Re: [IAEP] I would be able to help test if we did snapshots of current status of f12 sugar on a da

[Dennis Daniels]

It would be really cool if you could do screencasts of your tests and
post them publicly.

Further to that end... if more devs and users would publish more on
how they are developing for Sugar so that teachers and other
enthusiasts can have some framework/training to begin their own good
works.

Dennis
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[IAEP] brief outline of my Sugar presentation last night

[Dennis Daniels]

sugar presentation
Total talking time
15 min
20 or so people in attendance
gnocode in New Orleans
tech group
interested in doing 'public good' projects
setting up computer labs at Non Profits
web page dev
etc
mix of devs from all industries
overview of Sugar project
Used a use case diagram to help describe the 'whole' project on one page
demonstrated
Sugar web site
 emphasized friendliness of IRC :)
Turtle Art
Neighbor hood
sharing of files
one person a Ruby guy on a mac installed Sugar on his VM during
the presentation
future
do a presentation on how to create VM
then have users install Sugar during the meeting
bring SoaS
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Re: [IAEP] Wiki wysiwyg toolbar wish

[Dennis Daniels]

I played with the FCKeditor and it's nice:
http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/index.php/Sandbox

I'd say good is good enough. :)

What say the wiki admin? Can we get FCKeditor installed on wiki.sugarlabs?

Denis
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[IAEP] Bug reporting

[Dennis Daniels]

Greetings,
I have roughly diagrammed the bug reporting process for Sugar here:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Reporting_a_bug.png

I also timed it using Sugar as the UI for entering the bugs. I'd say
it took nearly five minutes... and I have some idea of what I'm doing
(though there are reasons to doubt that as well) and my internet
connection is 900Kb /per sec normally.

As it's apparently not possible to post a bug anonymously the added
burden of logging in compounds the problem. I for one, as a teacher,
would find it hard to justify a student spending5+minutes of time in
class reporting a bug.

My solution:
using python's URL tools post an error log, using the same idea as
ubiquitous 'view source' now a 'post bug' now, straight to a pastebin
like interface that uses the IP address of the user  plus the user
name.

The user doesn't need to know much more than typing a problem desc.
and submitting. The logs are gathered up and posted straight to a
'pastebin/wiki' like page so that devs can see what's hot in the bug
area for users. The user is given the URL of the bug on the wiki and
can go and add more data if necessary. It's a lot looser bug tracking
system but targeting the bugs that users bump into most often and
FIXING those will go along way towards making SUGAR look and feel user
friendly.

The tool I'm using for the diagrams is Umbrello. I'd be happy to post
the XMI to these diagrams if someone is interested.
Dennis

lost and found:
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EOF
Sent from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
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[IAEP] Wiki wysiwyg toolbar wish

[Dennis Daniels]

Greetings,
I have a few requests for the media wiki pages in terms of UI
additions and plugins.

The first one is my biggest wish...
*please enable the WYSIWYG tool bar for editing.
* enable plugin for video playback in wiki
* install plugin for creating FAQ layout easily

Nice to have:

* collaborative graphical mind mapping tool of some kind
  o support for uploading Labyrinth code for live use on Wiki?

Please. Can we have the WYSIWYG plugin on wiki.sugarlabs?

thanks
Dennis
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[IAEP] sugar floppy... more details/video on usage or URL for description please

[Dennis Daniels]

Can you video the process please? I am not sure I fully understand
what is going on... is the floppy pulling the Sugar off the web and
installing it on the HD? How are CDs involved?
Dennis

> I tested this on the GPA computer lab computers. It takes about 1 more
> minute (4.5 vs 3.5) to boot.  I think that it will take more then a minute
> on average to give all the students CDs, have them open the CD drawer, turn
> off the computer, turn it on again and collect all the CD at the end of
> class so that the next class boots into Windows.  My plan is the floppies
> can just live in the machines, not pushed in all the way.
> The current version
> requires the user to press enter 1 minute into the process. Can we get
> a version that we just start the boot, then goto the rug for our
> lesson and 4.5 minutes later the machines are booted?
>
> Thanks!
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Art Hunkins  wrote:
>
>> With regard to Bill Bogstad's floppy boot disk project for SoaS: it works
>> flawlessly for me. (I've tried it successfully on both an older Windows
>> laptop and desktop - vintages: Pentium II/III.)
>>
>> I've one suggestion for Bill: for use by children, I'd make everything as
>> automatic as possible. Either delete the display where the user needs to
>> make a choice (it's *way* technical and *I* didn't know what to do), or put
>> a (10"?) auto-timer on it so that it goes on through (the usual way)
>> without
>> user intervention.
>>
>> For Windows people: I suggest creating the boot disk with RAWriteWin. It's
>> simple, user-friendly and efficient.
>>
>> Great job, Bill.
>>
>> Art Hunkins
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> From: "Walter Bender" 
>> To: 
>> Cc: "iaep" ; "Sugar-dev Devel"
>> 
>> Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 9:55 AM
>> Subject: [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2009-09-11
>>
>>
>> === Sugar Digest ===
>>
>> 7. Bill Bogstad has been working on a floppy boot disk for Sugar on a
>> Stick. See http://people.sugarlabs.org/~bogstad/floppy/ for more
>> details.
>>
>> -walter
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
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[IAEP] Presentation to local LUG

[Dennis Daniels]

Greetings,
I'm doing a presentation at a local Linux Users Group about Sugar on
the 16th. I checked the Wiki and found this:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/How_to_present_Sugar#Hints

Any other suggestions? Any updates aside from the recent build? Of
course, getting new devs on board is a message as well...

with regards,
Dennis
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Re: [IAEP] Where should we put Lesson Plans? Currwiki?

