Re: [IAEP] Which Language?
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Bert Freudenberg b...@freudenbergs.de wrote: On 28.09.2009, at 17:36, gerry_lowry (alliston ontario canada (705) 250-0112) wrote: J, like APL, sadly does not get the publicity that it deserves. A fate it shares with other nice languages. Like, err, Smalltalk. I would not be surprised if Roger Hui were willing to create an implementation of J for the XO if that were necessary. Please report back when this is done. Worked for, err, Smalltalk. The current Freeware J will run on the XO in character mode from Terminal. Just download and unpack where you want it to run from. J uses standard graphics libraries, so there is no trouble running it in graphic mode in Gnome. Sugarizing would require further work, particularly if we want to enable collaboration. Eric Iverson, who inherited Ken's IP, is not willing so far to GPL J. I can ask whether he is willing to let Roger Sugarize the Freeware version. - Bert - ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.org/ ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Announcing the creation of a SoaS Decision Panel [organization process started]
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Luke Faraone l...@laptop.org wrote: Maybe [DP-1] or [SDP-1]? Yeah...Probably, that would be the best if we distinguish ourselves from any future groups:) Well, DP-1 and so are great.+1...how about DP-09 or DP-09-1??? -Abhishek -- Abhishek Indoria OLPC Support Volunteer http://support.laptop.org ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] inquiry on constructionism advantages
As long as governments ask the wrong questions, they cannot get useful answers. This is just like Egypt asking whether XOs can run Windows. Nicholas panicked, and got MS to put Windows on the XO. Walter Bender pointed out that you can convince any official of the merits of Free Software within ten minutes. The theory of Constructionism is not the issue. It is only a small part of the program. Talk about what Sugar actually does. Please talk to the high official about preparing students for jobs in the information age, where the jobs that exist today will disappear or radically change by the time today's students graduate. Sugar will transform teaching in every subject. How will the government test that? Ask about teaching children to work together, as with collaboration in Sugar, rather than individual achievement alone. How will the government test that? Ask about solving problems that may have no single right answer, and certainly don't have a known right answer. How will the government test that? Ask about what citizens need to understand to participate in politics--Finance, statistics, history, geography, civics... How will the government test that? In order to employ all of the qualified graduates from these schools, the economy must be prepared to support a massive expansion of entrepreneurship. How will the government pass that test? Don't ask officials, but ask yourself: Who made these tests the standard for judging schools? I guarantee that it wasn't students. It's like the old joke about the man who lost his wallet in an alley but was looking for it under a lamppost on the next street. After all, he said, he couldn't see anything in the alley. On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Yamandu Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.com wrote: I have received an inquiry on implementing constructionism from a high official in the Bolivian government. Since my opinion may be biased :-), I request you help us with clear, simple and please objective answers (no vapor-stuff), if at all possible 1) How do constructionist pupils do on standardized tests, such as University entrance exams. (please inform about other demographic situations besides children of highly trained scholars - most Bolivian kids do not fit THAT bracket, alas) 2) How do they do with usual classroom tests, especially in the University. Core question is, are alumni of constructionism better, or at least competitive there? What evidence do we have to prove this? 3) Is there any evidence (objective, unbiased) as to the impact of constructionism in education? The big maybe here is further impact on development, yes ? (I may be mistaken here, please correct) 4) any other solid, statistically valid data supporting constructionism Please avoid treatises - I will be presenting this this week, and if anyone would volunteer, it may be possible to put you directly in touch with this official and/or his staff. It is, or should be widely known that I see the current conctructionist stance within OLPC and Sugar as a misguided, feel-good attempt that is bound to do more harm to most kids than good compared to what could be achieved with a solid curricular-content approach, but I honestly would be happier I were mistaken, if determined by solid evidence. I love constructionism, it just doesn't seem to me to be what kids need, and all in all, I wish it worked, but I cannot prove it does for most kids. I am certain, but cannot prove either, that it does work within classrooms with highly trained teachers, or for gifted kids, or when there is a lot of educated support from home, in any case not a basis to adopt it for a country like Bolivia. Yama ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.org/ ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] inquiry on constructionism advantages
