By Joan Francioni

Winona, MN, and Winona, MO, are two cities in the Midwest with the same name and seemingly little else in common. Starting this spring, however, students in both cities are working together on a One-laptop-per-Child project. The students in Winona, MN are from Saint Mary’s University and Winona State University; the students from Winona, MO are the 1st graders at Winona Elementary School.

To begin our collaboration, a team of SMU/WSU students and faculty traveled to southeastern Missouri in January to visit the region and talk with staff and students at the Winona Elementary School in Shannon County. We stayed at Whole Kids Outreach in Ellington, MO, and were given an orientation to the region by the WKO Director, Sr. Anne Francioni. On Monday, part of our team went to the school and part of the team accompanied WKO staff on home visits.

This part of Missouri has a rich cultural heritage and is nestled in the beautiful hill-country of the Ozarks. It is also a socially and geographically isolated, economically depressed, and underserved area of the rural U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2008 almost twice as many (26%) school-aged children lived in poverty in Shannon County as compared to the overall state of Missouri average (13.5%) and the U.S. average (13.2%).

On the home-visits, our students saw families in extreme poverty. Said one of our students: “It was very sad. They had nothing but filth all around them. And we were bringing them these supplies for the baby and they didn’t even say thank-you.” Sr. Anne later explained to our group that being able to say “thank-you” is something that happens over time with their clients, when the families start to feel more hopeful about being able to take charge of their situation.

Winona Elementary School is doing what it can to help the children in this area. It is one of the few public schools in Missouri to receive a distinguished GreatSchools Rating of 8 out of 10. The first-grade teachers and school principle met with our team to talk about ways a One-laptop-per-Child project could help their students. Some of the key points made were (1) the program games/activities need to integrate the state-required learning outcomes; and (2) addressing obesity concerns and healthy food choices would be very helpful.

This initiative is part of a multi-semester, service-learning project involving students and faculty in the Child Advocacy Studies Training program at WSU and in the Computer Science Departments at both SMU and WSU. [http://cs.winona.edu/olpc] The prototype game SMU students are developing this semester for the Missouri 1st graders is the subject of the next blog!