[Dennis Daniels]

Wikis, by their nature, don't lend well to formal organization. In
order to get content into Moodle there are conventions and forms.

I for one agree with David that Moodle makes a lot more sense than a wiki.

Dennis
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Re: [IAEP] Where should we put Lesson Plans? Currwiki?

[Dennis Daniels]

I personally wasn't aware of Currwiki
http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ though on first glance it
appears interesting though seriously lacking any quantitative
evaluation (and we know the value of that a la USA/ NCLB).

The question I have: how will sugar users teacher/students be able to
use and build on the content?

Having one teacher's contribution is ok, but getting all teacher's to
contribute makes real sense.

Are there any tools in Sugar that allow for lesson plan
synchronization to a central site/db?

Dennis
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[IAEP] logging of #sugar channel

[Dennis Daniels]

I'd like to bring up the discussion of logging the Sugar IRC channel.

The amount of useful 'insider' information about Sugar and its
workings that passes via the IRC and into the bit bucket is
astounding. That information should be captured so that it can be
mined for useful bits of documentation.

I'm not alone in this desire and would like to see Sugar IRC channel logged.

Dennis
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[IAEP] real time training with screen sharing on your operating system of choice

[Dennis Daniels]

http://www.yuuguu.com/home

Tested it today and though not perfect, there is a bit of lag on the
user side, but it's free and works out of the box on my Ubuntu 9.04.

Get an SME to agree to do a course about a Sugar activity, Etoys,
TurtleArt, etc. and put the word out among the admins at various Sugar
Labs to get THEIR users to log in at the right time... instant
webinar! It happens all the time in the Windows world, time to make
the same happen in the *nix world? Wouldn't that be sweet?!

Do we have any SMEs on the list ready to volunteer? I'm only passingly
familiar with Turtle Art (read: near zero) and the rest of the
activities but I'd be willing to do an overview course of Sugar if we
can get the users onboard. Especially around the XS server! (I've not
even seen that yet, is their a public admin view of XS server
somewhere?)

Maybe set up a link to have users show volunteers at Sugarlabs the
problems they are having via Yuuguu or similar?

Dennis
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Re: [IAEP] School Surveillance and acknowledging market forces

[Dennis Daniels]

The arguments for and against giving teachers monitoring capabilities
across the entire classroom of computers is deep and wide. The ongoing
battle of philosophy and application. I'm going to try and break it
down a little from the perspective of someone who knows full well the
hurdles I'll face if/when I introduce a Sugar Lab into a
public/private school. I'm going to talk about the market here and the
decision makers and the decision makers are the adults.

Make it easy for teachers:
If you want teachers to get on board with Sugar you have to give them
a reason to want to get involved, namely making their lives easier,
Moodle et.al.,  and one of them is some assurance that they can see
what is going on in the classroom on machines that most teachers have
little experience with! I built my lab because I got fed up pushing
paper like a secretary. I'm a manager of education, computers make
that possible.

Get the parents support for the technology:
In Dubai, I had students taken out of my computer class because the
computer is the "tool of the devil"... but I got the students back
after I showed the concerned parents that Moussa and Amin and * were
not doing the devil's work, they were programming. "See my screen? I
can monitor your little angels all the time... they may grow up to
engineers or doctors one day..."

Acknowledge the market, teachers don't know much:
Please, if a teacher knows anything about computers, they don't stay
teachers very long... the demand for computer skills outstrips the pay
for teachers. Make it as EASY as possible for teachers to get Sugar
running.

Curriculum is controlled by people who generally don't know much about
computers:
To reach adults who control the curriculum and machine access, make it
easier for ADULTS to feel comfortable with letting eight years olds
know more about computers than the adults. I may sound convoluted but
there is a reason why computers have still not made it into schools in
any meaningful way, and it's not the cost of the machines. It's the
fear and ignorance of the adults. Throw the adults a bone, give them
'security' in knowing what little Johnny and Jeannie and * are doing
on the computer in real time i.e. monitoring.

Go try and convince a school to build a new 'cheap' computer lab:
Please, people, go work in a school as a volunteer in a school with
computers and one without, offer to build an LTSP lab in the
classrooms and watch the responses... then come back and make the
changes needed to Sugar to get everyone on board. OLPC may be a
giveaway program  sponsored by governments but Sugar is going to be a
HARD sell if it doesn't make adults'/teachers' lives easier.

