Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] interesting article on evaluation

2015-02-28 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

I agree with your position about this. I often think of it in these terms:
we want to talk about depth of learning and not just proficiency in regards
to skills and content. To do that, we need to offer al alternative world
to the one that argues for more and more high stakes testing. The tools you
propose seem really consistent with that.
And thanks for sharing the article.
Gerald

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 2:09 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Amidst all the discussion about the future of Sugar, it would be good
 to keep in mind what more we can do in terms of analyitics and
 evaluation. We have a pretty decent mechanism (wrtiten by Martin) for
 data gathering about what kids do; the portfolio for assessing what
 they have done; and a few rubrics for tying together some of these
 data.  The ideas expressed in [1] suggest we could do more.

 regards.

 -walter

 [1]
 http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/02/26/things-every-kid-should-master/uM72LGr63zeaStOp9zGyrJ/story.html

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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] Fun-Sized Sugar… Why Not?

2013-11-12 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Caryl,

I am really intrigued by this idea, and am interested in participating in
the project.
I would encourage that you add Turtle Blocks to the scope of work.

Thanks.
Gerald


On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 12:42 AM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.comwrote:

 Hi Folks…


 First I would like to state that I fully support the maintenance and
 expansion of Sugar for the XO family and believe that should be one of the
 main goals of Sugar Labs as we move into the future.


 That said, I want to speak out in favor of developing a different version
 of Sugar that could be distributed worldwide, either (1) to the many
 Android tablets and phones that are or will be in the hands of children and
 teachers, in the form of an app available free at the PlayStore or, (2) on
 its own new website where students could create projects., much like that
 of Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=getStarted).
 My reasons for advocating this approach are several, including such things
 as:


  The large number of devices already in use that could  utilize Sugar in
 this way


  The large number of new users that could be continuously added (unlike
 for the XO)


  There are probably any more people are able to create and work in HTML5,
 CSS, and JavaScript than can program Sugar Activities in Python.


 Of course, this would necessitate starting most of these from scratch, but
 the project could be started with a small set of key Activities that would
 allow users to have the Sugar experience and begin using it for Project
 Based Learning.


 I have put together a small mind-map (attached) showing what this might
 include for starters. There would be a set of resource Activities (such as
 the 4 shown on the map) and a set of creating Activities (like the 4 on
 the map) that would use some or all of the resource Activities to create
 curriculum based projects. As time goes on, more Activities could be added
 to updates.


 Recruiting for this project could reach out to new volunteers at places
 like SCaLE and Linux Users Groups.  I would love to help work with a small
 team to recruit and organize this effort. I am just a beginner at HTML, but
 understand a lot about Sugar and how to use it for learning.


 Caryl

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Re: [IAEP] [Sur] Sugar oversight board meeting

2013-11-03 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

I will be at the meeting, and expect to arrive late.
Gerald

On Sunday, November 3, 2013, Walter Bender wrote:

 We have a SLOB meeting scheduled for Monday, 4 November at 9AM EST
 (2PM GMT). Please join us on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting
 (chat.sugarlabs.org)

 Tenemos una reunión SLOB programada para el lunes, 4 de noviembre a 09
 a.m. EST (14:00 GMT). Por favor, únase a nosotros en irc.freenode.net
 #-sugar-meeting (chat.sugarlabs.org)

 Topics:

 (1) election
 (2) ambassadors
 (3) tech/learning meetups
 (4) status of Trip Advisor grant
 (5) Google Code In
 (6) your topic here...

 -walter

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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar 0.100.0 (stable)

2013-10-31 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
This is really impressive.
Congratulations!

Gerald
On Oct 31, 2013 8:45 PM, Daniel Narvaez dwnarv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello,

 we are proud to announce the release of Sugar 0.100.0. A lot is new for
 both users and developers, see the release notes

 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.100/Notes

 Sources:


 http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-datastore/sugar-datastore-0.100.0.tar.xz

 http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-artwork/sugar-artwork-0.100.0.tar.xz

 http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-runner/sugar-runner-0.100.0.tar.xz

 http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar/sugar-0.100.1.tar.xz

 http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/sugar-toolkit-gtk3-0.100.0.tar.xz

 Thanks to everyone that contributed with code, translations and testing!

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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2013-10-22

2013-10-22 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

This is very inspiring work.
Thank you.

Gerald


On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 == Sugar Digest ==

 Free software gives the license. Sugar provides the means.

 1. I'm back from a week in Paraguay and Uruguay to celebrate Turtle
 Art Days in Caacupé and Montevideo.

 Turtle Art Day Caacupé exceeded my expectations. 275 students, their
 parents, and 77 teachers joined educators and Sugar developers from
 eight countries throughout the Americas and as far away as Australia
 (Tony Forster). Brian Silverman and Artemis Papert, the co-creators of
 Turtle Art, led workshops to a room full entralled children. Martin
 Abente, Andres Aguirre, and Alan Aguiar similarly led Butiá/Juky
 robots workshops, using TurtleBots. Claudia Urrea and I led workshops
 using Turtle Blocks, where the emphasis was on sensors and mutlimedia.
 Tony led a seminar with teachers on pedagogical framework for Turtle
 Art. We were assisted by Evolution children, youth leaders in
 Caacupé who attend school in the morning, teach in the afternoon, and
 on weekends supply technical support to school programs (I hope we are
 able to recruit many of them to participate in Google Code In, should
 Sugar Labs be chosen to participate again this year). While I have
 come to expect that children will deeply engage with Turtle Art, the
 fact that they maintained intense focus for three consecutive two-hour
 workshops, 70 to room, with only short breaks, was unexpected. Many
 thanks to Mary Gomez, Pacita Pena, Cecilia Alcala, and the Paraguay
 Educa team for all of the work they did behind the scenes (and in the
 classrooms) to make the day a success.

 Turtle Art Day Montevideo was teacher-focused rather than
 child-focused. Organized by José Miguel García, it attracted 70
 teachers to ANEP for a series of workshops.  Claudia and I began the
 day with a short lecture on pedagogy. The workshop themes included
 sensors (led by Guzman Trindad), robots (led by Andres and the Butiá
 team), advanced blocks, and turtle mathematics. During the robots
 workshop, we implemented inter-robot communication by taking advantage
 of some new collaboration blocks in Turtle Blocks (ported to
 TurtleBots): we mapped the accelerometer from one machine to the
 motors of another to make a remote-control steering wheel. In
 discussions the following day with Mariana Herrera, who works with
 children with severe physical disabilities, we came up with a simple
 adaptation that may enable her students to program Butiá using some
 buttons embedded in pillows.

 Sdenka Zobeida Salas Pilco and the children at an Aymara-speaking
 school organized a Turtle Art Day in Puno as well: Children and I
 organized quickly this event, they provided some ideas for
 celebrating, it was their idea to arrange the classroom and sticking
 balloons to the walls. Girls asked me to were the traditional local
 clothes. They helped me a lot. Also, they prepared a song, a poetry
 and riddles in Spanish and Aymara language. Finally, the little ones
 worked some codes, 4th graders were exploring the activity, and 6th
 graders organized the event.

 Other Turtle Art Days are following: in Costa Rica, Malaysia, and
 possibly Singapore. While the primary purpose of these Turtle Art Days
 is to promote children learning through programming, an important
 secondary goal was also achieved: programming is not just in service
 of geometry (what Papert called Mathland) but also in service of
 whatever passion drives the child. (Artemis refers to the work she and
 Brian do as Artland. Work with sensors, robots, multimedia, etc.,
 offer many mountains to climb.)

 2. Other activities in Paraguay and Uruguay this week included EduJam
 in Asuncion, a Sugar Hackfest, a meeting with Pablo Flores and the
 Python Jóven, a Butiá workshop, and a Ceibal event for educators in
 Montevideo. Leticia Romero organized the first EduJam to be held
 regionally, at the National University of Asuncion. (I handed out 100
 copies of Sugar on a Stick to interested attendees thanks to the
 generosity of Nexcopy [1].) It was well attended by educators and
 engineers from Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, et al. The
 hackfest was also well attended. It included testing of Sugar 100 in a
 session orchestrated by Gonzalo Odiard (a number of bugs were
 discovered and fixed), an introduction to the new HTML5/Javascript by
 Manuel Quiñones, and a discussion of a proposal Brian to use an
 embedded Logo environment in the Arduino brains of the various
 robots programmed with TurtleBots. The Butiá workshop was an
 opportunity for me to observe how children use TurtleBots in
 programming their robots -- a few of my observations led to some
 fine-tuning of the UI in TurtleBlocks-192. And a chance to get direct
 feedback from teachers who use Turtle Blocks in a wide range of
 activities. Eye-opening. We discussed the ongoing challenge of
 providing both a low floor and a high ceiling. 

Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] Strange, Slightly Unsanitary Solution To Jumpy Curser Problem

2013-04-26 Thread Gerald Ardito
Caryl,
You can also just put a post it over the middle trackpad.
Gerald
On Apr 26, 2013 4:36 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote:

  Hi All,

 Some of the XO-1s I am prepping for use in an elementary school in a
 women't shelter here in LA have jumpy cursers. My personal G1G1 machine
 shares this problem.  I was getting tired of doing the 4-finger salute so
 I tried something else... I licked my index finger. Voila! The problem was
 solved! Of course, after a time I had to do it again as my finger dried.

 So... I am wondering (haven't had time to test it yet), would dipping the
 finger into another liquid (maybe a slightly saline solution?) work just as
 well? Would wiping the touch pad with some type of liquid work just as
 well? Maybe with a sanitizing wipe?  Do people with naturally sweaty
 fingers have fewer problems with a jumpy cursor?

 Food for thought... any suggestions? Ideas?

 Caryl

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[IAEP] Turtle Art question

2013-04-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
One of my students had a question about Turtle Art that I couldn't answer:
is it possible to have a sensing event kick off a program instead of a user
action?

Thanks.
Gerald
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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Labs in GSoC 2013

2013-04-09 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
This is really great news!


On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 Sugar Labs has been accepted in Google Summer of Code 2013. Thanks to
 everyone in the community who contributed to our application. Now it is
 time to recruit students. More details coming your way soon.

 regards.

 -walter


 On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Manuel Quiñones ma...@laptop.org wrote:

 2013/4/9 Kalpa Welivitigoda callka...@gmail.com:
  Hi all,
 
  I am really happy and impressed to see Sugar Labs listed in accepted
  organizations for Google Code of Summer 2013.

 Great news! This comunity is giving a boost :)

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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Google Summer of Code project ideas

2013-03-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter, 

I am looking over this list.
I am wondering about the requirements for a mentor.

