks can help us all work together to discover and nurture the gifts in every child.

I just spent two days at the annual Illinois Computing Educator’s technology conference in St. Charles and came back with so many new ideas that I’ll be blogging about in the next few weeks. This conference is a great local one for teachers and parents would learn quite a bit, too! It’s important to keep up with all the technology that our children are becoming so competent with manipulating and attending this conference is a great way to keep current: http://www.iceberg.org/page.php?pid=10

The first new technology tool I wanted to share with you is Scratch, a software tool from MIT and released last spring. Michael Resnick, from MIT, gave the IL-TCE conference attendees a look at the potential for this software to develop creativity in children. It’s an awesome tool that you’ll want to check out: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/resnick-scratch.html

I also learned more about social networking and it’s implication for teachers and parents – more about that in my next post.