I hope I'm not whistling in the wind here. Philosophy and
application... may the twain ever meet? Unlikely, not in the maelstrom
of school politics and forces. We can however make it easier to help a
lot of people if we keep in mind that this discussion has mainly
involved developers (philosophers) of education and very few people on
this list are actually teachers (application).  The answer to why this
continues to be true on IAEP is one that the Sugar project needs to
answer.

Dennis
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Re: [IAEP] A video about a 1-1 Apple laptop middle school in NYC - School Surveillance and a discussion on Multitaskingr

[Dennis Daniels]

Of the four years I taught in the elementary and high school classroom
I enjoyed fully equipped hardware computer labs with 1:1 ratio.

My life as a teacher improved _enormously_ when I was able to monitor
what all of my students were doing from one station as I did when
working in corporate training labs. The school Administrators liked it
as well for the accountability and monitoring.

That's one of the reasons I was initially attracted to Sugar in that
the peer networking was built in... please tell me that one station
monitoring of all students is built in as well. If it isn't then it
should be for the teacher's sake.

Dennis
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Re: [IAEP] deployment team meeting?

[Dennis Daniels]

Greetings,
I will be traveling and do not know if I'll be able to attend the meeting.
re: Launchpad as bug tracker for Sugar, as mentioned, is a great
option. I do believe LP supports submitting bug reports straight to
the LP server which, if true, would relieve users of the burden of
digging around for logs thereby hopefully increasing the rate of
reporting and the quality of the report itself.

with thanks and regards,
Dennis
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[IAEP] in the nicest possible way

[Dennis Daniels]

This is a plea.

Sugar has not built successfully for the last five days or so on Ubuntu904.

All the changes that other devs have made cannot be tested because
one(or more) dev didn't test the build after committing changes. We're
all, AFAIK, volunteers. Devs, please try to make the volunteer
tester's job a little easier; compile/build Sugar successfully before
committing changes to GIT.

http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/1238

with regards,
Dennis
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[IAEP] Possible introductory lab

[Dennis Daniels]

David,
Great idea! Good on you (as they somewhere on the planet)!

Quote
 _Many_ newbie questions go unanswered.
Unquote

Getting bug reports and questions answered filled is a problem until
you're wearing the 'dev' label. And once a dev, then you'll be
expected to fix/anser it yourself, and fixing bugs isn't very much
fun(from what I hear and have experienced and why they take a long
time to get fixed).

Don't take the non-fix/no answer personally, and tell this to your
students! Devs are a lot smarter (in some ways) than I(us) will ever
be. (And the devs at Sugar have been very patient with my incessant
problems). And, FWIW, plenty of bugs in _lots_ of Open Source projects
never get addressed at all because the fun is NOT in bug fixing, it's
in scratching an itch to create something that (almost) works. Sugar
only has a few devs and they are all volunteers (from what I
understand). And, devs for the most part are all creative, problem
solving, computational intelligent (geniuses some of them) humans, who
want the same in their tasks. Rarely does bug fixing include that
space.

And you're absolutely right about 'quality bug reports' getting
attention... train your students up on that... but perhaps focus on an
activity first? Something with more devs and support?  I'd say look at
Scratch, if it runs on your current install.

I would suggest you take a look at Scratch and the remixes happening
there for a few reason... it's code and projects (albeit
unsophisticated) in constant flow and correction. Cook up a difficult
piece of a scratch project for your students and see how bug reporting
and code correction works there... between your students. They can
swap code and remix to come up with something truly interesting. The
students will quickly ID who does and who doesn't. Their friends might
be great at telling a joke but it's that guy that noone ever talks to
that gets things done. They'll quickly see how things work between
those who can and those who report bugs (ouch, that sounds awfully
familiar to another saying!)

Scratch also has lots of examples of code, lots of possible areas for
error, and enormously large amount of forum/helpdesk activity.

That, and your students will get to 'write' some code. Win-win.

Then, once they've got the vagaries of forums/wikis/bug search/silence
from unresponded bugs and bug reporting down then do a full 'smoke
test' on Sugar.

This is just a suggestion.

with regards,
Dennis
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[IAEP] SoaS install instructions on wiki

[Dennis Daniels]

I'm not the target market for SoaS but I am a teacher and I know a
little Linux and run Fedora11 and Ubuntu9.04 and XP. I hope to one day
build a networked SoaS lab from used computers and teach Scratch and
etc to my students.

Install instructions for SoaS are a bit of a mess. Here is a page I
wrote trying to follow installation instructions exactly from Ubuntu
9.04, with screencasts:
 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/One_tester%27s_attempt_at_installing_SoaS

I spent 90 minutes doing my best to do as instructed but ended with
failure. Teachers normally don't put in that kind of effort on strange
technologies.

I was not successful in my attempt to install SoaS on a USB stick even
with support from the Sugar irc (which most users of Sugar/teachers
don't use). This makes clears instructions on installation pages on
the wiki all the more valuable.

My request is simple: Sugar people please review the SoaS installation
instructions for your distro on the Sugar labs wiki and try to follow
the instructions exactly as written, as I did, to install Sugar on a
USB stick and rewrite/clarify/document where possible. As my efforts
to install failed, I'm not the best person to write about how it's
done.