Thanks.
Gerald


On Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Walter Bender wrote:

 We have been accumulating project ideas for Google Summer of Code 2013
 [1]. Please take a few minutes to add a favorite project or sign on as
 a co-mentor to an existing project. Also, feel free to help us refine
 the descriptions on the pages. (I've added a bit of text to the end of
 each project, describing how it benefits both Sugar and the student
 working on the project. These blurbs need some refining.
 
 The deadline is the 29th of this month, so please act in the next day or two.
 
 -walter
 
 
 [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2013
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Re: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2013-03-03

2013-03-03 Thread Gerald Ardito
Walter,

The homework service you described would be incredibly useful.
I would be happy to help test, I'd needed.
Gerald
On Mar 3, 2013 12:15 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:

 == Sugar Digest ==

 1. It has been crazy busy. With the upcoming XO4 launch, Sugar with
 touch support will be making its debut. The developer team has done a
 great job but we are lagging behind a bit on the activity level:
 Activities that use keyboard input need to be modified to use the
 on-screen keyboard; and now that tablet mode will be used more often,
 we need to better attend to the issue of screen rotation.

 In order to adapt to the on-screen keyboard, there are two adjustments
 that need to be made: (1) use either a GTK Entry or TextView instead
 of directly querying the keyboard; and (2) make sure that the Entry is
 visible when the keyboard is visible. To address both issues, I have
 been mostly using GTK Fixed in order to re-position the Entry
 appropriately. But also, I have been using a strategy of moving the
 Entry to the top of the activity.

 There are two issues with dealing with landscape vs portrait mode. One
 is to make sure that the work area of an activity accommodates the
 change in size and aspect ration. Perhaps the easiest way to do this
 is simply to define a square work are inside of a scrolling window.
 There are times when this strategy won't work, such as with Paint, but
 for the most part, it is a simple solution.

 The toolbars are another matter. It is often the case that not all of
 the elements fit when in portrait mode. The default behavior of Sugar,
 to make a list on a palette that displays on the edge of the screen is
 somewhat lacking, both in that many toolbar items are either not shown
 or inoperable in that form. And aesthetically, it is not very
 Sugar-like. I've been experimenting with some different approaches to
 generating palettes, and also moving some toolbar elements around
 (e.g., moving some buttons to secondary toolbars). Alas, none of these
 solutions are idea or completely generalizable. But I think there are
 harbingers of a solution.

 Another issue with touch is that Gtk2 ComboBoxes don't work. The
 problem has been fixed in the Gtk3 version of the Sugar tool-kit, but,
 not being a fan of Combo Boxes to begin with, I see it as an
 opportunity to minimize their use. For example, using bigger/smaller
 buttons is arguably an easier way to adjust font size using touch.

 Ultimately, we'll want to add more gesture support as well. Many
 activities could readily support panning and zooming. And a long
 press can replace the un-Sugar-like reliance of right-click that some
 activities are using.

 I've packaged many of these ideas into some experimental (and
 production) versions of some activities (Please see [1-7]). Feedback
 most welcome.

 2. It occurred to me that the Web Services framework that Raul and I
 developed a few weeks ago might make a nice home for a simple
 classroom service: handing in homework assignments and receiving back
 comments from the teacher and fellow students. Such a service could be
 dropped right into the same framework we built for Facebook, so in the
 Journal, there would be a Share with (or Copy to) Teacher and comments
 would appear in the Journal detail view (and be directly integrated in
 the Portfolio). Simple, but potentially quite useful.

 === Tech Talk ===

 3. Adam Holt reported on the School Server Hack Sprint held in Toronto
 (See [8]).

 4. Daniel Narvaez has been making great progress on Agora, his
 attempt to achieve the goals of the Sugar Learning Platform using the
 web technologies (See [9]).

 === Sugar Labs ===

 Visit our planet [10] for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.

 -walter

 ---

 [1] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Abacus-47.1.xo
 [2] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Chart-9.1.xo
 [3] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Chat-78.1.xo
 [4] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Labyrinth-14.4.xo
 [5] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Portfolio-41.2.xo
 [6] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Speak-44.6.xo
 [7]
 http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addons/versions/4027#version-173
 (TurtleBlocks-173.xo)
 [8]
 http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/2013-February/006258.html
 [9]
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2013-February/041847.html
 [10] http://planet.sugarlabs.org


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 Sugar Labs
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Re: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2013-03-03

2013-03-03 Thread Gerald Ardito
Stephen,
Feel free to have Justin get in touch with me if we can help.
Gerald
On Mar 3, 2013 12:41 PM, STEPHEN JACOBS itprofjac...@gmail.com wrote:

  new round of the RIT HFOSS Class begins tomorrow.  While I'm not teaching
 it Justin Sherrill, included in on it, will be.
 It might be possible to have those students test such a homework service
 as well.
 On Mar 3, 2013, at 12:19 PM, Gerald Ardito wrote:

 Walter,

 The homework service you described would be incredibly useful.
 I would be happy to help test, I'd needed.
 Gerald
 On Mar 3, 2013 12:15 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:

 == Sugar Digest ==

 1. It has been crazy busy. With the upcoming XO4 launch, Sugar with
 touch support will be making its debut. The developer team has done a
 great job but we are lagging behind a bit on the activity level:
 Activities that use keyboard input need to be modified to use the
 on-screen keyboard; and now that tablet mode will be used more often,
 we need to better attend to the issue of screen rotation.

 In order to adapt to the on-screen keyboard, there are two adjustments
 that need to be made: (1) use either a GTK Entry or TextView instead
 of directly querying the keyboard; and (2) make sure that the Entry is
 visible when the keyboard is visible. To address both issues, I have
 been mostly using GTK Fixed in order to re-position the Entry
 appropriately. But also, I have been using a strategy of moving the
 Entry to the top of the activity.

 There are two issues with dealing with landscape vs portrait mode. One
 is to make sure that the work area of an activity accommodates the
 change in size and aspect ration. Perhaps the easiest way to do this
 is simply to define a square work are inside of a scrolling window.
 There are times when this strategy won't work, such as with Paint, but
 for the most part, it is a simple solution.

 The toolbars are another matter. It is often the case that not all of
 the elements fit when in portrait mode. The default behavior of Sugar,
 to make a list on a palette that displays on the edge of the screen is
 somewhat lacking, both in that many toolbar items are either not shown
 or inoperable in that form. And aesthetically, it is not very
 Sugar-like. I've been experimenting with some different approaches to
 generating palettes, and also moving some toolbar elements around
 (e.g., moving some buttons to secondary toolbars). Alas, none of these
 solutions are idea or completely generalizable. But I think there are
 harbingers of a solution.

 Another issue with touch is that Gtk2 ComboBoxes don't work. The
 problem has been fixed in the Gtk3 version of the Sugar tool-kit, but,
 not being a fan of Combo Boxes to begin with, I see it as an
 opportunity to minimize their use. For example, using bigger/smaller
 buttons is arguably an easier way to adjust font size using touch.

 Ultimately, we'll want to add more gesture support as well. Many
 activities could readily support panning and zooming. And a long
 press can replace the un-Sugar-like reliance of right-click that some
 activities are using.

 I've packaged many of these ideas into some experimental (and
 production) versions of some activities (Please see [1-7]). Feedback
 most welcome.

 2. It occurred to me that the Web Services framework that Raul and I
 developed a few weeks ago might make a nice home for a simple
 classroom service: handing in homework assignments and receiving back
 comments from the teacher and fellow students. Such a service could be
 dropped right into the same framework we built for Facebook, so in the
 Journal, there would be a Share with (or Copy to) Teacher and comments
 would appear in the Journal detail view (and be directly integrated in
 the Portfolio). Simple, but potentially quite useful.

 === Tech Talk ===

 3. Adam Holt reported on the School Server Hack Sprint held in Toronto
 (See [8]).

 4. Daniel Narvaez has been making great progress on Agora, his
 attempt to achieve the goals of the Sugar Learning Platform using the
 web technologies (See [9]).

 === Sugar Labs ===

 Visit our planet [10] for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.

 -walter

 ---

 [1] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Abacus-47.1.xo
 [2] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Chart-9.1.xo
 [3] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Chat-78.1.xo
 [4] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Labyrinth-14.4.xo
 [5] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Portfolio-41.2.xo
 [6] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Speak-44.6.xo
 [7]
 http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addons/versions/4027#version-173
 (TurtleBlocks-173.xohttp://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addons/versions/4027#version-173(TurtleBlocks-173.xo
 )
 [8]
 http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/2013-February/006258.html
 [9]
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2013-February/041847.html
 [10] http://planet.sugarlabs.org


 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org

Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] About to teach Python programming

2013-02-10 Thread Gerald Ardito
Stephen,  

Thanks for the checking in and for the resource. I look forward to playing with 
it.
The course is going well. I have designed it as a discovery experience, just 
like when I have taught Scratch and Etoys and TurtleArt.  

And, Walter, I have to say that my students with prior Scratch and/or TurtleArt 
experience are doing the best (which is a totally unsurprising finding).

I will be blogging about the course when I have a chance to catch up.

Thanks.
Gerald


On Friday, February 8, 2013 at 1:56 AM, Steve Thomas wrote:

 Gerald,
  
 Hope the course is going well.  Another resource I just found which you might 
 find useful is Project Euler (http://projecteuler.net/).   
 I am considering using it as extra credit problems.  It depends on the the 
 kids in your class. The problems are geared towards math/programming geeks.
  
 Here are some examples:
  If we list all the natural numbers below 10 that are multiples of 3 or 5, 
  we get 3, 5, 6 and 9. The sum of these multiples is 23.
   
   
  Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000.
   
  ---
  A palindromic number reads the same both ways. The largest palindrome made 
  from the product of two 2-digit numbers is 9009 = 91 99.
   
  Find the largest palindrome made from the product of two 3-digit numbers.
   
 What we really need (for those who are not mathematical/logical types) are 
 some nice libraries that allow kids to play with images and sounds.
 Two really fun examples (in Scratch 2.0) are You've been Framed 
 (http://beta.scratch.mit.edu/projects/10036009/) by JJROCKER and Round 
 (http://beta.scratch.mit.edu/projects/10036112/) by Jens Mönig
  
 If we had a simple interface to the TamTam instruments you could do something 
 like Jens' Round.  
  
 Also if we had a way to simple way to reference each pixel (R, G and B 
 values) in an image and modify them, kids could do some fun mods on You've 
 been Framed.  
 There is a great course from Cousera CS101 
 (https://www.coursera.org/course/cs101)  image manipulation (using 
 JavaScript).  If we had a similar library to the JavaScript one used in the 
 course, it would be a lot of fun for the kids.
  
 Cheers,
 Stephen
  
  
  
 On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 10:14 PM, Mike Rehner babareh...@gmail.com 
 (mailto:babareh...@gmail.com) wrote:
  Here is a list of Python resources if that would help-
  http://www.babarehner.com/ewrench1011/Python/index.html
   
  Cheers,
   
  Mike
   
  On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Gerald Ardito gma...@gmail.com 
  (mailto:gma...@gmail.com) wrote:
   Stephen,
  
   I am starting two weeks from tomorrow.
   I am still trying to wrap my head about the key goals and projects. It 
   would
   be great to share ideas.
  
   Gerald
  
   On Monday, January 14, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Steve Thomas wrote:
  
   On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:58 PM, fors...@ozonline.com.au 
   (mailto:fors...@ozonline.com.au) wrote:
  
   Hi
  
   As a beginner, I found creating a Sugar Activity difficult. More difficult
   than creating a program to run from Terminal or Pippy. You might get 
   better
   value using Pygame and writing something that can run from Pippy. The goal
   could be to create more Pippy built in samples.
  
   If you are going to write an Activity, you could give them a 'hello world'
   template and get them to build on that rather than starting from the
   beginning. Your 'hello world' template could have the basics:a text box 
   for
   text entry/display, a canvas for graphical display and an example of
   keyboard and mouse capture.
  
   Agreed. Having a template to build on for an Activity would make things 
   much
   simpler.
  
  
   Good luck. Please ask if you need help.
  
   Ditto.  When will you start the class?  I am also teaching Python to some
   kids now, and  interested sharing ideas.
  
   Stephen
  
  
   Tony
  
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com (mailto:gerald.ard...@gmail.com) wrote:
Hello.
I have been asked by my school district to teach a one semester course
on
computer programming to some of our high school students. I was already
settled on Python. In my planning, I thought it would be great if the
students built an application for Sugar/XO Laptop. I have, as I think
you
know, been using them in our school for a few years, I think the
transition
from consumer to producer would be great.
   
I am not a Python programmer, although I understand the basic concepts
and
can muddle my way through. So,here's my question -- what should the
students
know/be able to do in Python before they are able to write an Activity?
  
   Beyond the basics, understanding the concept of classes and
   inheritance is pretty essential. Some GTK stuff, but that is pretty
   straightforward.
  
   -walter
  
   
I hope this makes sense. And I appreciate your time.
   
Best,
Gerald Ardito
   
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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] About to teach Python programming

2013-01-15 Thread Gerald Ardito
Mike, 

This is great.
Thanks.

Gerald 


On Monday, January 14, 2013 at 10:14 PM, Mike Rehner wrote:

 Here is a list of Python resources if that would help-
 http://www.babarehner.com/ewrench1011/Python/index.html
 
 Cheers,
 
 Mike
 
 On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Gerald Ardito gma...@gmail.com 
 (mailto:gma...@gmail.com) wrote:
  Stephen,
  
  I am starting two weeks from tomorrow.
  I am still trying to wrap my head about the key goals and projects. It would
  be great to share ideas.
  
  Gerald
  
  On Monday, January 14, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Steve Thomas wrote:
  
  On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:58 PM, fors...@ozonline.com.au 
  (mailto:fors...@ozonline.com.au) wrote:
  
  Hi
  
  As a beginner, I found creating a Sugar Activity difficult. More difficult
  than creating a program to run from Terminal or Pippy. You might get better
  value using Pygame and writing something that can run from Pippy. The goal
  could be to create more Pippy built in samples.
  
  If you are going to write an Activity, you could give them a 'hello world'
  template and get them to build on that rather than starting from the
  beginning. Your 'hello world' template could have the basics:a text box for
  text entry/display, a canvas for graphical display and an example of
  keyboard and mouse capture.
  
  Agreed. Having a template to build on for an Activity would make things much
  simpler.
  
  
  Good luck. Please ask if you need help.
  
  Ditto. When will you start the class? I am also teaching Python to some
  kids now, and interested sharing ideas.
  
  Stephen
  
  
  Tony
  
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com (mailto:gerald.ard...@gmail.com) wrote:
Hello.
I have been asked by my school district to teach a one semester course
on
computer programming to some of our high school students. I was already
settled on Python. In my planning, I thought it would be great if the
students built an application for Sugar/XO Laptop. I have, as I think
you
know, been using them in our school for a few years, I think the
transition
from consumer to producer would be great.

I am not a Python programmer, although I understand the basic concepts
and
can muddle my way through. So,here's my question -- what should the
students
know/be able to do in Python before they are able to write an Activity?

   
   
   Beyond the basics, understanding the concept of classes and
   inheritance is pretty essential. Some GTK stuff, but that is pretty
   straightforward.
   
   -walter
   

I hope this makes sense. And I appreciate your time.

Best,
Gerald Ardito

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 -- 
 Mike Rehner
 Groveport (Columbus) OH 43125
 USA
 614 497 9774
 www.e-wrench.com (http://www.e-wrench.com)
 aldebaran.dnsdojo.org (http://aldebaran.dnsdojo.org) (Moodle test server)
 www.youtube.com/user/babarehner (http://www.youtube.com/user/babarehner) 
 (YouTube Channel)
 
 


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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] About to teach Python programming

2013-01-14 Thread Gerald Ardito
Stephen, 

I am starting two weeks from tomorrow. 
I am still trying to wrap my head about the key goals and projects. It would be 
great to share ideas.

Gerald 


On Monday, January 14, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Steve Thomas wrote:

 On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:58 PM, fors...@ozonline.com.au 
 (mailto:fors...@ozonline.com.au) wrote:
  Hi
  
  As a beginner, I found creating a Sugar Activity difficult. More difficult 
  than creating a program to run from Terminal or Pippy. You might get better 
  value using Pygame and writing something that can run from Pippy. The goal 
  could be to create more Pippy built in samples.
  
  If you are going to write an Activity, you could give them a 'hello world' 
  template and get them to build on that rather than starting from the 
  beginning. Your 'hello world' template could have the basics:a text box for 
  text entry/display, a canvas for graphical display and an example of 
  keyboard and mouse capture.
 Agreed. Having a template to build on for an Activity would make things much 
 simpler.
  
  Good luck. Please ask if you need help.
 Ditto.  When will you start the class?  I am also teaching Python to some 
 kids now, and  interested sharing ideas.
 
 Stephen
  
  Tony
  
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com (mailto:gerald.ard...@gmail.com) wrote:
Hello.
I have been asked by my school district to teach a one semester course 
on
computer programming to some of our high school students. I was already
settled on Python. In my planning, I thought it would be great if the
students built an application for Sugar/XO Laptop. I have, as I think 
you
know, been using them in our school for a few years, I think the 
transition
from consumer to producer would be great.
   
I am not a Python programmer, although I understand the basic concepts 
and
can muddle my way through. So,here's my question -- what should the 
students
know/be able to do in Python before they are able to write an Activity?
  
   Beyond the basics, understanding the concept of classes and
   inheritance is pretty essential. Some GTK stuff, but that is pretty
   straightforward.
  
   -walter
  
   
I hope this makes sense. And I appreciate your time.
   
Best,
Gerald Ardito
   
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[IAEP] About to teach Python programming

2013-01-12 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Hello. 
I have been asked by my school district to teach a one semester course on 
computer programming to some of our high school students. I was already settled 
on Python. In my planning, I thought it would be great if the students built an 
application for Sugar/XO Laptop. I have, as I think you know, been using them 
in our school for a few years, I think the transition from consumer to producer 
would be great.

I am not a Python programmer, although I understand the basic concepts and can 
muddle my way through. So,here's my question -- what should the students 
know/be able to do in Python before they are able to write an Activity?

I hope this makes sense. And I appreciate your time.

Best,
Gerald Ardito


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Re: [IAEP] It's a book!

2012-12-21 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Rita, et. al.

Thanks for this great work!

Gerald


On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Rita Freudenberg 
r...@isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de wrote:

 A New Etoys Book is available:

 Learning with Etoys  Imagine, Invent, Insprire

 After participating in a Doc Camp at Google, the Etoys EducationTeam is
 happy to announce a new book.

 Read It: Learn various ways Etoys can be used in the classroom.
 Use It: Adapt it for your learners.
 Share It: Tell others about it and help us spread the word.

 Available for download at:

 http://wiki.squeakland.org/index.php/LearningWithEtoysI3

 We would love your feedback or your contributions to our next volume.

 The Etoys Education Team

 Rita Freudenberg
 r...@isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de



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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] Robot runs on MSP430 + OLPC XO - QA and updated bundle request

2012-11-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Thanks, Yama.
Nice job with the circuit diagram.

Looking forward to answerJerry!
Gerald


On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:48 AM, Yama Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.com wrote:

  Thank you for the interest, Gerald.
 I have uploaded a circuit diagram, and will be working on explaining
 what's what there
 BTW, I did the drawing on an XO 1, using Inkscape in Gnome. Slower than
 the quad core, but works!

 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Bouncy_Robot_Linux_code

 let's ask Jerry (no pun: his website is http://askjerry.info) for the
 frame design - he has also a nifty tractor body design there.

 Hey Jerry! do you have handy  the blueprint of the tricycle that we may
 share it with the friends here?
 Thanks!



 On 11/25/2012 08:32 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote:

 Yama,

  This is really great. And thanks for updating the wiki (sorry about the
 cold, though).
 Can you provide specifics on the hardware/frame for the robot?

 Thanks.
 Gerald


 On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 9:20 PM, Yama Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.comwrote:

  Bouncy robot powered by mspgcc+olpc/Sugar+msp430
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-jrNkWtavM

 So far mspdebug Linux tools work in OLPC's XO computer using the
 directions in
 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1 (major overhaul today,
 courtesy of a cold/flu)

 1) I beg mspdebug people to vet excessive heresies this noob might have
 introduced in the How-To in that page.
 So far I am managing without -mcu - or -gdb.
 I actually have no idea what those are for, or if their unavailability
 explains my so far failure to UART, or if we should care... (for many
 things, it ain't broken...)

 2) Fedora packaging people: any way to package
 mspdebug msp430-libc msp430-binutils msp430-gcc msp430mcu msp430-gdb ?
 What gets downloaded through yum channels in the XO is very, very
 outdated, and conflicts (cf. mcu and libc).
 Please feel free to forward, as I have no access to real Fedora people
 - don't even know where to look for them without making a nuisance of
 myself and undue noise, and certainly do not know who could maybe make a
 package(?) usable for the XO. Will this be fixable for the next OLPC OS?
 Daniel?

