Today, July 16, was our second official day as part of the Fulbright Educator Exchange program. We had an overview of the educational system, Uruguayan culture, and the Plan Ceibal, the laptop program for all public school students. We then had lunch at Costa Azul to eat typical Uruguayan food.
I'll mention just a few of the many things we learned today. Every day is too intensive to describe in detail on this blog.
1. When greeting people, you always hug and give an "air" kiss on the cheek. It's the way to greet one another, whether teachers and students, colleagues at work, people at social gatherings, or Other social situations. If you arrive late for a meeting, the cultural expectation is that you'll still greet everyone. It's more rude to enter quietly and slip into a seat without greeting colleagues as opposed to interrupting the meeting to greet everyone.
2. Plan Ceibal - http://www.ceibal.edu.uy/Paginas/Inicio.aspx
This 2007 national initiative is amazing! The Plan Ceibal goal is to give every public student and teacher a laptop, grades K-12. Today we visited the national offices of Plan Ceibal and met with two of the administrators for informational sessions.
This is the X-O laptop that Ceibal distributes. There are different colors depending on the age level.
All schools and communities have internet access, even in rural areas that sometimes don't have electricity but rely on solar power. You will see Ceibal Wifi hotspot signs in public parks and community areas so all citizens have access to internet.
All Uruguayan schools participate in Lego robotics programs and students start with Scratch programming to program their Legos. I asked about male vs. female participation and they said that both boys and girls are equally interested in the robotics program. I'd like to see our CE students work virtually with Ana's students to create Lego robotics together. We'll see...I have lots of ideas for cross-cultural lessons.
Photos from today - Plan Ceibal offices
Tech Dept. This photo is for our CE Tech people. Here they create the XO image, repair laptops, maintain the servers, and internet connections, and everything else to keep a national laptop program up and running.
Lego robotics kits that are given to students
Some articles about the Plan Ceibal program:
