Uruguay’s leading television channel, Canal 10, recently featured students from the innovative Student Technology Experience (iSTEP), organized by the Robotics Institute’s TechBridgeWorld.
The report aired on Canal 10’s Subrayado program.
In cooperation with Uruguay’s National Administration of Public Education (ANEP) in Montevideo, the students this summer developed applications for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop computer and for Facebook.
Both the OLPC and the Facebook tools will encourage Uruguay high school students to practice their English skills during their free time and make it easier for teachers to distribute practice material. The students also are developing a Content Authoring Tool, which allows teachers to customize the content of the OLPC and Facebook tools.
The students are part of a unique internship program, the innovative Student Technology Experience (iSTEP), organized by the TechBridgeWorld research group in Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute. TechBridgeWorld develops and field tests technological solutions that are customized to meet a community’s needs. iSTEP provides students with the opportunity to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-world challenges in developing communities.