Comments/ corrections/criticism welcome.

With thanks to all for the generous support of the past and future!
Dennis

p.s.
I would recommend that the Sugar project make a little more effort to
get Ubuntu users who represent 4x as many users as Fedora
(http://counter.li.org/reports/machines.php). Getting Ubuntu people to
play more with Sugar would seem to be good for the project and for
development. I do know that Sugar has a very close relationship with
Fedora.
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[IAEP] Invitation to add annotations to sugar olpc fedora11 jhbuild TURTLE ART templates 1

[Dennis Daniels]

This is an invitation to add annotations to my video.

Collaboration and sharing of subject matter expertise is critical to the 
success of Sugar especially in the realm of documentation and training.


Just follow this access link and click on the video to start annotating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HzbW4L7w-k&layer_token=caf48a52e7fb9256

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[IAEP] Wiki.sugarlabs spammers

[Dennis Daniels]

I've noticed a serious uptick in spammers on the wiki in the last 48 hours.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Special:RecentChanges

What can be done to stop them?

thanks,
Dennis
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[IAEP] feedback from school GPA/GAP message 6

[Dennis Daniels]

 didn't save/keep when clicking the stop button.
>>
>> - When trying to chat kids instinct was to have both kids open chat.
>> The way you must do it is to have one open chat then choose share with
>> my neighborhood. Kids needed to be shown where share with my
>> neighborhood drop down is. Most kids I saw clicked on the text "share
>> with". Its not clear enough that the oblong oval (rounded rectangle?)
>> next to that is a drop down list. They needed to be reminded to go to
>> the Neighborhood view. Once there they often clicked on the XO icon
>> above the chat icon. You need to click on the chat icon itself and
>> that's a consistent misconception. One kid asked for "emoticons" and
>> other images to put in the chat. Caroline thought that it would be
>> wise to allow kids to open chat then see what other chats are shared
>> or available from within the activity.
>>
>> - Activities search tool on Sugar home page was a little troublesome
>> in two main ways: 1) hard to go back to start a new search after
>> digging a few clicks in. Back button works but would be nice to have a
>> "new search" link. 2) Hard to see a a list of all activities. Search
>> with blank text does it but not sure any kids would try that. Also, we
>> believe that there are some activities on OLPC wiki which are not on
>> the Sugar list (e.g. pacman and some eToys examples).
>>
>> - Switching from list view to circle view was not clear. Here's the
>> click order as it stands now:
>> 1 -- Start at home|circle
>> 2 -- Click list view
>> 3 -- star/select activities
>> 4 -- Click circle view icon
>>
>> Its step 4 that's problematic. Instinct when on list view and wanting
>> to see the circle is to click the dot within circle icon (F3). That
>> just leaves you at List|Home view. Most everyone ran in to this.
>> Another challenge is that the icons for switching from list <-> circle
>> are in the upper right corner. So you often hit the frame which has a
>> nice circle icon on it (=F3). In general, way too many UI elements are
>> right near the corner which pops up the frame.
>>
>> - Kids consistently couldn't find the stop button. Either because it
>> was on a different tab or because the icon doesn't ring true.
>>
>> That's it! Thanks a lot to Caroline et al for the chance to see the SW
>> in action.
>>
>> I hope developers don't get too take it badly that there are lots of
>> "suggestions" or complaints. In general the SW is great, things go
>> well and its an awesome project. I just focus on continuous
>> improvement but ts nit meant as criticism.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Greg S
>>
>> BTW I am 1 - 2 weeks behind on reading the lists. CC me directly as
>> needed and I hope to catch up a little before the end of August.
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>>
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 16:07:37 -0500
> From: David Farning 
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] My videos are on Sugar Labs video site
> To: Dennis Daniels 
> Cc: nices...@gmail.com, iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org,       Luke Faraone
>        
> Message-ID:
>        
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Dennis you are asking all the right questions!  The short answer would
> be search the archives:(
>
> The long answer is that we need teachers like you to insure that our
> wiki is complete, penetrable, and up to date.  Will you you be able to
> continue working with us after school starts?
>
> WRT the Google apps question.  Sugar Labs is registered as a 501(c)(3)
> under the umbrella of the Software Freedom Conservancy.  Sugar Labs is
> set up with Google as a school system.  As such, sugarlabs.org
> receives the full array of google Apps for free.  We can also request
> that Local Labs receive independent XX.sugarlabs.org domains _without_
> going through the full set of paperwork required for non profits.
>
> David
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Dennis Daniels 
> wrote:
>>> The videos can only be viewed by those with a @sugarlabs.org account, which
>>> is a small group :)
>>
>>
>> It's a small group because you have to pay for this service, do you
>> not? Is Sugar 501(c)? Does Google offer discounts to NPOs or school
>> orgs?
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 8

Re: [IAEP] My videos are on Sugar Labs video site

[Dennis Daniels]

> The videos can only be viewed by those with a @sugarlabs.org account, which
> is a small group :)


It's a small group because you have to pay for this service, do you
not? Is Sugar 501(c)? Does Google offer discounts to NPOs or school
orgs?
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Re: [IAEP] My videos are on Sugar Labs video site... screencast of behavior for mortals

[Dennis Daniels]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S218tWYKk-4
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[IAEP] My videos are on Sugar Labs video site

[Dennis Daniels]

Hello James!
That video link is intriguing however it doesn't allow viewing for
normal mortals. How do we see what's in there? Is there any good
training stuff?

