Saturday 3 April 2010

PaleXO Visiting Farkha School

A group of 5 PaleXOers visited Farkha school near Salfeet on Thursday 01/04/2010 which has 28 student.
One day before, the math teacher prepared all the XOs in a room and kept them charged. She joined us in the update phase and we showed her how to update an XO and gave her the update and the files of the new activities . We also trained her to use the XO since she couldn't attend the second teachers workshop. She did a great job with her students by giving them time to use the XOs in math class and physical science classes.

Students were very happy to see us at the school. While preparing the classroom, some of them came smiling to welcome us and say hi and then went back quickly to their classrooms.

These students used the XO for about 20 times before our visit. We listened to their experiences with the XO. They were very happy with Record activity, they just love it. They also told us that they played puzzle activity, and used calculate to help them in math.

Usually we begin by asking about the XO laptop parts. When we asked about the purpose of the XO ears, we got some of the familiar answers which were helping them open and close the XO, and to protect the XO while closed. However, an interesting and lovely answer was: "The XO ears are a symbol of motivation, they encourage us while using the XO."


We made three chat activities within the class and shared them. So there were 3 groups, each had its own color to be identified. The teacher asked math equations using the chat activity, as well as some students who wrote some equations to be solved by their friends. It was really great to see how they interacted with the activity.  The first number of students answering the questions got stars and  gifts. This made them very determined to solve the questions.

We learned together how to share activities and invite friends. They wrote together, changed colors, inserted tables, etc... They all got excited to find a facility in the activity in order to get the new gift.

We noticed that the students tried to explore the new activities. They opened some activities by their own and played with them. They were also helping each other a lot.

There are some differences between students in using the XO. Some of them were slow and lazy at the beginning and then got excited and showed a difference. We hope that the less interacting students will get more excited by having this additional tool to learn.

We would like to thank all the participating members: Ayman Qarout, Ayman Natsheh, Ahmad Masri, Safaa Halahla, and Noura Salhi. In addition,  we'd like to thank Tamer AlKhouli, Ala' Abu Nada Mohammad Khatib and Ahmad Al Masri for the preparations of the event . We'd also like to thank the Excellence Center in Birzeit University for providing electric cables and distributors, and the Palestinian Education Initiative for making this event possible.

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