You may want to use Jo Boaler's longitudinal study of two British poor neighborhood schools, one using procedural math and another project-based math. Kids in the project school did significantly better on standardized tests, and had higher-than-national passing rate (which is incredible given low socioeconomic status). There is a lot of various statistics there, including the fact that project-based learning removed the gender gap. I can send you a review of the book I just did for a grant. While not directly about constructionism, the practices and ideals, as described, are very close. Reference: Boaler, J. (2002). Experiencing School Mathematics: Traditional and Reform Approaches To Teaching and Their Impact on Student Learning, Revised and Expanded Edition (Rev Enl.). Lawrence Erlbaum. Cheers, Maria Droujkova http://www.naturalmath.com Make math your own, to make your own math. On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.comwrote: I have received an inquiry on implementing constructionism from a high official in the Bolivian government. Since my opinion may be biased :-), I request you help us with clear, simple and please objective answers (no vapor-stuff), if at all possible 1) How do constructionist pupils do on standardized tests, such as University entrance exams. (please inform about other demographic situations besides children of highly trained scholars - most Bolivian kids do not fit THAT bracket, alas) 2) How do they do with usual classroom tests, especially in the University. Core question is, are alumni of constructionism better, or at least competitive there? What evidence do we have to prove this? 3) Is there any evidence (objective, unbiased) as to the impact of constructionism in education? The big maybe here is further impact on development, yes ? (I may be mistaken here, please correct) 4) any other solid, statistically valid data supporting constructionism Please avoid treatises - I will be presenting this this week, and if anyone would volunteer, it may be possible to put you directly in touch with this official and/or his staff. It is, or should be widely known that I see the current conctructionist stance within OLPC and Sugar as a misguided, feel-good attempt that is bound to do more harm to most kids than good compared to what could be achieved with a solid curricular-content approach, but I honestly would be happier I were mistaken, if determined by solid evidence. I love constructionism, it just doesn't seem to me to be what kids need, and all in all, I wish it worked, but I cannot prove it does for most kids. I am certain, but cannot prove either, that it does work within classrooms with highly trained teachers, or for gifted kids, or when there is a lot of educated support from home, in any case not a basis to adopt it for a country like Bolivia. Yama ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] SOAS[DP] Educator's Opinion
Hello Folks, With all this discussion of naming conventions, we seem to be failing to consider our targeted end-users: classroom teachers. Most of them think Fedora is a hat. It could just as well be derby as far as they are concerned. I suggest we propose a name to apply to all Sugar distributions in every form. Then these could be labeled in a way that developers will know what the underlying software is and that educators can tell whether it will work on the machines they have. Choose a name. Get it registered. Add things like USB, SD, CD to indicate the intended carrier. Also add something that indicates what machines it will run on. Version numbers could be included too. All this could end up with a long name for each version, but it would tell everyone what it is in a way that they can understand. Such as (for example): Sugar4CD/PC/F11 (Sugar, version 4, made for liveCD, runs on PCs, Fedora11 based). Caryl ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] SOAS Write problem
Hamilton, Here's what ended up working: 1. I removed Write using rpm, as you indicated. 2. I downloaded Write 63 from the Sugar wiki site. 3. I restarted the machine. 4. Write 63 started like it should have. So, I have a solution to my deployment if need be. Can someone update me on whether a new build is happening, and, if so, when? Thanks everyone. Gerald On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Hamilton Chua hamilton.c...@gmail.comwrote: Gerald, It seems the kickstart file I use installed the write activity via rpm. I don't know if this is possible from a usb stick but it might be worth a try. Can you try to remove the rpm by doing rpm -e sugar-write and then try to install the activity ? Aleksey pointed me to recent changes to the kickstart files which allow one to specify the versions of the activities compatible with sugar 0.84. I will have a new spin out with the problem hopefully corrected soon. Thanks, Hamilton On Sun, 2009-09-27 at 23:22 -0400, Gerald Ardito wrote: Caroline, I tried to do just that. I cannot erase the version of Write that's there, and I cannot install the new one. It downloads just fine and appears in the Journal, but will not install. Any ideas? Gerald On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: Gerald, You should be able to take your master stick, delete Write, goto the Activities.sl.o, download the correct version and all should be well, at least for write. I haven't actually heard from Ham yet, there is a major flood in his area so there maybe a delay. On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 9:07 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote: Caroline, No problem. Just let me know when we have a working image. I am really close to deploying SOAS on our Dells! Gerald On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: Thank you all for your help! I'll alert Ham who is our build master and if his computer is above water after all the flooding in the Manila area I'm sure he'll fix it soon. I'm sure this bug is in our GPA build too so thank you Gerald for testing!!! On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 10:15 PM, Gary C Martin g...@garycmartin.com wrote: Hi Gerald, Many thanks for the feedback. On 27 Sep 2009, at 02:52, Gerald Ardito wrote: Gary, This image came from Caroline Meeks at Solution Grove. It came as part of a version of SOAS that she put together for me. Gerald OK, looks like a SoaS build mistake. Caroline, just a quick ping. Checking activities.sugarlabs.org, it tells me Write-63 was the last version compatible with Sugar 0.84.x. I believe Aleksey started working on the new 0.85.x toolbar code as of version 64, breaking compatibility with earlier versions of Sugar: http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addons/versions/4201 Regards, --Gary -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] SOAS[DP] Educator's Opinion