As a workaround for Linux's lack of non-linear editing (NLE) tools
perhaps post the vids to a central place i.e. your google apps video
link and then users/editors can dnld the vids from there and edit in
the many different NLE (free) tools avail on Mac and Win*?

Dennis


> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 09:46:02 -0500
> From: Jim Simmons 
> Subject: [IAEP] My videos are on Sugar Labs video site
> To: "It's An Education Project List" 
> Cc: Dave C 
> Message-ID:
>        
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> David Farning gave me an account on video.sugarlabs.org and I've
> posted my videos there, both raw and edited.
>
> I was looking at Kino this morning, at the DV files it creates and the
> mencoder script it uses to encode them and I think I have some insight
> into why the text in my edited videos is distorted.  My original OGV
> file is at 800 x 600.  Kino converts this file to a DV at 720x480, and
> in that DV the text is not distorted.  It is in the mencoder script
> that it converts the video to 640x480.  I should be able to modify
> that script so it doesn't resize the video again and perhaps this will
> give me the quality I'm looking for.
>
> I also tried to compile Cinelerra on Fedora 11.  It depends on every
> patent encumbered thing in the world, so I'll either have to compile
> all those things by hand or find a repository for Fedora 11 that has
> them.  The Cinelerra website has instructions for installing for
> Fedora 9 and below only.
>
> When I was a kid I made student films on Super 8.  I would have killed
> for the editing tools we have now.  Also for actors that show up when
> they're supposed to.
>
> James Simmons
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[IAEP] three recommendations from a naive teacher

[Dennis Daniels]

I'm new to Sugar and as a teacher I'm very much concerned about my
users' experience and avoiding confusion or unwarranted chaos on my
end... I'm recording screencasts what I discover as a first time user
to Sugar. For the record, it took nearly two days on and off to get a
stable version of Sugar installed on my intel laptop PC. From an
admin's perspective, this required way too much time. Teachers are not
techs and the Sugar install required a lot of technical know how...

Furthermore, we can be pretty certain that there are a lot of places
in the world that are NOT going to see OLPC realized. It's noble but
it's not been practical yet and teachers and schools are usually at
their best when it comes to practical thinking. Budgets determine a
lot of that thinking. Sugar, IMHO, needs to look to the VAST numbers
of cheap Intels that litter the planet as a place to get kids and
teachers involved with computing. And that means Sugar needs to be
easy to install for the most naive(read teacher) users.

I for one am experiencing very little joy as a naive user or a
potential teacher/user of Sugar in a classroom. I feel like very
little is easy or intuitive which would run counter to the news and
the intended purpose of the software, I know.

What is the usual training time set for teachers on Sugar? Are those
trainings packaged with videos for distribution? Is the focus on a
Sugar install on a small set of core apps? I believe Write and
TurtleArt get a lot of 'play' in the documentation and support media.

If anyone is lucky enough to have a group of young users to test Sugar
on, please install a screencasting tool to record their actions,
successes and struggles as _I fear that my struggles are not unique_.
I'm going to try and find a youngster to try Sugar out on and record
what they say and do. It's probably a good exercise for all Sugar devs
and supporters.

I would highly recommend a link to a video library of .ogv trainings
(I know youtube and etc. won't work for licensing reasons) that can be
accessed online or as part of the install. I understand that language
is a barrier but video will go a long way to explaining how something
works to naive users than text. Again, harking back to an earlier
plea, better support for screencasts would make some of the opacity of
Sugar go away, as OTHER users could provide support Sugar in media
documentation.

Three recommendations:
1-Fully implement screencasting so we can get students to create
howtos...(offer .ogv storage?) teachers are too busy and don't know
much anyway. OLPC has a few 100K students already right? Get their
support for making screencast howtos.

2-Ubuntu has a huge user base: Get Sugar working on Ubuntu and ask for
that user base support in screencasting.

3-Get an installer that is easy to use... Wubi is nice as it's a
one-click install. (I personally have spent hours trying to get Soas
to play nice, Ubuntu/sugar to work, Fedora/Sugar to work... only the
last one succeeded and the IRC people suggested that I may not be
running it correctly... but it's running which is a lot given how long
I spent trying to get it to work without crashing; SoaS and Ubuntu
sugar installs.)

Why am I doing this? Pure self-interest. I'm going back into the
classroom soon. I know the value of a fully networked classroom and
what it does to help students and teachers. Sugar offers some fixes to
problems that I had when I was running my LTSP lab so I would like
Sugar to work without requiring so much of my attention or a whole lot
of student training.

with sincere regards and thanks to all those who have worked on Sugar,
Dennis

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EOF
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Re: [IAEP] IAEP Digest, Vol 17, Issue 20

[Dennis Daniels]

Just tried to run 'map' or 'maps' in sugar .85x with no joy.

