Max Payne stick figure safety instructions

Some people may have seen the rather funny (and disturbing, be ready for violence) Max Payne stick figure movie and recently when I went to Malaysia the safety instructions for my room were so similar that I had to blog them. Please find my annotations for them below 🙂

Stickman adventures – part one

stick figure 5

When you check into a room, laser the windows shut and the alarm systems so they don’t work. Then you’ll be uninterrupted in your scheming for world domination.

Stickman adventures – part two

stick figure 2

If you come across your evil twin in an adjoining room, ask him/her to answer the door while you prepare to throw a phone at their head. You’ll find that if you want to pull a wall down, bricks should be thrown through an open door, not closed.

Stickman adventures – part three

stick figure 1

If your fists explode when punching the air, trying hitting the fist with a phone. If bricks come flying at you, make sure you ignore the ones coming at your head. And if the bricks persist, then run towards any nearest closed door.

Stickman adventures – part four

stick figure 4

Floating disco lights should be distrusted, and you should stay close to the floor. If anyone is jumping from a building near you make sure you wave hello, especially if they are falling onto a mysterious X. Try to wear a funny hat.

Stickman adventures – part five

stick figure 3

Finally if a weird I Ching device turns up in your luggage, don’t put it into the washing machines or bricks will be thrown at you. You can escape bricks by disabling the elevator so people are forced to use the stairs.

Interviews with teachers about OLPC benefits

I did some short interviews with some of the teachers at one of the Australian trial sites talking about how they are using the XOs in the classroom and some of the benefits the students are experiencing. Very cool stuff! Many thanks to Warwick and Deirdre for their time and enthusiasm!

Spelling with the OLPC XO

Literacy improvements with the OLPC XO

Making ongoing diaries with the OLPC XO

ICT skills gained with the OLPC XO

Gorgeous diary by 8yo XO recipient in Australia

As many of you know, I’ve been working on Australia’s first OLPC trial, which is in place, and now I’m just waiting for their go ahead to talk about it more publicly. In the meantime, I couldn’t wait to blog this charming diary entry by one of the XO recipients at one of the schools we’re working with. I’ve transcribed it below. I’ve corrected the spelling in my transcription 🙂

“Monday 28th September 08 – Today it is an exciting day because Pia and Colin have come to our school to do some work with us. Pia and Colin are going to give us a talk about all the things they have hooked up to our new laptops. We are also going to play some games. Pia and Colin have set up the Internet on our new laptops. The Primary’s (9-12 yr olds) are going to have a meeting with Pia and Colin to tell them what they have done with the laptops to help us learn better. After the Primary’s have had their meeting we are going to have our meeting with Pia. It is a fantastic day and it is a world first event!!! I am so excited so I will use my laptop every day.”

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AWWWW!!! 🙂 Colin and I were also given a merit award and sticker for the project from the kids. I love doing OLPC projects 🙂

Volunteers needed for OLPC projects in PNG – February 2009

This is a general call for anyone interested in volunteering to help with OLPC deployments to remote areas in PNG (Papua New Guinea). There is a lot of information on the progress of trials throughout the Pacific including PNG here. Flights and accommodation are intended on being provided and volunteers should be prepared to work hard and also have an amazing experience! I personally volunteered for a week in Niue (Pacific) and had an incredible time that was also really satisfying to help all the children there.

You would be working with David Leeming and Ian Thomson from SPC, who are wonderful, and they have a lot of experience rolling out OLPC throughout the Pacific in line with the cultural, education and other needs of the communities there.

To volunteer, please sign up on the OLPC Friends Volunteer WIKI page, where David and Ian will be looking for people.

You can also get more OLPC related resources including forums and mailing lists from the OLPC Friends website. Remember, it is a growing community driven organisation, so put your boots on and help out 🙂

Australia’s first OLPC trial – technical documentation

I’ve been involved in rolling out Australia’s first OLPC XO trial, which has been awesome! Although the details aren’t public knowledge yet I thought I’d post all the technical documentation (with permission) which I’m sure will help others! We have done what is I believe a world first in actually connecting up classrooms that are geographically dispersed with video and other collaborative activities for specialist education support of children in remote/rural areas. We are using this trial specifically for literacy education purposes as well as general classroom use of course.

All the documentation is here!

The full details will be available very soon, including a video of some of the children, teachers and implementers involved.

Open Education Workshop 2008

This Friday I’m helping host Open Education Workshop 2008, an ASK-OSS and NSW DET supported event about all things open in education (Open Resources, Open Source, Open Standards, Open Collaboration, etc). It should be a great event and will hopefully pave the way towards more Open Education in Australia for 2009!

The event includes great speakers from education in Australia and abroad as well as loads of case studies, and time for strategic discussion and planning. Should be great!

Women in IT around the world!

Recently I was involved in a project profiling awesome women in IT from all around the world. It was a cool project and some really awesome women from all kinds of backgrounds. It was a lot of fun and I’d recommend checking it out. I think there are some great role models there for young people to encourage them to get into IT, and of course it helps fix some of the issues around bad stereotypes in IT 🙂

I’m helping them do an easier to browse html implementation of this (probably in WordPress) but in the meantime, enjoy!

The Oceania profiles
The Oceania profiles