I don't agree with this at all. Nobody chooses an iPod based on its model number. The best approach is for us to discuss with distros their Sugar plans so we can build Sugar use in an organized way. That includes names, which is a marketing issue. Sean On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote: Hello Folks, With all this discussion of naming conventions, we seem to be failing to consider our targeted end-users: classroom teachers. Most of them think Fedora is a hat. It could just as well be derby as far as they are concerned. I suggest we propose a name to apply to all Sugar distributions in every form. Then these could be labeled in a way that developers will know what the underlying software is and that educators can tell whether it will work on the machines they have. Choose a name. Get it registered. Add things like USB, SD, CD to indicate the intended carrier. Also add something that indicates what machines it will run on. Version numbers could be included too. All this could end up with a long name for each version, but it would tell everyone what it is in a way that they can understand. Such as (for example): Sugar4CD/PC/F11 (Sugar, version 4, made for liveCD, runs on PCs, Fedora11 based). Caryl ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [SoaS] SOAS[DP] Educator's Opinion
I guess I'm nobody! I actually did choose my iPod by its model number...in fact, a model name and a capacity... Classic 80GB. I did the same with my Mac ...MacBook with a 120GB drive. I chose my software: Leopard (10.5.8). I run iLife 09 but have installed the older iMovie 06 because it is more like a professional editor. People do this sort of thing all the time. If a teacher goes to the Sugar Labs website and wants to download a version of SoaS that will run on her PC from a live CD, they should be able to easily pick the right one. If they have an older, PowerPC Mac, they are currently out of luck. Hopefully that will change, and when it does, the correct version will need to be labeled so that the end user can easily find it. Now, if you are thinking of going big time and selling versions of Sugar commercially, that might be a different matter. But I don't think that is what we are talking about... or did I miss something? Caryl Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:15:59 +0200 From: sdaly...@gmail.com To: cbige...@hotmail.com CC: s...@lists.sugarlabs.org; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org Subject: Re: [SoaS] [IAEP] SOAS[DP] Educator's Opinion I don't agree with this at all. Nobody chooses an iPod based on its model number. The best approach is for us to discuss with distros their Sugar plans so we can build Sugar use in an organized way. That includes names, which is a marketing issue. Sean On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote: Hello Folks, With all this discussion of naming conventions, we seem to be failing to consider our targeted end-users: classroom teachers. Most of them think Fedora is a hat. It could just as well be derby as far as they are concerned. I suggest we propose a name to apply to all Sugar distributions in every form. Then these could be labeled in a way that developers will know what the underlying software is and that educators can tell whether it will work on the machines they have. Choose a name. Get it registered. Add things like USB, SD, CD to indicate the intended carrier. Also add something that indicates what machines it will run on. Version numbers could be included too. All this could end up with a long name for each version, but it would tell everyone what it is in a way that they can understand. Such as (for example): Sugar4CD/PC/F11 (Sugar, version 4, made for liveCD, runs on PCs, Fedora11 based). Caryl ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ SoaS mailing list s...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Test ballot complete. Feedback
I would like to announce the completion of the Sugar Labs Test Election. Know issues: The election server is very overloaded. It was not uncommon for the server to take a minute or more to process a a submission. As far as I can tell everyones vote was processed. Please keep track of your 'token' so you can verify that you vote has been processed correctly. The test election was mis-configured to run until October 28 instead of September 28. I will verify that the SLOBs election is configured correctly. Incorrect email on membership roster. I received one notice that someone did not receive a voter token. I will verify their name against the membership log and update the email roster list as necessary. Does anyone else have feedback on the test election? Please submit that feedback to this list or to me personally. David Farning SLOBs election 2009-2010 referee ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Test ballot complete. Feedback
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 06:02:22PM -0500, David Farning wrote: I would like to announce the completion of the Sugar Labs Test Election. Know issues: The election server is very overloaded. It was not uncommon for the server to take a minute or more to process a a submission. As far as I can tell everyones vote was processed. Please keep track of your 'token' so you can verify that you vote has been processed correctly. The test election was mis-configured to run until October 28 instead of September 28. I will verify that the SLOBs election is configured correctly. Incorrect email on membership roster. I received one notice that someone did not receive a voter token. I will verify their name against the membership log and update the email roster list as necessary. Does anyone else have feedback on the test election? Please submit that feedback to this list or to me personally. David Farning SLOBs election 2009-2010 referee ___ Sugar-devel mailing list sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel Didn't get any feedback and voter tokens on my email to members@ as well. -- Aleksey ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Test ballot complete. Feedback
