The Middle of June Already

For some reason I always think summer will be more relaxed than the regular school year, but it never turns out that way. May and June have been especially busy for me. I was traveling some in early May, then some big life decisions had to be made which took a lot of time and were very stressful, and lots of planning going on for a series of XO workshops that start TOMORROW for teachers and in July for students.

I still have a few hundred pix on my camera dating back to Feb. that need to be uploaded and posted here and on Facebook. I keep thinking every weekend I'll have a chance to do it but I never do. I think I need a personal assistant just to handle some of the tasks like this one and keeping my life in order.

So, I keep promising that I'll post pix on here but who knows in reality when that will actually occur. Maybe before summer's end...

XO Laptops in Birmingham - NSF Article

The National Science Foundation is funding both my projects related to the OLPC XO laptops in Birmingham. They just put together an NSF Discoveries article on our work with the XOs. This is great exposure to have the NSF do this type of article on our work! Take a look.

http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116638&org=NSF

Birmingham's Mayoral Race

Yesterday was election day for Birmingham -- voters could choose a new mayor to replace Larry Langford. Well, actually it was to replace the 2nd interim mayor that had been in place since Langford was removed from office. Birmingham politics are amazing!

William Bell beat Patrick Cooper.

I wonder what this will mean for the XO laptops in Birmingham. One blog I saw yesterday suggested Bell was more in favor of keeping them than was Cooper. I guess time will tell what the future will hold.

Updating the Blog

Life has been way too busy the past month. I can't believe it has been almost a month since I last did a blog post! Here's a brief recap of life over the past month.

• We spent a good portion of the summer thinking Bo would get put on unpaid leave, along with 1000+ Jefferson County employees. Luckily he didn't but we certainly feel bad for the others who did get put on leave. We hope Jefferson County will bring them back ASAP now that the politicians have passed a new occupational tax.
• We did a family trip to Atlanta. We went to the Georgia Aquarium. It was nice but I think the Baltimore and Chattanooga ones are better. As we were getting out of the car at Ikea, Callen smashed a finger in the door! Not a fun time! Nothing broken but lots of tears. Sunday we went to Stone Mtn and did a few things there. Pretty state park.
• We went to a birthday party for a friend of Callen's. His mother is so creative! I wish I had a third of the creativity genes that she does! Yes, I'm talking about you Renee : ).
• My NSF grant I submitted in January got funded! Our media office did a press release on Wed. of this week and it has been picked up by various media outlets around the country. The project involves helping develop STEM curriculum using XO laptops, and working with teachers and students to enhance integration of the XOs and the new curriculum modules.
• We started training our first older adults in our first assisted living facility to use computers and the Internet (for my NIA grant). They're doing so great! The class is smaller than we'd hoped but this is our pilot facility and we're learning a lot that will enhance the future trainings. My graduate research assistants are doing a great job with the training!
• The cleaning of the data from my other NSF grant is almost complete. We should be able to start crunching some numbers soon to indicate how students' technology usage, attitudes towards technology, educational aspirations, etc. changed with the introduction of the XO laptops in Birmingham City schools.
• I went to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago for our national conference. It was fun to see old friends and to meet some new ones. The presentations I was involved with went well. One was even written up in a San Fran. blog. I flew home on a 7:30 AM flight so that I could attend the open house at Callen's school. It made for a long, long day but I'm glad I could get back in time for it!
• Our classes started this week (where did the summer go????). I'm teaching on Tues/Thurs at 8 AM (ouch!) but better than a MWF in the afternoon (which was the other option). It looks like a pretty good group of students or at least the best I can tell after 2 classes : ).

I'm sure I've left lots out of what we did over the past month, but this will have to suffice for now : ). I hope everyone had a good summer!

My New NSF Grant - Integrating Computing Across the Curriculum (ICAC) Using XO Laptops

I received notice last week that the NSF grant I submitted in January was funded. The goal of this grant is to enhance STEM education in Birmingham City schools using XO laptops. The study builds off my current NSF grant investigating the educational, career, and social impacts of the XO laptops in Birmingham City schools.

Here's a link to the abstract of the new grant: ICAC

Data Collection for XO Laptop Project

is done! It was a grueling year with surveying 1600+ 4th and 5th graders twice (before they received their XO laptops) and then at the end of the school year. And, my graduate students just completed in-depth interviews with 20 of the students (10 high tech and 10 low tech).

Now, the survey coding and data entry, as well as interview transcription, begins and/or continues. I can't wait to see the data! This is the largest study of the kind focusing on the XO laptops in the US and perhaps the world.

Here's to lots of interesting results to come!

Quiet Sunday Morning

It is rare that I get quiet time alone on a weekend morning. Callen normally wakes us up before we're ready to be awakened : ). I woke up at 5:30 this morning, however. Callen woke up having had a bad dream. After that I couldn't get back to sleep. I finally got up some before 7 and have had a chance to look at friends' blogs, catch-up a little on Facebook and Twitter, and just have a few minutes of quiet time.

On the 13th, I had some outpt surgery to remove an ovarian cyst (and turns out my ovary too). I stayed at home most of that week, recuperating and then working from home some. It was so quiet and peaceful. When I went out for the first time (for dinner that Thurs. night), it was almost like stimulation overload after having been in the house for those days. Maybe you can tell that I'm not one of those people who needs constant stimulation (yes, I tend to fall more towards the introvert end of the Myers Brigg); in fact I prefer peace and quiet. Hard to get when you have a very active 3.5 year old in the house!

I've been busy this week conducting interviews for a program coordinator position for my new NIA grant. They started on Monday morning. I woke up not feeling well Monday morning but came into work anyway. I made it through 3 interviews and then the waves of nausea started to hit me! I left work and tried to get home, only to have to pull off the hwy an puke! I was so sick! Monday and Tuesday were lost days due to either food poisoning or a stomach bug. So glad to be feeling better now!