 3) Robotics, Science, Sensors OLPC, IAEP people, please, if you could
 test the GCC toolchain?
 You do not need to have a Launchpad on hand. I am trying to catch bugs
 and usability issues. Are the instructions clear? as much as possible
 figuring out snags so it's easier for kids and normal people.

 *robot*
 The brains of this bouncy are an MSP430 microcontroller (a lowly g2152)
 controlling a L293 dual H bridge, senses two switches. Its brawn a couple
 geared DC motors on 9V PWM in an askjerry tricycle frame. Not counting
 shipping, less than USD $10 total. Coded in an XO-1 all the way. Enormous
 thanks to the mspgcc folks that helped me figure things like how to use
 more than one switch...


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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] Robot runs on MSP430 + OLPC XO - QA and updated bundle request

2012-11-25 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Yama,

This is really great. And thanks for updating the wiki (sorry about the
cold, though).
Can you provide specifics on the hardware/frame for the robot?

Thanks.
Gerald


On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 9:20 PM, Yama Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.com wrote:

  Bouncy robot powered by mspgcc+olpc/Sugar+msp430
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-jrNkWtavM

 So far mspdebug Linux tools work in OLPC's XO computer using the
 directions in
 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1 (major overhaul today,
 courtesy of a cold/flu)

 1) I beg mspdebug people to vet excessive heresies this noob might have
 introduced in the How-To in that page.
 So far I am managing without -mcu - or -gdb.
 I actually have no idea what those are for, or if their unavailability
 explains my so far failure to UART, or if we should care... (for many
 things, it ain't broken...)

 2) Fedora packaging people: any way to package
 mspdebug msp430-libc msp430-binutils msp430-gcc msp430mcu msp430-gdb ?
 What gets downloaded through yum channels in the XO is very, very
 outdated, and conflicts (cf. mcu and libc).
 Please feel free to forward, as I have no access to real Fedora people -
 don't even know where to look for them without making a nuisance of myself
 and undue noise, and certainly do not know who could maybe make a
 package(?) usable for the XO. Will this be fixable for the next OLPC OS?
 Daniel?

 3) Robotics, Science, Sensors OLPC, IAEP people, please, if you could test
 the GCC toolchain?
 You do not need to have a Launchpad on hand. I am trying to catch bugs and
 usability issues. Are the instructions clear? as much as possible figuring
 out snags so it's easier for kids and normal people.

 *robot*
 The brains of this bouncy are an MSP430 microcontroller (a lowly g2152)
 controlling a L293 dual H bridge, senses two switches. Its brawn a couple
 geared DC motors on 9V PWM in an askjerry tricycle frame. Not counting
 shipping, less than USD $10 total. Coded in an XO-1 all the way. Enormous
 thanks to the mspgcc folks that helped me figure things like how to use
 more than one switch...


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Re: [IAEP] [Server-devel] gathering use cases

2012-11-03 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Sameer,

Thanks for doing this work.
Here are some thoughts In the deployment I have been managing we have used
the server in two ways:
1. As a jabber server only. We have about 140 XO-1s, and without the jabber
server, the cross-talk slowed down the devices dramatically when more than
about 30 were running simultaneously.

2. As a wireless network access point. This was especially important in the
dark times before our school reconfigured our wireless network to work
properly with the XOs.

When we began, Moodle was less important to us, but now that I have been
Moodle with my 7th and 8th grade students (who are not using the XOs), I
can see the benefit of using it with an XO deployment.

I hope this is helpful.

Thanks again.
Gerald


On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Chris Leonard cjlhomeaddr...@gmail.comwrote:

 Sameer,

 You should talk to SomosAzucar and Aleksey Lim about the use case for
 Sugar Network being developed for a pilot in LimaNorte.

 cjl

 On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Sameer Verma sve...@sfsu.edu wrote:
  There are several use cases that may or may not get addressed when
 designing
  a particular software stack to address a requirement.
 
  The XS 0.7 is designed to be a single image install and comes with
 Moodle.
  Given that I work with Moodle everyday, I see the pros and cons of it
 being
  central on the XS. I am in fact fairly happy with its current design, but
  also realize that it was built for a specific use case or three that OLPC
  needed at the time.
 
  There is also an effort (currently dubbed XS Community Edition) that is
  attempting to address certain other use cases where Moodle and other
  services could possibly become optional. We saw this at the OLPC SF
  Community Summit. I hope it will grow up to be the next XS (but that's
  another thread).
 
  My concern is that perhaps, if we don't do our homework right, we will
 once
  again build something that will fail to address a use case or two. Can
 one
  design address all use cases? Maybe not. But it's good to know what those
  use cases are.
 
  To this end, I would like to collect data on different possible use cases
  from all kinds of deployments. I have a student (cc'd) who is working on
  this project currently. She will gather data from various deployments
  (suitcase, boutique, MoE etc) as much as possible (with the cooperation
 of
  projects, of course) and write a report on what we see out there. We'll
  gladly make the report available once it is done.
 
  Is this useful?
 
  What should the scope be? Initially I had thought of the server side, but
  that may be limiting. What should we gather?
  Location, school, size, personnel, skills, electricity, Internet access,
  language, sugar version, ...
 
  Feedback?
 
  cheers,
  Sameer
  --
  Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
  Professor, Information Systems
  San Francisco State University
  http://verma.sfsu.edu/
  http://commons.sfsu.edu/
  http://olpcsf.org/
  http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
 
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] It's Time to Sign Up For Sensors!

2012-10-13 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

How great it is that? Thanks.
I don't think you included the link to the bits.

Gerald

On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 Slightly off topic, but I got my hands on a USB microscope the other
 day and could not resist writing the Turtle Art plugin for it. (Isn't
 part of a release yet, but the bits are available [1]).

 -walter

 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org


 [1]
 http://git.sugarlabs.org/turtleart/mainline/commit/e5b4cffe8976d7193a6cb3f8c1e6fd377433d67d
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Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-06 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Hello all.
Thanks for all the support with this project.
At Tony's suggestion, I downgraded the XO-1 to build 883 (11.3.0), and the
the We Do works fine in TurtleBots.

Walter shared his new We Do plug in, which worked fine with Turtle Art 160.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
  Walter,
 
  I have been testing it out this afternoon. It works really well.
  I only have one We Do here, so I can't test out if it sees different
  devices.
 
  There is one quirky thing. When the script is running a motor, the Stop
 icon
  disappears. Then, if you use ctrl-s to stop the script, the blocks
  disappear.

 You could just keep a motor=0 block around... I suppose I could
 auto-stop the motor when the program stops executing, but I think that
 might limit the utility somewhat. (The Stop Button is for the Turtle
 Art program, not the WeDo motor.)

 
  And a question, how do you reverse the direction of the motor?

 Should reverse with a negative number.

 enjoy.

 -walter

  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
 
  On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 1:27 AM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn
  alan...@hotmail.com wrote:
   I think that you cannot check what sensor is connected..
   Butia have hotplug and show instantly that a sensor is connect.
   Lego not have that, and the only check possible: get a value, if no
   gives
   errors, maybe
   there are a sensor of that type connected..
  
  The usual approach would be to add a device input to the blocks...
  device 1, device 2, device 3
  
   That can works, but I don't like it taking into consideration that you
   have
   put the port
   where each sensor/motor is connected.
  
   I think in a special block that sets the brick that you want to use.
   For example:
   - you have 2 bricks connected
   -if you want to: read color sensor from brick 1 in port 1
   -turn motor in port b of brcik 2 with power 100
  
   The code will be:
  
   select brick (1)
   read sensor (color, port 1)
   select brcik (2)
   turn motor (port b, 100)
  
   See that all the blocks no have changes, only uses the select brick
 to
   set
   in the system, which
   brick get the next functions.
   The important of this change: when you have only 1 brick, the code no
   have
   changes!
  
   Opinions?
  
   Regards!
  
   Alan
  
   
   From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
   Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 14:45:48 -0400
   To: walter.ben...@gmail.com
   CC: alan...@hotmail.com; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org;
   support-g...@laptop.org
  
   Subject: Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question
  
   Walter,
   Agreed.
   I am happy to continuing working with you on this.
   Gerald
  
   On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:36 PM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.com
   wrote:
  
   On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
   Walter,
  
   if we are crossing devices?
  
   Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
  
   The usual approach would be to add a device input to the blocks...
   device 1, device 2, device 3... But also, I should do a better job of
   autodetecting which sensors are available. The whole thing should be
   more dynamic.
  
   -walter
  
   --
   Walter Bender
   Sugar Labs
   http://www.sugarlabs.org
  
  
  
   ___ IAEP -- It's An
   Education
   Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
   http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
 
  Attached is a BETA version of a new WeDo plugin that supports multiple
  devices. It follows a schema similar to what Alan proposes above. I
  only have one device, so it is not tested for multiple devices,
  however, it seems to work for one device and includes a new feature
  which tests for devices before each start, rather than just at launch,
  so devices and be plugged in and unplugged without having to restart
  Turtle Art.
 
  Feedback greatly appreciated.
 
  regards.
 
  -walter
 
  --
  Walter Bender
  Sugar Labs
  http://www.sugarlabs.org
 
 



 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-05 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Thanks for the help last night on the Arduino plugin.
I know what I need to do.

And now, another question. I have been working with the plugin for We Do
robots. The plugin is installed and the palette is where it is supposed to
be. But, the We Do does not respond to the program.

When I look at the Turtle Arts plugin page (
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art/Plugins), I am directed
to this link:
https://github.com/itdaniher/WeDoMore/tree/master/udev

to download directions for setting up permissions. However, there are two
files there and I am not sure what to do with them.

I would appreciate any help you can provide.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
  Walter,
 
  Thanks for the amazingly quick response.
  I see TurtleBot. I would like to learn how to create my own spin, so
 please
  do walk me through it.

 The easiest thing to do is to:
 (1) clone the TA project*
 (2) load the plugins you are interested in
 (3) run setup.py dist_xo to generate a new .xo bundle

 * git clone git://git.sugarlabs.org/turtleart/mainline.git

 It may be useful to change the version number, for example, 160.1
 instead of 160 in activity/activity.info

  I will work more with the Launchpad. So far, it seems very much like the
  Arduino. Once I know more, I will start to talk to you about requirements
  for the plugin.

 OK. No hurry as I have my hands full at the moment.

  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
  gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
   Hello.
  