How do I get your package into sugar?

Here's what I did to try and get your act/app running.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQpM8_xeWfE

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EOF



On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 07:21, Dennis Daniels wrote:
> I, for one, had not heard of the map activity, but then again I'm new to 
> Sugar.
>
> That said, I'm a big fan of maps and will take a look at the Map
> activity, if it's part of the Sugar (distro?).
>
> I'll post my findings on youtube as I've been doing:
> http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=pleabargain&view=videos&query=OLPC
>
> Dennis
>
>> From: Frederick Grose 
>> Subject: [IAEP] Fwd: [Grassroots-l] Anyone using the Map activity?
>> To: iaep SugarLabs ,  Sugar Devel
>>        
>> Cc: Nick Doiron 
>> Message-ID:
>>        
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Forwarding to the Sugar community lists...
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Map_(activity)
>> <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Map_(activity)>
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: Nick Doiron 
>> Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 11:37 PM
>> Subject: [Grassroots-l] Anyone using the Map activity?
>> To: grassro...@lists.laptop.org
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>> I've been working on modifications to the Map activity.  I will be switching
>> to a new, faster Google Maps version designed for mobile devices, and I'm
>> adding new features like distance, area, and collaboration.  I was wondering
>> if your XO group has tried the Map activity and had any input on its
>> redesign.
>>
>> Thanks for your help,
>> Nick Doiron
>> ndoi...@andrew.cmu.edu
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Ndoiro
>
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Re: [IAEP] IAEP Digest, Vol 17, Issue 20

[Dennis Daniels]

I, for one, had not heard of the map activity, but then again I'm new to Sugar.

That said, I'm a big fan of maps and will take a look at the Map
activity, if it's part of the Sugar (distro?).

I'll post my findings on youtube as I've been doing:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=pleabargain&view=videos&query=OLPC

Dennis

> From: Frederick Grose 
> Subject: [IAEP] Fwd: [Grassroots-l] Anyone using the Map activity?
> To: iaep SugarLabs ,  Sugar Devel
>        
> Cc: Nick Doiron 
> Message-ID:
>        
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Forwarding to the Sugar community lists...
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Map_(activity)
> 
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Nick Doiron 
> Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 11:37 PM
> Subject: [Grassroots-l] Anyone using the Map activity?
> To: grassro...@lists.laptop.org
>
>
> Hi,
> I've been working on modifications to the Map activity.  I will be switching
> to a new, faster Google Maps version designed for mobile devices, and I'm
> adding new features like distance, area, and collaboration.  I was wondering
> if your XO group has tried the Map activity and had any input on its
> redesign.
>
> Thanks for your help,
> Nick Doiron
> ndoi...@andrew.cmu.edu
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Ndoiro
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Re: [IAEP] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

[Dennis Daniels]

James,

There is definitely more polish here
http://people.sugarlabs.org/jdsimmons/ReadEtextsTheMovie.avi
Is there audio on either the .avi or .ogg? If yes, I didn't hear either.

May I suggest you put the .avi video on youtube? I really believe that
Sugar needs more screen time... people need to see it in action.

AFAIK there Google Docs is the only free collaboration text editor out
there... I was hoping that there would be a demo of 'record' for audio
annotations to the e text in your video. Typing is so... 20th century!
(only said partly tongue in cheek, I'm a big fan of recording in all
forms, but typing is just slow, and for ESL learners, a great big road
block for language fluency...IMHO)


I've not used Kino in a long time... is there a video editor in Sugar?
I taught video production with my students and they had a blast...
especially since they didn't have to type to tell their stories!
Another score for recording tech!

re: cinerella: Not used it. I'll take a look at virtual dub, don't
know if it runs on *nix or not.

All the best,
Dennis

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EOF
Sent from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States