It turns out that the first five people to request member ship via mem...@sugarlabs.org were missing from the email roster. They follow: * Sebastian Dziallas sebast...@?.? | sdz | APPROVED * Tom Gilliard satel...@?.? | satellit | APPROVED * Brian Jordan bcjor...@?.? | Bcjordan | brian | APPROVED * Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@?.? | APPROVED * Dave Bauer d...@?.? | daveb | APPROVED The membership committee has added them to the roster. David Farning SLOBs election 2009-2010 referee On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 6:02 PM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: I would like to announce the completion of the Sugar Labs Test Election. Know issues: The election server is very overloaded. It was not uncommon for the server to take a minute or more to process a a submission. As far as I can tell everyones vote was processed. Please keep track of your 'token' so you can verify that you vote has been processed correctly. The test election was mis-configured to run until October 28 instead of September 28. I will verify that the SLOBs election is configured correctly. Incorrect email on membership roster. I received one notice that someone did not receive a voter token. I will verify their name against the membership log and update the email roster list as necessary. Does anyone else have feedback on the test election? Please submit that feedback to this list or to me personally. David Farning SLOBs election 2009-2010 referee ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Sugarcamp_Bolzano_2009
I would like to re-extend the invitation for Sugarcamp_Bolzano_2009[1]. As it stands, we have four people currently registered: 1. Simon Schampijer 2. Tomeu Vizoso 3. Walter Bender 4. David Farning If anyone else is interested please add your name to the wiki page[1]. 1. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Events/Sugarcamp_Bolzano_2009 ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] contents of IAEP Digest, Vol 18, Issue 121
I would like to announce the completion of the Sugar Labs Test Election. Does anyone else have feedback on the test election? Please submit that feedback to this list or to me personally. David Farning SLOBs election 2009-2010 referee Hi David The first time I submitted my vote the next page asked for confirmation - it showed a different order to the order I had put in. Went back and changed to the order I wanted again and resubmitted. The second time it confirmed the order correctly. So I submitted it and got a confirmation vote token. Tabitha ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] SOAS[DP] Educator's Opinion
Yes! Roland, this is exactly what Apple does with their big cats. We have Tiger (10.4) running on a Powerbook that originally came with Jaguar (10.2). I skipped Panther (10.3). My MacBook came with Leopard (10.5). Now they have come out with Snow Leopard (10.6-I don't plan to switch... it has some problems). I think Apple will run out of big cats long before we would run out of sugar related things. Note that Apple still uses version numbers just as Ubuntu does, which Sugar Labs should also do. I like a system like this. It would help make the software a little less threatening to teachers, parents, and inexperienced children using it. Caryl From: rgesthui...@gmail.com Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:11:50 +1000 Subject: Re: [IAEP] SOAS[DP] Educator's Opinion To: cbige...@hotmail.com CC: s...@lists.sugarlabs.org; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org I must admit Caryl that I like the Ubuntu system that uses a mix of release version number / build number and generic names for distributions based on animals (hardy herron etc.) http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/faq It would be interesting for Sugar to do something similar, rotating every year or so between different 'sugar' eating animals or plants .. perhaps even sugar based molecules such as monosaccharides glucose, dextrose, fructose, levulose, galactose, xylose then ribose. If you run out of these, you can then switch to polysaccharides such as sucrose etc. Now there is enough for 10 or more years. :-) Nicely, glucose is a primary key to life on our planet and nicely fits the launch of the version for the OLPC X0-1 :-) Regards Roland 2009/9/30 Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com Hello Folks, With all this discussion of naming conventions, we seem to be failing to consider our targeted end-users: classroom teachers. Most of them think Fedora is a hat. It could just as well be derby as far as they are concerned. I suggest we propose a name to apply to all Sugar distributions in every form. Then these could be labeled in a way that developers will know what the underlying software is and that educators can tell whether it will work on the machines they have. Choose a name. Get it registered. Add things like USB, SD, CD to indicate the intended carrier. Also add something that indicates what machines it will run on. Version numbers could be included too. All this could end up with a long name for each version, but it would tell everyone what it is in a way that they can understand. Such as (for example): Sugar4CD/PC/F11 (Sugar, version 4, made for liveCD, runs on PCs, Fedora11 based). Caryl ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has. --Margaret Mead ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Test ballot complete. Feedback
El Tue, 29-09-2009 a las 18:02 -0500, David Farning escribió: I would like to announce the completion of the Sugar Labs Test Election. Know issues: The election server is very overloaded. It was not uncommon for the server to take a minute or more to process a a submission. As far as I can tell everyones vote was processed. Please keep track of your 'token' so you can verify that you vote has been processed correctly. The test election was mis-configured to run until October 28 instead of September 28. I will verify that the SLOBs election is configured correctly. Incorrect email on membership roster. I received one notice that someone did not receive a voter token. I will verify their name against the membership log and update the email roster list as necessary. Does anyone else have feedback on the test election? Please submit that feedback to this list or to me personally. Yeah yeah, that's really great and stuff... but you forgot to tell us the *most important* thing that *everyone* is eager to know: WHAT'S THE BEST ACTIVITY? (-; -- // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/ \X/ Sugar Labs - http://sugarlabs.org/ ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