   I have been playing with the Turtle Blocks plugins for Follow Me, We
   Do Robots, Lego Mindstorms, and Arduino. They installed perfectly in
   Turtle Blocks (as expected).
  
   I have two questions:
   1. I will need to install Turtle Blocks and these plugins on 25-50
   XO-1s. Do I have to do the plugins one by one on each machine?
 
  TurtleBot comes with all of the above plugins pre-installed.
  It is also possible to create a special spin of Turtle Art with just
  the plugins you want (several deployments do this and I could walk you
  through the process)
 
   2. How do I go about requesting plug in(s) for the TI Launchpad?
 
  I need to know more about how to talk to the TI Launchpad and what
  sorts of interactions between it and TA you are looking for.
 
  -walter
  
   Thanks.
   Gerald
   ___
   IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
   IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
   http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
 
 
 
  --
  Walter Bender
  Sugar Labs
  http://www.sugarlabs.org
 
 



 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-05 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

Thanks. Sorry if this is elementary. So, I download both files on the XO,
and then run the rules script?

Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:00 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
  Thanks for the help last night on the Arduino plugin.
  I know what I need to do.
 
  And now, another question. I have been working with the plugin for We Do
  robots. The plugin is installed and the palette is where it is supposed
 to
  be. But, the We Do does not respond to the program.
 
  When I look at the Turtle Arts plugin page
  (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art/Plugins), I am
 directed
  to this link:
  https://github.com/itdaniher/WeDoMore/tree/master/udev
 
  to download directions for setting up permissions. However, there are two
  files there and I am not sure what to do with them.

 99-lego-WeDo.rules are the rules and install_driver.sh is the script
 to run to install them.

 -walter

 
  I would appreciate any help you can provide.
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
  gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
   Walter,
  
   Thanks for the amazingly quick response.
   I see TurtleBot. I would like to learn how to create my own spin, so
   please
   do walk me through it.
 
  The easiest thing to do is to:
  (1) clone the TA project*
  (2) load the plugins you are interested in
  (3) run setup.py dist_xo to generate a new .xo bundle
 
  * git clone git://git.sugarlabs.org/turtleart/mainline.git
 
  It may be useful to change the version number, for example, 160.1
  instead of 160 in activity/activity.info
 
   I will work more with the Launchpad. So far, it seems very much like
 the
   Arduino. Once I know more, I will start to talk to you about
   requirements
   for the plugin.
 
  OK. No hurry as I have my hands full at the moment.
 
   Thanks.
   Gerald
  
  
   On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.com
   wrote:
  
   On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
Hello.
   
I have been playing with the Turtle Blocks plugins for Follow Me,
 We
Do Robots, Lego Mindstorms, and Arduino. They installed perfectly
 in
Turtle Blocks (as expected).
   
I have two questions:
1. I will need to install Turtle Blocks and these plugins on 25-50
XO-1s. Do I have to do the plugins one by one on each machine?
  
   TurtleBot comes with all of the above plugins pre-installed.
   It is also possible to create a special spin of Turtle Art with just
   the plugins you want (several deployments do this and I could walk
 you
   through the process)
  
2. How do I go about requesting plug in(s) for the TI Launchpad?
  
   I need to know more about how to talk to the TI Launchpad and what
   sorts of interactions between it and TA you are looking for.
  
   -walter
   
Thanks.
Gerald
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
  
  
  
   --
   Walter Bender
   Sugar Labs
   http://www.sugarlabs.org
  
  
 
 
 
  --
  Walter Bender
  Sugar Labs
  http://www.sugarlabs.org
 
 



 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-05 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

Thanks for clarifying.
I am not sure of the interest either. Mine may be an unusual case. I have
We Dos and Mindstorms and Arduinos and Launchpads and so I am trying to
test them all. I imagine I will reduce the number of tools shortly.

Does that make sense?

Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 Speaking of WeDo, I have a decent handle on supporting multiple
 devices at once, but I am curious as to (1) there is sufficient
 interest; and (2) if there are insights into how best present multiple
 devices to the user.

 -walter

 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-05 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

I am using XO-1 build 12.1.0.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

  Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 14:00:35 -0400
  From: walter.ben...@gmail.com
  To: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; support-g...@laptop.org
  Subject: Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

 
  On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
  gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
   Thanks for the help last night on the Arduino plugin.
   I know what I need to do.
  
   And now, another question. I have been working with the plugin for We
 Do
   robots. The plugin is installed and the palette is where it is
 supposed to
   be. But, the We Do does not respond to the program.
  
   When I look at the Turtle Arts plugin page
   (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art/Plugins), I am
 directed
   to this link:
   https://github.com/itdaniher/WeDoMore/tree/master/udev
  
   to download directions for setting up permissions. However, there are
 two
   files there and I am not sure what to do with them.
 
  99-lego-WeDo.rules are the rules and install_driver.sh is the script
  to run to install them.

 The file 99-lego-WeDo.rules needs to be in: /etc/udev/rules.d (in the
 most linux versions)
 In the new Fedora changes for: /etc/udev...

 The Sugar 0.94? and newest have that rule included.
 I know that in Sugar 0.96 the rule is in place..


 
  -walter
 
  
   I would appreciate any help you can provide.
  
   Thanks.
   Gerald
  
   On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.com
   wrote:
  
   On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
Walter,
   
Thanks for the amazingly quick response.
I see TurtleBot. I would like to learn how to create my own spin, so
please
do walk me through it.
  
   The easiest thing to do is to:
   (1) clone the TA project*
   (2) load the plugins you are interested in
   (3) run setup.py dist_xo to generate a new .xo bundle
  
   * git clone git://git.sugarlabs.org/turtleart/mainline.git
  
   It may be useful to change the version number, for example, 160.1
   instead of 160 in activity/activity.info
  
I will work more with the Launchpad. So far, it seems very much
 like the
Arduino. Once I know more, I will start to talk to you about
requirements
for the plugin.
  
   OK. No hurry as I have my hands full at the moment.
  
Thanks.
Gerald
   
   
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.com
wrote:
   
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello.

 I have been playing with the Turtle Blocks plugins for Follow
 Me, We
 Do Robots, Lego Mindstorms, and Arduino. They installed
 perfectly in
 Turtle Blocks (as expected).

 I have two questions:
 1. I will need to install Turtle Blocks and these plugins on
 25-50
 XO-1s. Do I have to do the plugins one by one on each machine?
   
TurtleBot comes with all of the above plugins pre-installed.
It is also possible to create a special spin of Turtle Art with
 just
the plugins you want (several deployments do this and I could walk
 you
through the process)
   
 2. How do I go about requesting plug in(s) for the TI Launchpad?
   
I need to know more about how to talk to the TI Launchpad and what
sorts of interactions between it and TA you are looking for.
   
-walter

 Thanks.
 Gerald
 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
   
   
   
--
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
   
   
  
  
  
   --
   Walter Bender
   Sugar Labs
   http://www.sugarlabs.org
  
  
 
 
 
  --
  Walter Bender
  Sugar Labs
  http://www.sugarlabs.org
  ___
  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 -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-05 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

I did, but the We Do is not responding to the Turtle Art project.

Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 That version have the rules.. You only need install the plugin an try!

 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 14:09:56 -0400
 To: alan...@hotmail.com

 CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; support-g...@laptop.org
 Subject: Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

 Alan,

 I am using XO-1 build 12.1.0.

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
 alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

  Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 14:00:35 -0400
  From: walter.ben...@gmail.com
  To: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; support-g...@laptop.org
  Subject: Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

 
  On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
  gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
   Thanks for the help last night on the Arduino plugin.
   I know what I need to do.
  
   And now, another question. I have been working with the plugin for We
 Do
   robots. The plugin is installed and the palette is where it is
 supposed to
   be. But, the We Do does not respond to the program.
  
   When I look at the Turtle Arts plugin page
   (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art/Plugins), I am
 directed
   to this link:
   https://github.com/itdaniher/WeDoMore/tree/master/udev
  
   to download directions for setting up permissions. However, there are
 two
   files there and I am not sure what to do with them.
 
  99-lego-WeDo.rules are the rules and install_driver.sh is the script
  to run to install them.

 The file 99-lego-WeDo.rules needs to be in: /etc/udev/rules.d (in the
 most linux versions)
 In the new Fedora changes for: /etc/udev...

 The Sugar 0.94? and newest have that rule included.
 I know that in Sugar 0.96 the rule is in place..


 
  -walter
 
  
   I would appreciate any help you can provide.
  
   Thanks.
   Gerald
  
   On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.com
   wrote:
  
   On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
   gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
Walter,
   
Thanks for the amazingly quick response.
I see TurtleBot. I would like to learn how to create my own spin, so
please
do walk me through it.
  
   The easiest thing to do is to:
   (1) clone the TA project*
   (2) load the plugins you are interested in
   (3) run setup.py dist_xo to generate a new .xo bundle
  
   * git clone git://git.sugarlabs.org/turtleart/mainline.git
  
   It may be useful to change the version number, for example, 160.1
   instead of 160 in activity/activity.info
  
I will work more with the Launchpad. So far, it seems very much
 like the
Arduino. Once I know more, I will start to talk to you about
requirements
for the plugin.
  
   OK. No hurry as I have my hands full at the moment.
  
Thanks.
Gerald
   
   
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.com
wrote:
   
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello.

 I have been playing with the Turtle Blocks plugins for Follow
 Me, We
 Do Robots, Lego Mindstorms, and Arduino. They installed
 perfectly in
 Turtle Blocks (as expected).

 I have two questions:
 1. I will need to install Turtle Blocks and these plugins on
 25-50
 XO-1s. Do I have to do the plugins one by one on each machine?
   
TurtleBot comes with all of the above plugins pre-installed.
It is also possible to create a special spin of Turtle Art with
 just
the plugins you want (several deployments do this and I could walk
 you
through the process)
   
 2. How do I go about requesting plug in(s) for the TI Launchpad?
   
I need to know more about how to talk to the TI Launchpad and what
sorts of interactions between it and TA you are looking for.
   
-walter

 Thanks.
 Gerald
 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
   
   
   
--
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
   
   
  
  
  
   --
   Walter Bender
   Sugar Labs
   http://www.sugarlabs.org
  
  
 
 
 
  --
  Walter Bender
  Sugar Labs
  http://www.sugarlabs.org
  ___
  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 -- It's An Education
 Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-05 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

I think this is an important enhancement as well. I am thinking of some
kind of graphical distinction with the bricks, something like icons. The
colors get too noisy. Would you also need some rules then about which
bricks can and cannot connect together if we are crossing devices?

Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:11 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

  Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 14:03:21 -0400
  From: walter.ben...@gmail.com
  To: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; support-g...@laptop.org
  Subject: Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question
 
  Speaking of WeDo, I have a decent handle on supporting multiple
  devices at once, but I am curious as to (1) there is sufficient
  interest; and (2) if there are insights into how best present multiple
  devices to the user.

 It's an important enhancement. You can build a bigger robot that have
 more motors/sensors.
 I have the same problem with NXT plugin: How is a good way of show
 the diferent blocks? Create another palette for the second brick??


  -walter
 
  --
  Walter Bender
  Sugar Labs
  http://www.sugarlabs.org
  ___
  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 -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Tony,

I have been using the Energia IDE on my MacBook Pro for the Launchpad.
As I understand it, it is an Arduino variant, free and open source:
http://energia.nu/
I am not sure if it will run on the XO, but it is an option as I see it.

I look forward to hearing about your progress. I will share whatever I
learn as well.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 11:25 PM,  fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:
 Gerald

 Thanks for the update.

 I just this link to a project using the TI Launchpad as a robot brain:
 http://e2e.ti.com/group/microcontrollerprojects/m/msp430microcontrollerprojects/496334.aspx

 I am going to give it a try.

 I have just got my MSP430 launchpad and am planning the next step.

 http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/msp430_head.html
 It seems that there are 2 development IDE's: CCS and IAR
 Neither are open source but they are free when used with a 16kB code 
 limitation.

 MSPGCC is open source but only works from the command line, no graphic IDE. 
 Yamaplos documents the command line mspdebug at 
 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1 (I do not know if mspdebug 
 and MSPGCC are related)

 Currently Arduino, PIC, and LegoWeDo are being used with the OLPC XO with the 
 programming being done on the XO, either in TurtleArt or Scratch. The 
 electronics of the robotics kits are being used as I/O expanders. The 
 students are not programming the processors on the robotics kits. (I am not 
 sure what LegoNXT is doing).

 The Arduino is running Firmata software firmata.org/wiki/Protocol which turns 
 it into a dumb slave, I think the Butia team are using similar (but 
 different) software on their Arduino or PIC.

 Maybe the most productive approach is to find or write for the MSP430 a 
 Firmata emulator, then the MSP430 can be used as a replacement for the 
 Arduino, under control of TurtleArt (and maybe Scratch).

 The benefit is that the MSP430 is currently 1/10 the price of an Arduino. I 
 am concerned that this subsidised price may not continue indefinitely or that 
 schools may not be able to buy them in quantity though.

 I will look at MSP430 Firmata. So far I have installed the CCS IDE for 
 Windows (it looked easier than Linux). I will let you know my progress

 Tony


___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


[IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Hello.

I have been playing with the Turtle Blocks plugins for Follow Me, We
Do Robots, Lego Mindstorms, and Arduino. They installed perfectly in
Turtle Blocks (as expected).

I have two questions:
1. I will need to install Turtle Blocks and these plugins on 25-50
XO-1s. Do I have to do the plugins one by one on each machine?
2. How do I go about requesting plug in(s) for the TI Launchpad?

Thanks.
Gerald
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


Re: [IAEP] Turtle Blocks question

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

Thanks for the amazingly quick response.
I see TurtleBot. I would like to learn how to create my own spin, so please
do walk me through it.
I will work more with the Launchpad. So far, it seems very much like the
Arduino. Once I know more, I will start to talk to you about requirements
for the plugin.
Thanks.
Gerald

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
  Hello.
 
  I have been playing with the Turtle Blocks plugins for Follow Me, We
  Do Robots, Lego Mindstorms, and Arduino. They installed perfectly in
  Turtle Blocks (as expected).
 
  I have two questions:
  1. I will need to install Turtle Blocks and these plugins on 25-50
  XO-1s. Do I have to do the plugins one by one on each machine?

 TurtleBot comes with all of the above plugins pre-installed.
 It is also possible to create a special spin of Turtle Art with just
 the plugins you want (several deployments do this and I could walk you
 through the process)

  2. How do I go about requesting plug in(s) for the TI Launchpad?

 I need to know more about how to talk to the TI Launchpad and what
 sorts of interactions between it and TA you are looking for.

 -walter
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
  ___
  IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
  IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
  http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep



 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

[IAEP] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Tony,

I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
(Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the Arduino
IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click Start, I
get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.

How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?

Thanks so much.
Gerald
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

I have uploaded the newest version of Firmata to the Arduino board, and
still get the first error in your list.
Any thoughts about what I should do next?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 Hi,

 The Arduino plugin have some checks. This checks are:

 'ERROR: Check the Arduino and the number of port.'
 'ERROR: Value must be a number from 0 to 255.'
 'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'
 'ERROR: The mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or SERVO.'

 The Arduino board needs have the Firmata firmware [1].

 The checks are catched with try/excepts that not allows see what is wrong.
 I can make a version without it to test..

 Regards!

 Alan

 [1] http://firmata.org/wiki/Download

 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400
 To: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1


 Tony,

 I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
 (Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the
 Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
 Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
 using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click Start, I
 get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.

 How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?

 Thanks so much.
 Gerald

 ___ 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 -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

Thanks. I'll try it out.

Gerald

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 Replace this file in TurtleArt.activity/plugins/arduino/

 This file not have any calidation, if something is wrong, in the log will
 appears that.

 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:36:29 -0400
 Subject: Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
 To: alan...@hotmail.com
 CC: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org


 Alan,

 I have uploaded the newest version of Firmata to the Arduino board, and
 still get the first error in your list.
 Any thoughts about what I should do next?

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
 alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 Hi,

 The Arduino plugin have some checks. This checks are:

 'ERROR: Check the Arduino and the number of port.'
 'ERROR: Value must be a number from 0 to 255.'
 'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'
 'ERROR: The mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or SERVO.'

 The Arduino board needs have the Firmata firmware [1].

 The checks are catched with try/excepts that not allows see what is wrong.
 I can make a version without it to test..

 Regards!

 Alan

 [1] http://firmata.org/wiki/Download

 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400
 To: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1


 Tony,

 I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
 (Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the
 Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
 Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
 using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click Start, I
 get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.

 How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?

 Thanks so much.
 Gerald

 ___ 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 -- 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] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Tony,

Thanks.  I'll check it out.

Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:09 AM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:

 Gerald

 Maybe the baud rate or the device name do not match.

 Somewhere in the Arduino plugin code it searches for ttyusbn where n=1,2,3
 ...

 Your Arduino board could be ttyusbn or ttyacmn where n increments each
 time you replug the Arduino. Somewhere, I think /dev , you can see what
 your Arduino is.

 Somewhere in the Firmata listing the baud rate is set, check its the same
 in the plugin code.

 Tony

  Alan,
 
  I have uploaded the newest version of Firmata to the Arduino board, and
  still get the first error in your list.
  Any thoughts about what I should do next?
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
  alan...@hotmail.com wrote:
 
   Hi,
  
   The Arduino plugin have some checks. This checks are:
  
   'ERROR: Check the Arduino and the number of port.'
   'ERROR: Value must be a number from 0 to 255.'
   'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'
   'ERROR: The mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or SERVO.'
  
   The Arduino board needs have the Firmata firmware [1].
  
   The checks are catched with try/excepts that not allows see what is
 wrong.
   I can make a version without it to test..
  
   Regards!
  
   Alan
  
   [1] http://firmata.org/wiki/Download
  
   --
   From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
   Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400
   To: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
   iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
   Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
  
  
   Tony,
  
   I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
   (Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the
   Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
   Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
   using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click
 Start, I
   get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.
  
   How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?
  
   Thanks so much.
   Gerald
  
   ___ 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
  
 
  _
  This mail has been virus scanned by Australia On Line
  see http://www.australiaonline.net.au/mailscanning
  Alan,divbr/divdivI have uploaded the newest version of Firmata
 to the Arduino board, and still get the first error in your
 list./divdivAny thoughts about what I should do
 next?brbrThanks.brGeraldbrbrdiv class=gmail_quote
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn span
 dir=ltra href=mailto:alan...@hotmail.com; target=_blank
 alan...@hotmail.com/a/span wrote:brblockquote class=gmail_quote
 style=margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex
 
 
 
 
  divdiv dir=ltrHi,divbr/divdivThe Arduino plugin have some
 checks. This checks are:/divdivbr/divdivdiv'ERROR: Check the
 Arduino and the number of port.'/divdiv'ERROR: Value must be a number
 from 0 to 255.'/div
 
  div'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'/divdiv'ERROR: The
 mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or
 SERVO.'/divdivbr/divdivThe Arduino board needs have the Firmata
 firmware [1]./div
 
  divbr/divdivThe checks are catched with try/excepts that not
 allows see what is wrong./divdivI can make a version without it to
 test../divdivbr/divdivRegards!/divdivbr/divdivAlan/divdiv
 
  br/divdiv[1]�a href=http://firmata.org/wiki/Download;
 style=font-size:12pt 
 target=_blankhttp://firmata.org/wiki/Download/a/divbrdivdiv/divhrFrom:
 a href=mailto:gerald.ard...@gmail.com; target=_blank
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com/abr
 
  Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400brTo: a href=mailto:
 fors...@ozonline.com.au target=_blankfors...@ozonline.com.au/a; a
 href=mailto:support-g...@laptop.org; target=_blank
 support-g...@laptop.org/a; a href=mailto:iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org;
 target=_blankiaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/abr
 
  Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1divdiv
 class=h5brbrTony,divbr/divdivI have been trying to get the
 Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops./divdiv(Thanks to your great blog
 posts) I have successfully installed the Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it
 works great./div
 
 
 
  divTonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once
 again using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click
 Start, I get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.br
 
 
 
  brHow do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?brbrThanks so
 much.br/divdivGerald/div
  br/div/div___
  IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
  a href=mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org; 

Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
When I do the grep, I get nothing returned.
When I go into the /dev directory, there is nothing ttyUSBn.

What do I do now?
Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:21 AM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 If he have the latest version, the plugin makes a list of the ttyUSB
 availables and
 try get the first that works.

 The header of the Arduino Plugin says:

 self._dev = '/dev/ttyUSB0'
 self._baud = 57600
 self._arduino = None

 status,output = commands.getstatusoutput(ls /dev/ | grep ttyUSB)
 output = output.split('\n')
 for i in output:
 status,aux=commands.getstatusoutput(udevinfo -a -p /class/tty/%s
 | grep ftdi_sio  /dev/null % i)
 if (not status):
 self._dev='/dev/%s' % i
 break

 I'm not sure if the udevinfo commands exist in the XO.
 In my Ubuntu 12.10 I not have it, only the udevadm

 Which sugar version you have?

