On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Carlos Rabassa <[email protected]> wrote: > Walter, > This section of your message caught my attention: > > ... (Indeed, a recent marketing survey conducted by a > team of Sloan students suggested that while 90% of those surveyed > recommend Sugar to others, only 33% of those who then try to download > Sugar are successful.) ... > > Recently I have read several messages about idea banks and about new > projects to tackle. > If I may make one more suggestion, let me tell you what I would like to > see. > It would be a book entitled > > Sugar for Dummies > > I promise to be the first one in line the day it starts selling; I clearly > feel I need it. > And now after the figures you just mentioned, I believe a market study for > such a book is not necessary. > There seem to be a lot of other dummies like me. > The book I dream of would have two sections. > One for Windows users and one for Mac users. > Each section would describe in plain everyday English a step by step > installation procedure. > It would be the procedure to install whatever is necessary to run the XO > applications in a non-XO computer like the ones many adults like me have and > use. > The explanations should be thoroughly tested, prior to publication, to > make sure they do work, > I volunteer to be a beta tester for the Mac version. > They should be reviewed for language, like lawyers do with contracts, > making sure that any word that is not in the everyday plain English > vocabulary, is properly defined before using it. > A final suggestion is that it be published in Google Docs or as a pdf file > attached to emails, no wikis please. > Wikis are not yet in the realm of everyday English. > Would this be possible or is this an impossible dream? > Please help me and help others by remembering I said I am a Sugar Dummy. > I do not understand complex explanations or shop talk. > > > Something like this publication would multiply tremendously the number of > capable, useful, volunteers that could help in many projects.
I think most of the bits and pieces for using Sugar in a virtual machine [1] on Windows or a Mac are in place, just not well tested or well documented. Perhaps you could work with satellit (Tom Gilliard) on the latter??? It would be great. > First project where someone like me could help, is very close to another > one of your comments; > You said: > > ... there is an opportunity for using Sugar in an informal setting > as well, where, unconstrained by the "official" curriculum, the > learner has more of an opportunity to dig more deeply into areas of > personal interest. > > I am thinking of something we have in Uruguay, the "merenderos". > Literal translation of merendero would be "place where mid afternoon snack > is served". > School children go to these places after school and spend time there. > It would be nice if someone with knowledge about them could explain how they > work. > We have the honor of personally knowing for many years a powerful driving > force behind this institution of the merenderos. > Almost half a century ago, we were married by Fr. Uberfil Monzón, the > priest who, as head of INDA, Instituto Nacional de Alimentación, promoted > the merenderos. > http://www.inda.gub.uy/ > INDA has been assuring for a long time that school children are properly > fed. > Fr. Monzón with the merenderos brought home the idea that it is not only a > question of giving children food for the body. > Children go to the merenderos after school. > They not only find adequate food but also can play, practice sports, > socialize with other children. > They receive visits by role models such as soccer stars with whom they can > talk face to face. > It seems to be the ideal set up for what you so well describe of children > using Sugar in an informal environment. Sounds like a nice cultural fit. Perhaps join the Wednesday learning chat to discuss how this has been done in Paraguay. regards. -walter > > > > Sincerely, > > Carlos Rabassa > Volunteer > Plan Ceibal Support Network > Montevideo, Uruguay > > > On Feb 4, 2011, at 6:13 PM, Walter Bender wrote: > > ===Sugar Digest=== > > 1. While shovelling snow I have been reflecting on Sugar – a lot of > snow, hence a lot of reflecting. Looking back, I came across a quote > [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094695.stm] from 2007: "change > equals risk". At the time, I was speaking out against incremental > change to a global educational system that was failing to meet the > needs of our children. The ''status quo'' was failing – and is still > failing – and we embarked upon a path to do something about it. We > developed a deployable model of one-to-one computing enabling us to > advocate for a pedagogy of constructionist learning > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Constructionism_%28learning_theory%29], > where "learning can happen most effectively when people are also > active in making tangible objects in the real world." > > Over the course of four years, we've put Sugar into the hands of > almost two-million children. Our goal has been to give them a > "learning platform" – one that encourages them to be expressive with > knowledge, to collaborate, and to reflect. > > While we have had impact in the formal setting of the classroom, with > Sugar, there is an opportunity for using Sugar in an informal setting > as well, where, unconstrained by the "official" curriculum, the > learner has more of an opportunity to dig more deeply into areas of > personal interest. In Caacupé, for example, there has been extensive > use of Saturday learning clubs. In Rwanda, informal time for the > computer is being allocated at the end of the school day. > > We have not been advocating anything goes; nor have we been anti > teacher. Rather, we have been encouraging "guided discovery", where > the teacher has an active role in steering the learners towards > "powerful ideas" and engaging the learners in reflection and a > critical dialogue about their work. Sugar facilitates this dialogue by > providing tools, e.g., the Journal, in support of reflection. > > Our interventions are guided with a goal in mind – the empowerment of > individual competitive and cooperative opportunity > [http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2006/06/allocation-vs-markets-ancient > struggle.html]. > > :"It would take wit, insight and incredible perspective for many of > them to pull back and admit: "Wait... I am prescribing the very thing > I should hate. What I really ought to want are genuinely liberal > markets, in which the state ensures that all players get to know and > negotiate and play the great creative game from a level playing field. > Yes, that will mean some "allocating" to raise up poor children to be > ABLE to compete well. And yes we must allocate to take into account > the needs of generations yet to come. But the thing I am devoted