During the interviews, I met some great people who each have unique and valued skills. I'm happy that I have decided on one candidate. I can't wait for the person to start in the position as I think the person will do a great job and really be an asset to the research project!

The upcoming week is another busy one. My NSF XO laptop project is in full survey mode. We're in 5 schools this week surveying. I'm so glad our flash drives finally arrived week before last though. The kids seem very excited to be getting them.

So, I'm enjoying the quiet time this morning before Bo and Callen awaken, and before another busy week begins....hmmm, wonder if I can find time for a pedicure today....probably not that much 'me' time today : ).

Hmmm....

It seems like a long time since I've posted. It hasn't been all that long but it has been longer than I would have liked. A friend asked me a week and a half ago if I had just let my blog lapse. Ouch. It wasn't my intention but it seems I rarely have time for it anymore. I hope to make more time.

A few quick updates:
- I was in New Orleans last week and weekend for a sociology conference. My students and I had 3 presentations plus 3 panels we'd organized. It was a busy time but good in that I got to spend some time with friends I haven't seen in a while.
- The weekend before I was in NC for a mini grad school reunion. It was a lot of fun! I got to see some family and friends, which was really nice. All my grad school friends were just the same as ever! Nice to know that some people never change. Thanks to Jo Anne for hosting a wonderful reunion.
- My XO project team starts back resurveying approximately 1800 4th and 5th graders the end of this week. We have about 6 weeks to survey in 27 different schools! Wish us luck and if any of you would like to volunteer to help us survey, please email me offline!
- I'm trying to hire a Program Coordinator II position for my new NIA grant. Lots of time being spent reviewing applications!
- Some colleagues at work do an NCAA tournament pool. It is random. I got Wake Forest and UNC as 2 of my random picks. First time I've had to pull for UNC : ).
- I go in for outpatient surgery on Monday to have an ovarian cyst removed. While the doctor thinks it is probably nothing serious, I'd rather get it out than have it stay in when it might be something serious. Wish me luck on Monday!
- Callen is great and growing so fast! I can't believe she's almost 3.5 now.
- I still have all those pix on the camera and more that I noted a while back. Maybe someday I'll get them uploaded and post some of them!

Here's to more posts in coming days and weeks!

XOs in Afghanistan

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/05/one.laptop.per.child/index.html

They mention the Birmingham XO project in this report too.

Behind on Many Things . . .

including posting to my blog. This has been a busy few weeks with finishing up the semester, working on a grant proposal, trying to get ready for Christmas, etc. Last week we were also out in schools surveying students all 5 days! In addition, I was really sick with a chest cold last week; unfortunately I'm still experiencing a lingering cough that annoys the heck out of me. I'm so behind on so many things.

I'm looking forward to some down time, but unfortunately will have to work on the grant proposal next week. It is due soon - WWWAAAYYYY TOOOOO SOOOON in fact! I do plan to relax some though.

On a good note, however, my XO project team surveyed over 800 4th and 5th graders this semester! We have another 8 schools lined up to survey the first couple of weeks in January. It has been a huge amount of work, but hopefully the data that we're collecting on these students BEFORE they receive their XOs and then afterwards will yield important information about the impacts of the XOs. I hope so anyway!

In case there are no blog postings before the holidays (I hope there will be though!), I hope you all have happy and safe holidays!

Update on XOs in B'ham

Turns out they may not be going to middle school students after all. This isn't definite yet, but seems likely. Hopefully we'll be surveying lots of elementary students if the middle school students don't receive the laptops! Stay tuned...

14,000 More XOs Coming to B'ham City Schools

As some of you know, I received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the impacts of the XO laptops in B'ham City Schools. The School Board decided to begin with one elementary school this spring and then decide if they wanted to accept the other laptops. I found some additional funding to allow us to collect data at the pilot school. My team rushed to get pretest data from students at this pilot school before the laptops were distributed and we'll go back in the fall to do our posttest surveying. We planned to present our research findings to the School Board, hoping that it would help them make a decision on whether to accept the other laptops. It appears they've already made their decision -- without seeing any data from us at least.

The School Board voted yesterday to accept the remaining 14,000 XOs; they'll distribute them beginning in September. This is good news as my NSF grant is to study middle school students; so this fall we'll be really busy collecting pretest survey data on 2500 middle school students and then following up with them in the spring. We'll also be doing interviews with a small number of students and surveying teachers.

Here's to a busy fall semester collecting lots of data!

XO Laptops in Birmingham

Some of you may have noticed the link I put on my blog to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Organization a while back. This is the organization that developed the XO laptop for children in 3rd world countries.

The mayor of Birmingham, AL implemented a program to purchase an XO laptop for each child in grades 1 - 8 in Birmingham City schools, in an effort to eliminate the digital divide in Birmingham and help to better prepare youth for work in the increasingly technologically driven economy. Birmingham is the first school system in the US to disseminate the laptops on a large scale. The results from Birmingham will be useful for other cities across the US who are thinking about similar dissemination projects.

I sat in on some of the training conducted in Birmingham last week by the OLPC staff members. I was really surprised at the quality of the XOs and the range of things the XO can do.

I submitted a grant to the National Science Foundation back in January to fund a study evaluating the impact of the XO dissemination program in Birmingham. It was recently funded! Over the past few weeks my team and I have worked hard getting everything finalized for the study and then surveying students at the pilot school. We'll follow up with the students again in the fall. I think our findings will be beneficial for educational, governmental, and academic communities as we assess the educational and social impacts of the XOs.