Beyond the Bubble
Inner Beauty: Katelyn Foley '09 and Mackenzie Sigalos '10
By Windsor Hanger
Summer 2009
For this month's Inner Beauty feature, Freeze is honored to feature Katelyn Foley and Mackenzie Sigalos, two amazingly talented and driven young women who are working to distribute laptops to children all over the globe with the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Campaign through a student organization called One for All.
One for All is an officially recognized Harvard student organization that was founded this fall to promote 1-to-1 computing around the globe. The organization aims to integrate the XO laptop, a low-cost laptop designed for children by One Laptop Per Child, into the classroom by initiating XO pilot programs in elementary and middle schools. Although the XO laptop has been a revolutionary tool that has inspired an entirely new market for children's laptops, other needs have arisen with the distribution of this machine. One for All aims to address the needs of teachers and students by developing training materials and lesson plans tailored to specific communities. One for All has already raised funds for and initiated its first pilot program in the Boston area with 30 sixth grade students. As part of this pilot, the organization has hosted teacher training workshops, led classroom activities, and conducted research on the XO's effects on classroom dynamics and student achievement. The overall goal is to seamlessly integrate the XO into classrooms so that, rather than being an extension of existing pedagogies, the XO becomes a tool for realizing creative potential.
Katelyn Foley, a Quincy House senior, is a Molecular and Cellular Biology concentrator with a secondary field in Visual and Environmental Studies and a citation in Spanish. Based on her academics alone, you can tell just how motivated this woman is and how varied her interests are! Katelyn has an exceptionally strong background in both biology and art and has done a great deal of work that seems to far surpass her age of only 22 years. Her past experiences range from working in stem cell research at the National Institutes of Health and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute to working in film production at Spyglass Entertainment in Los Angeles. When she's not working on One For All, you can find Katelyn painting in the Carpenter Center or developing content for interactive biology animations for the MCB Department.
MacKenzie Sigalos is a Dunster House junior concentrating in film and video production within the Visual and Environmental Studies Department, with a secondary field in Government and a citation in Spanish. Mackenzie's background includes layout design, extensive coursework in video and film production, applications in telecommunications, and a study-abroad program at La Femis in Paris. She has also produced and directed several documentaries through her affiliation with the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. and the Film and Video branch of the VES Department.
Katelyn says that she sees One for All as a novel opportunity to integrate technology and creativity in hands-on ways that challenge existing notions of education. By launching the One for All student organization, MacKenzie hopes to use the digital video medium and XO laptop technology as a tool to facilitate innovative teaching methods.
Keep up the good work Katelyn and Mackenzie!
Check out One for All here: http://www.one-for-all.org