 In the Terminal Activity:

 check for the N of the arduino:

 ls /dev/ | grep ttyUSB

 After, check if exist the udevinfo:

 See the n, and replace the * in this line:

 udevinfo -a -p /class/ttyUSB* | grep ftdi_sio


 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 00:14:08 -0400
 Subject: Re: Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
 To: fors...@ozonline.com.au
 CC: alan...@hotmail.com; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org


 Tony,

 Thanks.  I'll check it out.

 Gerald

 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:09 AM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:

 Gerald

 Maybe the baud rate or the device name do not match.

 Somewhere in the Arduino plugin code it searches for ttyusbn where n=1,2,3
 ...

 Your Arduino board could be ttyusbn or ttyacmn where n increments each
 time you replug the Arduino. Somewhere, I think /dev , you can see what
 your Arduino is.

 Somewhere in the Firmata listing the baud rate is set, check its the same
 in the plugin code.

 Tony

  Alan,
 
  I have uploaded the newest version of Firmata to the Arduino board, and
  still get the first error in your list.
  Any thoughts about what I should do next?
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
  alan...@hotmail.com wrote:
 
   Hi,
  
   The Arduino plugin have some checks. This checks are:
  
   'ERROR: Check the Arduino and the number of port.'
   'ERROR: Value must be a number from 0 to 255.'
   'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'
   'ERROR: The mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or SERVO.'
  
   The Arduino board needs have the Firmata firmware [1].
  
   The checks are catched with try/excepts that not allows see what is
 wrong.
   I can make a version without it to test..
  
   Regards!
  
   Alan
  
   [1] http://firmata.org/wiki/Download
  
   --
   From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
   Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400
   To: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
   iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
   Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
  
  
   Tony,
  
   I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
   (Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the
   Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
   Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
   using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click
 Start, I
   get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.
  
   How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?
  
   Thanks so much.
   Gerald
  
   ___ 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
  
 
  _
  This mail has been virus scanned by Australia On Line
  see http://www.australiaonline.net.au/mailscanning
  Alan,divbr/divdivI have uploaded the newest version of Firmata
 to the Arduino board, and still get the first error in your
 list./divdivAny thoughts about what I should do
 next?brbrThanks.brGeraldbrbrdiv class=gmail_quote
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn span
 dir=ltra href=mailto:alan...@hotmail.com; target=_blank
 alan...@hotmail.com/a/span wrote:brblockquote class=gmail_quote
 style=margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex
 
 
 
 
  divdiv dir=ltrHi,divbr/divdivThe Arduino plugin have some
 checks. This checks are:/divdivbr/divdivdiv'ERROR: Check the
 Arduino and the number of port.'/divdiv'ERROR: Value must be a number
 from 0 to 255.'/div
 
  div'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'/divdiv'ERROR: The
 mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or
 SERVO.'/divdivbr/divdivThe Arduino board needs have the Firmata
 firmware [1]./div
 
  divbr/divdivThe checks are catched with try/excepts that not
 allows see what is 

Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

When I plug and unplug the board, I noticed changes to the list of stuff in
/dev.
When the Arduino is plugged in, I see /dev/ttyACHO (or ttyACMO). Does this
make sense?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:42 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
gerald.ard...@gmail.comwrote:

 When I do the grep, I get nothing returned.
 When I go into the /dev directory, there is nothing ttyUSBn.

 What do I do now?
 Gerald


 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:21 AM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
 alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 If he have the latest version, the plugin makes a list of the ttyUSB
 availables and
 try get the first that works.

 The header of the Arduino Plugin says:

 self._dev = '/dev/ttyUSB0'
 self._baud = 57600
 self._arduino = None

 status,output = commands.getstatusoutput(ls /dev/ | grep ttyUSB)
 output = output.split('\n')
 for i in output:
 status,aux=commands.getstatusoutput(udevinfo -a -p /class/tty/%s
 | grep ftdi_sio  /dev/null % i)
 if (not status):
 self._dev='/dev/%s' % i
 break

 I'm not sure if the udevinfo commands exist in the XO.
 In my Ubuntu 12.10 I not have it, only the udevadm

 Which sugar version you have?

 In the Terminal Activity:

 check for the N of the arduino:

 ls /dev/ | grep ttyUSB

 After, check if exist the udevinfo:

 See the n, and replace the * in this line:

 udevinfo -a -p /class/ttyUSB* | grep ftdi_sio


 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 00:14:08 -0400
 Subject: Re: Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
 To: fors...@ozonline.com.au
 CC: alan...@hotmail.com; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org


 Tony,

 Thanks.  I'll check it out.

 Gerald

 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:09 AM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:

 Gerald

 Maybe the baud rate or the device name do not match.

 Somewhere in the Arduino plugin code it searches for ttyusbn where
 n=1,2,3 ...

 Your Arduino board could be ttyusbn or ttyacmn where n increments each
 time you replug the Arduino. Somewhere, I think /dev , you can see what
 your Arduino is.

 Somewhere in the Firmata listing the baud rate is set, check its the same
 in the plugin code.

 Tony

  Alan,
 
  I have uploaded the newest version of Firmata to the Arduino board, and
  still get the first error in your list.
  Any thoughts about what I should do next?
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
  alan...@hotmail.com wrote:
 
   Hi,
  
   The Arduino plugin have some checks. This checks are:
  
   'ERROR: Check the Arduino and the number of port.'
   'ERROR: Value must be a number from 0 to 255.'
   'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'
   'ERROR: The mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or SERVO.'
  
   The Arduino board needs have the Firmata firmware [1].
  
   The checks are catched with try/excepts that not allows see what is
 wrong.
   I can make a version without it to test..
  
   Regards!
  
   Alan
  
   [1] http://firmata.org/wiki/Download
  
   --
   From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
   Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400
   To: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
   iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
   Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
  
  
   Tony,
  
   I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
   (Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the
   Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
   Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
   using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click
 Start, I
   get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.
  
   How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?
  
   Thanks so much.
   Gerald
  
   ___ 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
  
 
  _
  This mail has been virus scanned by Australia On Line
  see http://www.australiaonline.net.au/mailscanning
  Alan,divbr/divdivI have uploaded the newest version of Firmata
 to the Arduino board, and still get the first error in your
 list./divdivAny thoughts about what I should do
 next?brbrThanks.brGeraldbrbrdiv class=gmail_quote
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn span
 dir=ltra href=mailto:alan...@hotmail.com; target=_blank
 alan...@hotmail.com/a/span wrote:brblockquote
 class=gmail_quote style=margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
 solid;padding-left:1ex
 
 
 
 
  divdiv dir=ltrHi,divbr/divdivThe Arduino plugin have some
 checks. This checks are:/divdivbr/divdivdiv'ERROR: Check the
 Arduino and the number of port.'/divdiv'ERROR: Value must be a number
 from 0 to 255

Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1

2012-10-04 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

Upon doing some research, apparently /dev/ttyACM0 is  the identifier for
the board.

Do I have to modify the plugin? If so, how do I do this?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:42 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
gerald.ard...@gmail.comwrote:

 When I do the grep, I get nothing returned.
 When I go into the /dev directory, there is nothing ttyUSBn.

 What do I do now?
 Gerald


 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:21 AM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
 alan...@hotmail.com wrote:

 If he have the latest version, the plugin makes a list of the ttyUSB
 availables and
 try get the first that works.

 The header of the Arduino Plugin says:

 self._dev = '/dev/ttyUSB0'
 self._baud = 57600
 self._arduino = None

 status,output = commands.getstatusoutput(ls /dev/ | grep ttyUSB)
 output = output.split('\n')
 for i in output:
 status,aux=commands.getstatusoutput(udevinfo -a -p /class/tty/%s
 | grep ftdi_sio  /dev/null % i)
 if (not status):
 self._dev='/dev/%s' % i
 break

 I'm not sure if the udevinfo commands exist in the XO.
 In my Ubuntu 12.10 I not have it, only the udevadm

 Which sugar version you have?

 In the Terminal Activity:

 check for the N of the arduino:

 ls /dev/ | grep ttyUSB

 After, check if exist the udevinfo:

 See the n, and replace the * in this line:

 udevinfo -a -p /class/ttyUSB* | grep ftdi_sio


 --
 From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 00:14:08 -0400
 Subject: Re: Re: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
 To: fors...@ozonline.com.au
 CC: alan...@hotmail.com; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org


 Tony,

 Thanks.  I'll check it out.

 Gerald

 On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:09 AM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:

 Gerald

 Maybe the baud rate or the device name do not match.

 Somewhere in the Arduino plugin code it searches for ttyusbn where
 n=1,2,3 ...

 Your Arduino board could be ttyusbn or ttyacmn where n increments each
 time you replug the Arduino. Somewhere, I think /dev , you can see what
 your Arduino is.

 Somewhere in the Firmata listing the baud rate is set, check its the same
 in the plugin code.

 Tony

  Alan,
 
  I have uploaded the newest version of Firmata to the Arduino board, and
  still get the first error in your list.
  Any thoughts about what I should do next?
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn 
  alan...@hotmail.com wrote:
 
   Hi,
  
   The Arduino plugin have some checks. This checks are:
  
   'ERROR: Check the Arduino and the number of port.'
   'ERROR: Value must be a number from 0 to 255.'
   'ERROR: Value must be either HIGH or LOW.'
   'ERROR: The mode must be either INPUT, OUTPUT, PWM or SERVO.'
  
   The Arduino board needs have the Firmata firmware [1].
  
   The checks are catched with try/excepts that not allows see what is
 wrong.
   I can make a version without it to test..
  
   Regards!
  
   Alan
  
   [1] http://firmata.org/wiki/Download
  
   --
   From: gerald.ard...@gmail.com
   Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 23:09:03 -0400
   To: fors...@ozonline.com.au; support-g...@laptop.org;
   iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
   Subject: [IAEP] Arduino and XO-1
  
  
   Tony,
  
   I have been trying to get the Arduino to work with the XO-1 laptops.
   (Thanks to your great blog posts) I have successfully installed the
   Arduino IDE on the laptop, and it works great.
   Tonight, I installed the Arduino plugin for Turtle Art and (once again
   using your blog posts), created my first project. When I click
 Start, I
   get an error: Check the Arduino and the number of port.
  
   How do I do this with TurtleArt/outside the IDE?
  