On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 11:07, Jim Simmons wrote:
> Dennis,
>
> I use gtk-recordmydesktop to do the screencasts, running Sugar at
> 800x600 on an IBM NetVista I bought surplus.  I then use Kino to edit.
>  You *might* be able to get a screencast at a higher resolution with a
> more powerful box, but the video would end up at 640x480 anyway so
> maybe that would not be an improvement.  I'd be interested in your
> opinion of my videos at
>
> http://people.sugarlabs.org/jdsimmons/
>
> I use Fedora 11 for recording the desktop and Fedora 10 for editing
> (not on purpose, that's just how I'm set up at the moment).  I needed
> to compile Kino from source.  There's another video editor called
> Cinelerra that I would also have to compile from source to use, and
> it's supposed to be pretty good.
>
> James Simmons
>
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Dennis Daniels 
> wrote:
>> Jim,
>> Fair enough! You are echoing what most everyone on the IRC has said as well.
>>
>> I'm going to dive into running Sugar on top of Ubuntu today on my
>> fairly powerful machine and see if I can get some decent recordings.
>> Sugar needs a face and preferably that face would be of a six year old
>> doing amazing/genious things with a computer but those screencasts
>> probably won't happen with SoaS. I'm hoping I can get that with a full
>> install of Ubuntu with Sugar on the top.
>>
>> All my efforts with SoaS, avec et sans screencasting, have been
>> _disappointing_. There's no way I can recommend SoaS to any but the
>> most hardened technophile teachers.
>>
>> with regards,
>> Dennis
>>
>> lost and found:
>> +15047567321
>> +18586833669
>> GoogleTalk: dennisgdaniels
>> skype : dennisdaniels
>>
>>
>>
>> EOF
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:46, Jim Simmons wrote:
>>> Dennis,
>>>
>>> I think screencasting is a neat idea but the hardware most likely to
>>> run Sugar won't have the horsepower to capture a full size screen and
>>> in the case of the XO might not have enough disk space to do it
>>> either.  See my other emails for my experiences making videos like
>>> this.
>>>
>>> It may do a lot of good for us to create these kinds of videos
>>> ourselves so kids can see them and share them with friends, but
>>> technically it may be impractical to build a feature for doing this
>>> into Sugar.
>>>
>>> James Simmons
>>>
>>>
>>>> I need help in getting Sugar to be cool for kids and the easiest way
>>>> _in my experience_ is to make it easy for kids to show off... make
>>>> screencasting a FUNCTIONING and EASY to USE tool that can be launched
>>>> from every activity.
>>>>
>>>> Please, if you're going to flame back, try to attack the argument (and
>>>> parts of it may be flawed) and not me.
>>>>
>>>> thanks,
>>>> Dennis
>>>
>>
>
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Re: [IAEP] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

[Dennis Daniels]

Jim,
Fair enough! You are echoing what most everyone on the IRC has said as well.

I'm going to dive into running Sugar on top of Ubuntu today on my
fairly powerful machine and see if I can get some decent recordings.
Sugar needs a face and preferably that face would be of a six year old
doing amazing/genious things with a computer but those screencasts
probably won't happen with SoaS. I'm hoping I can get that with a full
install of Ubuntu with Sugar on the top.

All my efforts with SoaS, avec et sans screencasting, have been
_disappointing_. There's no way I can recommend SoaS to any but the
most hardened technophile teachers.

with regards,
Dennis

lost and found:
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EOF



On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:46, Jim Simmons wrote:
> Dennis,
>
> I think screencasting is a neat idea but the hardware most likely to
> run Sugar won't have the horsepower to capture a full size screen and
> in the case of the XO might not have enough disk space to do it
> either.  See my other emails for my experiences making videos like
> this.
>
> It may do a lot of good for us to create these kinds of videos
> ourselves so kids can see them and share them with friends, but
> technically it may be impractical to build a feature for doing this
> into Sugar.
>
> James Simmons
>
>
>> I need help in getting Sugar to be cool for kids and the easiest way
>> _in my experience_ is to make it easy for kids to show off... make
>> screencasting a FUNCTIONING and EASY to USE tool that can be launched
>> from every activity.
>>
>> Please, if you're going to flame back, try to attack the argument (and
>> parts of it may be flawed) and not me.
>>
>> thanks,
>> Dennis
>
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Re: [IAEP] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

[Dennis Daniels]

Looking at your stated computer numbers at GPA and figuring 20
students per class you're clearly not going to have enough machines...

So is the where SoaS is going to get its first big heavy duty user
testing on non OLPC machines? Are you going to dual boot the win2K
machines? Have you tested SoaS on the target machines?

I know, a lot of questions... and I hope very much you'll be
documenting/video as much of this as you can in Sep speaking of
which, do you have signatures from parents? Are they aware that you
are going to be testing a new OS/ed. paradigm on their little
lovelies? What about videoing the little ones? Has that been
discussed/ legalized? And what of students recording other students in
class via the Record tool on Sugar... that would seem/sound like a
lawsuit on the way... esp. if that video catches a teacher doing
something a parent finds objectionable (and parents are very sticky
mean creatures when they think that something, no matter how innocent,
is done to 'harm' their children. Be prepared to disable video
recording and photos in the class.

Talk to the district lawyers. You are entering dangerous waters no
matter how far removed the school is from district mandates, they are
still insured by the district, no? Talk to their lawyers... they may
very well warn you on the same issues... or not. Who knows... but it's
better to be safe than sued. This is a school in the United States you
are working in right?
Dennis
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EOF
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On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 17:33, Caroline Meeks wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Dennis Daniels 
> wrote:
>>
>> GPA?
>
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Gardner_Pilot_Academy
>
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand your adult/student ratio at your
>> installation... what is the ratio?
>
> I don;t know. About normal or a bit better. Its a pilot school there are 2
> or 3 classes per grade so when the grade level works as a team that is quite
> a few adults. I expect Ill learn more about how it works in practice in
> Sept.
>>
>> Team approach? How many are being paid?
>> What does 'work 10-6' mean?
>
> 10am to 6pm shift. Its an Extended Day School about 50% of the students stay
> afterschool for daycare.  The workers for that start during the school day
> so they have continuity.
>>
>> thanks,
>> Dennis
>>
>> > So far all the adults in the school we have talked to have been very
>> > enthusiastic.
>> > The GPA uses a team approach. Each grade level seems to have at least 6
>> > adults, teachers, adults that work 10-6 for after care, reading and
>> > special
>> > education specialists, interns, student teachers.  Also the Science
>> > teacher
>> > handles science for all grades.  So 100% of students using Sugar for
>> > learning will not require anywhere near 100% of the teachers.
>
>
>
> --
> Caroline Meeks
> Solution Grove
> carol...@solutiongrove.com
>
> 617-500-3488 - Office
> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>
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Re: [IAEP] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

