Hello All, I think somewhere some of the people of SugarLabs have “lost their way.” When I joined the OLPC support-gang nearly ten years ago and, later, Sugar Labs I was excited by the concept of bringing collaborative, constructionism to children’s learning all over the world. Later, as the XOs were no longer readily available, Lionel’s idea of “Sugar on any device” promised an exciting way that this could still actually happen.
Now, I am seeing an attempt by a few individuals to usurp all this and drive the program to just a few chosen areas. I believe this is wrong! I believe this should be a world-wide movement to improve education of children everywhere! I also believe many of you agree with me. A couple of summers ago I proposed, via a motion, a project that I felt would help fulfill that original vision of bringing the magic of learning with Sugar to children all over the world. It addressed what have been some of the weaknesses in prior projects… principally not meeting the perceived needs of children, parents and teachers. Without doing that (which was done, masterfully, in Uruguay), Sugar just won’t get used. The prospective users have to want to use it. They have to see it as the powerful educational tool that it is. My proposed project would start small, with a special version of Sugarizer designed just for children in the first 2 or 3 years of school. It would begin with a survey of students and teachers in Uruguay who had used Sugar Activities in the Project Ceibal program. After finding a small number of favorite Activities, say ten to twelve, the first version would be produced in both Spanish and English. It would be called Sugarizer1°, or Sugarizer Primero because it would be designed especially for children in the "primary grades". When the first versions were ready, they would be tested by children, teachers, and parents using all sorts of devices. Surveys to find favorite Activities would be done. Ways to use them with classroom lessons would be found. Ways to enhance learning at home would be found. Fun things to do with Sugar as a family would be found. Documentation of all this would be made universally available online. Versions in other languages would be added at this point. French would be logical then possibly Hindi, Arabic, and Chinese. Other smaller language groups could also be served such as Haitian Creole, Aymara, and the like. For the regular Release Candidate, an energetic “Marketing campaign” would be needed with Sugar Labs volunteers going to all sorts of educational and open source fairs and conferences, presenting at teacher education institutions, and the like. Getting some of the teachers, students, and parents from the beta testing stage to write articles, blogs, and the like about their experiences would help. Some travel expenses might be incurred and some stipends for writers might be appropriate. As you can see in the paragraph above, many of these steps should cost money. For example, a coordinating teacher in Uruguay should be paid to conduct the studies there (logically this would be Rosamel Ramirez). Possibly educators who work for us as documentation writers should be paid. Etc. Etc. Etc. This proposal needs lots of work. It did 2 summers ago and it still does. If others tell me they also feel that the Magic of Sugar should be for children everywhere, I’ll proceed to produce a good formal motion to the board. If there is no interest, I won’t waste any more time on it (planning and writing this would take many hours of thought, research, and discussion with other Sugar Labs members). What do you all think??? Caryl P.S. the logo for Sugarizer1° would still be the cute little XO man! He is recognized by people all over the world and thus has lots of value as a marketing tool. It would be foolish to replace him with anything else.
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