to is > not allocation, ''per se''! The thing I am dedicated to is giving all > people (including those yet to come) a fair chance to play." —David > Brin > > A theme I have taken up repeatedly since we started Sugar Labs is > sustainability. We have not been interested in resilience in the usual > sense of trying to sustain the ''status quo''. Rather, we are trying > to give children the capacity to grow and adapt so that they can > thrive in a changing and challenging world. > > Looking forward in 2011, we have any number of technical challenges: > Python introspection, GNOME 3.0, etc. in order to advance the utility, > stability, and maintainability of our product. A recent GNOME camp > attended by Simon Schampijer and Tomeu Vizoso suggest that these are > achievable goals. We have some refactoring to do in order to better > support accessibility. Lots of minor patches in service of deployments > are being submitted by the Dextrose team (a combined effort of some of > our deployments, community members, and Activity Central employees. We > have several efforts to revitalize the Sugar-on-a-Stick and Virtual > Sugar projects, as accessibility to Sugar remains our biggest > technical challenge. (Indeed, a recent marketing survey conducted by a > team of Sloan students suggested that while 90% of those surveyed > recommend Sugar to others, only 33% of those who then try to download > Sugar are successful.) > > Meanwhile, we continue to debate core issues regarding Sugar as it > relates not just to usability, but also to how Sugar impacts learning. > Towards that goal, we face social and organizational challenges: > working with deployments; working with teachers; working with end > users. Claudia Urea's weekly learning chat has been a model that I > hope we can scale up in coming months. Pablo Flores is also working on > various models of community outreach. > > Sugar is as much a service as a product. As a community we have not > put as much effort into that aspect of our offering. I am hopeful that > a large portion of our services will be offered by our growing number > of local labs. But we need to ensure adequate support for those > efforts. > > 2. A few weeks ago I was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The > small, inexpensive, connected device was ubiquitous. We have to think > about what role these devices may play in learning and if or how Sugar > (or some derivative of Sugar) will be part of the mix, i.e., are there > aspects of Sugar that we should be exporting into the context of > Android? Perhaps the biggest challenge is how to bring the spirit of > appropriation to these platforms which are first and foremost tools of > consumption. > > ===Help wanted=== > > 3. Chris Leonard is looking for help with translations. "Just about > every language (besides Spanish) has some strings that need work. > Please consider volunteering some time and effort to improve the > localization in your favorite language. Recruiting new localizers is > also a very valuable contribution." See > [http://translate.sugarlabs.org/] > > ===In the community=== > > 4. We are in the process of rethinking our wesite design and also the > collection of tools we use for communicating with the Sugar community. > Please add your suggestions to possible tools for a new community site > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org > go/Blogs#Possible_tools_for_a_new_community_site]. > > 5. The Tour of Uruguay [http://www.federacionciclistauruguaya.com.uy/] > will be taking place in late March. The Sugar Labs-affiliated cycling > team [http://www.slipstreamsports.com/] will be one of the teams > participating. We should do something with the community involving the > physics of cycling (e.g., odometer > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt > Using_Turtle_Art_Sensors#Bicycle_trip_computer]) and maps (e.g., get > every child to document the part of the race that goes through their > town or village) and whatever other ideas people have. > > ===Tech Talk=== > > 6. I've been tardy in acknowledging the release of os860 from OLPC. It > is the latest "official" release for the XO-1 and XO-1.5 laptops. The > release is based on Fedora 11 and contains the latest Sugar 0.84 > (including many backported patches from more recent Sugar releases) > and the GNOME desktop. See [http://wiki.laptop.org/go > Release_notes/10.1.3]. > > Many thanks to everyone Simon Schampijer, Martin Langhoff, and the > OLPC Association team, who led a group of testers, translators, > documenters, developers and others!! > > A few selected highlights (from Simon's release notes): > > * We have significantly improved collaboration when XO-1.5 is used > with no Access Points available ("under a tree"). The Neighborhood > View now shows three default ad-hoc networks (for Channels 1, 6, and > 11) in user-friendly icons, and XOs will auto-connect without user > intervention. This behavior is similar to the "mesh" behavior on XO-1. > > * You may now share Journal entries with another learner using a USB > drive or SD card. The user experience is: Martin wants to give a > picture he has been drawing to Simon. He plugs in his USB drive and > copies the Journal entry on the drive. Simon plugs in Martin's drive > in his laptop. The entry will be shown with Martin's XO color on the > drive. Simon copies Martin's entry into his Journal. > > * We have added support for USB2VGA adapters. You can now connect an > XO to a projector over a USB2VGA adapter and project what is on your > XO screen onto a screen or for many people to see. > > * In this build certain activities are protected from being deleted by > accident. In the activity list in the home view the erase option is > disabled for those. Protected activities are: Browse, Terminal, Log, > Write, ImageViewer and Record. Nte that the user can still install > newer versions of these activities. > > 7. Tom Gilliard (satellit) has been making steady progress on Sugar > images for use in virtual machines. In particular, he is getting much > better (more stable and consistent) results on MAC hardware. See > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Emulator_image_files#Other_virtual_machines]. > > ===Sugar Labs=== > > Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past few weeks of discussion > on the IAEP mailing list. > > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:2011-Jan-22-28-som.jpg 2011] (43 emails) > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:2011-Jan-15-21-som.jpg] (46 emails) > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:2011-Jan-8-14-som.jpg] (21 emails) > [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:2011-Jan-1-7-som.jpg] (15 emails) > > Visit our planet [http://planet.sugarlabs.org] for more updates about > Sugar and Sugar deployments. > > -walter > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) 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