[Dennis Daniels]

GPA? I'm not sure I understand your adult/student ratio at your
installation... what is the ratio?
Team approach? How many are being paid?
What does 'work 10-6' mean?

thanks,
Dennis

> So far all the adults in the school we have talked to have been very
> enthusiastic.
> The GPA uses a team approach. Each grade level seems to have at least 6
> adults, teachers, adults that work 10-6 for after care, reading and special
> education specialists, interns, student teachers.  Also the Science teacher
> handles science for all grades.  So 100% of students using Sugar for
> learning will not require anywhere near 100% of the teachers.
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Re: [IAEP] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

[Dennis Daniels]

Great in theory but I've used Moodle for over three years in public
and private schools.

Teachers did not go to Moodle until the admins told them to(public
school: hand tied/ private school: use Moodle or your fired). We had a
teacher who fought using electronic attendance for a year! And the
admin(public school) could do nothing about it.

There are over 6.4 million teachers in the US (2004 census)... the
number of Moodle users in the States?

Teachers will not do anything differently unless admins and parents
tell them to... and even then Unions will ride in and say, "That's not
in the contract." I've seen it, I've heard it.

To get change in the schools it is not going to come from the teachers.

If SUGAR is going to work then it's going to come from the 'lucky'
kids showing off their cool Sugar projects, parents hearing/seeing
about it, going to the admins/ school boards, demanding change or
taking their kids to 'better' schools.

with regards,
Dennis

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EOF



On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 15:22, David Farning wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Dennis Daniels 
> wrote:
>> It was suggested that I post a link to my commentary about Sugar and
>> education to this list.
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary
>>
>> A quick poll before I go on... how many actively participating
>> teachers on this list or the wiki? From what countries?
>> 
>> The views expressed are my own and a byproduct of my energies to try
>> and get teachers to incorporate computers into their curriculum for
>> over four years. I built an LTSP lab sometime ago for my English
>> class(I'm a certified English teacher in California.)
>>
>> That lab was an eye-opener for me.Though admins and parents and
>> students loved what was happening in the class, the improved scores,
>> the better writing, higher order thinking etc...  _Not a single
>> teacher accepted my offer_ at my school, or any other!, to help them
>> get their own computer lab running.  Admins couldn't convince OR force
>> teachers to take what was free e.g. my offer to help build the LTSP
>> labs.
>>
>> Sugar will get very little traction in schools without a seriously
>> hard look at your biggest obstacle/opponent: the teachers.
>
> Moddle has a very effective method of dealing with reluctant teachers;
> they don't worry about them!  Moodle works very hard to insure that
> Moodle is effective even if only one teacher in a school uses it.
> Then, they let the kids do the selling:)  If 25 kids successfully used
> Moodle in the third grade, those 25 kids become 4th graders and bug
> their new teachers to use Moodle.
>
> david
>
>> I need help in getting Sugar to be cool for kids and the easiest way
>> _in my experience_ is to make it easy for kids to show off... make
>> screencasting a FUNCTIONING and EASY to USE tool that can be launched
>> from every activity.
>>
>> Please, if you're going to flame back, try to attack the argument (and
>> parts of it may be flawed) and not me.
>>
>> thanks,
>> Dennis
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>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>
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[IAEP] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

[Dennis Daniels]

It was suggested that I post a link to my commentary about Sugar and
education to this list.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Commentary

A quick poll before I go on... how many actively participating
teachers on this list or the wiki? From what countries?

The views expressed are my own and a byproduct of my energies to try
and get teachers to incorporate computers into their curriculum for
over four years. I built an LTSP lab sometime ago for my English
class(I'm a certified English teacher in California.)

That lab was an eye-opener for me.Though admins and parents and
students loved what was happening in the class, the improved scores,
the better writing, higher order thinking etc...  _Not a single
teacher accepted my offer_ at my school, or any other!, to help them
get their own computer lab running.  Admins couldn't convince OR force
teachers to take what was free e.g. my offer to help build the LTSP
labs.

Sugar will get very little traction in schools without a seriously
hard look at your biggest obstacle/opponent: the teachers.

I need help in getting Sugar to be cool for kids and the easiest way
_in my experience_ is to make it easy for kids to show off... make
screencasting a FUNCTIONING and EASY to USE tool that can be launched
from every activity.

Please, if you're going to flame back, try to attack the argument (and
parts of it may be flawed) and not me.

thanks,
Dennis
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