   Thanks so much.
   Gerald
  
   ___ 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
  
 
  _
  This mail has been virus scanned by Australia On Line
  see http://www.australiaonline.net.au/mailscanning
  Alan,divbr/divdivI have uploaded the newest version of Firmata
 to the Arduino board, and still get the first error in your
 list./divdivAny thoughts about what I should do
 next?brbrThanks.brGeraldbrbrdiv class=gmail_quote
 
  On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn span
 dir=ltra href=mailto:alan...@hotmail.com; target=_blank
 alan...@hotmail.com/a/span wrote:brblockquote
 class=gmail_quote style=margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
 solid;padding-left:1ex
 
 
 
 
  divdiv dir=ltrHi,divbr/divdivThe Arduino plugin have some
 checks. This checks are:/divdivbr/divdivdiv'ERROR: Check the
 Arduino and the number of port.'/divdiv'ERROR: Value must be a number
 from 0 to 255.'/div
 
  div'ERROR: Value must

Re: [IAEP] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-10-03 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I just this link to a project using the TI Launchpad as a robot brain:
http://e2e.ti.com/group/microcontrollerprojects/m/msp430microcontrollerprojects/496334.aspx

I am going to give it a try.

Gerald

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 5:18 AM,  fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:
 You can have arduino IDE too with a yum install arduino I believe.

 Peter

 Yes, it worked for me
 http://tonyforster.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/arduino-and-xo-laptop.html
 Tony
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Re: [IAEP] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-09-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I have finally got to work on this.
Are there any GUI tools for the programming, or does it all have to be
via command line?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Luis Galindo llwwwl...@gmail.com wrote:
 I just bought the TI MSP430 to test it with the Xo 1.0.

 Thank you Yama :-)

 Luis

 El 10 de febrero de 2012 11:06, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com
 escribió:

 2012/2/10 Yamaplos . yamap...@gmail.com:
  The TI MSP430 chips are a very attractive alternative to add robotic
  options for XO / Sugar users. Microcontrolers are the brain behind
  many engineering hobby and educational pursuits, but many alternatives
  are expensive or very hard to run in the XO.
 
  The TI Launchpad board, with a G2553 microcontroler and an extra G2452
  in the box, is available from Texas Instruments for $4.30 USD,
  including shipping anywhere in the world (yes, hard to believe).
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MSP430_LaunchPad_%28MSP-EXP430G2%29
 
  Here are the instructions for running the Launchpad with the G2452.
  Maybe if the next iteratiuon of Sugar uses Fedora 15 we will be able
  to use the G2553 as well.
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1

 The next release will be based on F-17 but both those packages are
 listed. You might want to use one of the test releases based on F-17
 that I've released (new one coming soon) to make sure it all works OK
 and feedback any issues to ensure we get them fixed for the final
 release.

 Peter
 ___

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 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur



 ___
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Re: [IAEP] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-09-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Yama and Walter,
Thanks.
I was not as clear as I wanted to be. Arduino (or Energia, an
alternative) would be fine. I was speaking about using mspdebug, which
is purely command line based.

Walter,
I will play and then let you know about possible plug-ins. Turtle Art
would be a much better solution for the kids.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
 I have finally got to work on this.
 Are there any GUI tools for the programming, or does it all have to be
 via command line?

 If you figure out some useful command lines, we could probably make a
 TA plugin. (I've not got my hands of the device yet.)

 -walter


 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Luis Galindo llwwwl...@gmail.com wrote:
 I just bought the TI MSP430 to test it with the Xo 1.0.

 Thank you Yama :-)

 Luis

 El 10 de febrero de 2012 11:06, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com
 escribió:

 2012/2/10 Yamaplos . yamap...@gmail.com:
  The TI MSP430 chips are a very attractive alternative to add robotic
  options for XO / Sugar users. Microcontrolers are the brain behind
  many engineering hobby and educational pursuits, but many alternatives
  are expensive or very hard to run in the XO.
 
  The TI Launchpad board, with a G2553 microcontroler and an extra G2452
  in the box, is available from Texas Instruments for $4.30 USD,
  including shipping anywhere in the world (yes, hard to believe).
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MSP430_LaunchPad_%28MSP-EXP430G2%29
 
  Here are the instructions for running the Launchpad with the G2452.
  Maybe if the next iteratiuon of Sugar uses Fedora 15 we will be able
  to use the G2553 as well.
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1

 The next release will be based on F-17 but both those packages are
 listed. You might want to use one of the test releases based on F-17
 that I've released (new one coming soon) to make sure it all works OK
 and feedback any issues to ensure we get them fixed for the final
 release.

 Peter
 ___

 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur



 ___
 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur

 ___
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 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur



 --
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 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
 ___
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Re: [IAEP] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-09-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Peter,

That part worked perfectly!
I have just been used to the Arduino IDE, and so need to make a mental
change. And, more importantly, get more experience with the TI
Launchpad.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 5:01 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
 Yama and Walter,
 Thanks.
 I was not as clear as I wanted to be. Arduino (or Energia, an
 alternative) would be fine. I was speaking about using mspdebug, which
 is purely command line based.

 mspdebug is packaged in Fedora so it should be as simple as yum
 install mspdebug on an XO

 Peter

 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
 I have finally got to work on this.
 Are there any GUI tools for the programming, or does it all have to be
 via command line?

 If you figure out some useful command lines, we could probably make a
 TA plugin. (I've not got my hands of the device yet.)

 -walter


 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Luis Galindo llwwwl...@gmail.com wrote:
 I just bought the TI MSP430 to test it with the Xo 1.0.

 Thank you Yama :-)

 Luis

 El 10 de febrero de 2012 11:06, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com
 escribió:

 2012/2/10 Yamaplos . yamap...@gmail.com:
  The TI MSP430 chips are a very attractive alternative to add robotic
  options for XO / Sugar users. Microcontrolers are the brain behind
  many engineering hobby and educational pursuits, but many alternatives
  are expensive or very hard to run in the XO.
 
  The TI Launchpad board, with a G2553 microcontroler and an extra G2452
  in the box, is available from Texas Instruments for $4.30 USD,
  including shipping anywhere in the world (yes, hard to believe).
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MSP430_LaunchPad_%28MSP-EXP430G2%29
 
  Here are the instructions for running the Launchpad with the G2452.
  Maybe if the next iteratiuon of Sugar uses Fedora 15 we will be able
  to use the G2553 as well.
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1

 The next release will be based on F-17 but both those packages are
 listed. You might want to use one of the test releases based on F-17
 that I've released (new one coming soon) to make sure it all works OK
 and feedback any issues to ensure we get them fixed for the final
 release.

 Peter
 ___

 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur



 ___
 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur

 ___
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 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur



 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
 ___
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 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur
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Re: [IAEP] [OLE Bolivia] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-09-26 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Yama,

This worked great, and I wrote my first program (as indicated on the wiki).
You started a thread a while back about using the Launchpads for
robotics on the XO-1s. And this post turned me on to them. I have been
working with the Arduino, but these boards are pretty neat.
Have you been able to use them in robotics? Is your work documented somewhere.
Thanks.
Gerald

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 9:34 PM, Yama Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.com wrote:
 in Terminal:
 sudo yum install mspdebug msp430-libc
 It takes a while to complete, and seems to freeze a couple times for a
 minute or so (some 5-10 minutes or so total)

 In the more recent releases it finally works again - for at least a couple
 major Sugar releases the redirecting to the Fedora repositories was mangled.
 i.e.,
  if you do not use the most recent releases of Sugar, follow this
 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1#Error_:_cannot_retrieve_repository_metada
 Also, those earlier releases only handle MSP430 chips up to the 24xx family,
 not the more recent 25xx
 If you didn't have a better reason to update Sugar, this is a good one :-)
 (even if the newest Sugar doesn't allow for use of the Gnome desktop besides
 the image...)




 On 09/26/2012 11:14 AM, Peter Robinson wrote:

 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 5:01 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yama and Walter,
 Thanks.
 I was not as clear as I wanted to be. Arduino (or Energia, an
 alternative) would be fine. I was speaking about using mspdebug, which
 is purely command line based.

 mspdebug is packaged in Fedora so it should be as simple as yum
 install mspdebug on an XO

 Peter

 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:

 I have finally got to work on this.
 Are there any GUI tools for the programming, or does it all have to be
 via command line?

 If you figure out some useful command lines, we could probably make a
 TA plugin. (I've not got my hands of the device yet.)

 -walter

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Luis Galindo llwwwl...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just bought the TI MSP430 to test it with the Xo 1.0.

 Thank you Yama :-)

 Luis

 El 10 de febrero de 2012 11:06, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com
 escribió:

 2012/2/10 Yamaplos . yamap...@gmail.com:

 The TI MSP430 chips are a very attractive alternative to add robotic
 options for XO / Sugar users. Microcontrolers are the brain behind
 many engineering hobby and educational pursuits, but many alternatives
 are expensive or very hard to run in the XO.

 The TI Launchpad board, with a G2553 microcontroler and an extra G2452
 in the box, is available from Texas Instruments for $4.30 USD,
 including shipping anywhere in the world (yes, hard to believe).

 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MSP430_LaunchPad_%28MSP-EXP430G2%29

 Here are the instructions for running the Launchpad with the G2452.
 Maybe if the next iteratiuon of Sugar uses Fedora 15 we will be able
 to use the G2553 as well.

 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1

 The next release will be based on F-17 but both those packages are
 listed. You might want to use one of the test releases based on F-17
 that I've released (new one coming soon) to make sure it all works OK
 and feedback any issues to ensure we get them fixed for the final
 release.

 Peter
 ___

 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur


 ___
 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur

 ___
 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur


 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
 ___
 Lista olpc-Sur
 olpc-...@lists.laptop.org
 http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur

 ___
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 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

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 http://lists.ole.org/listinfo/bolivia


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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18

2012-09-20 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Daniel and others,

This thread has really inspired me. I am going to work with my
students to develop Sugar activities.
I have James' book. Are there other resources I need?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 4:16 AM, Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net wrote:


 --- On Wed, 9/19/12, S. Daniel Francis fran...@sugarlabs.org wrote:

 From: S. Daniel Francis fran...@sugarlabs.org
 Subject: Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
 To: Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net
 Cc: James Simmons nices...@gmail.com, iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org, 
 Sugar-dev Devel sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org, 
 community-n...@lists.sugarlabs.org
 Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 11:27 PM
 Hi Kevin,

 2012/9/19 Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net:
  Hearing from the kids who are making Sugar activities
 and more contributions, I'm really wanting to
  know what teaching environment made this possible?

 Summing my case all the cases I listened about, we usually
 learn by our self.
 Thinking about why Sugar, well, we could make desktop
 applications,
 but a free and decent way to share a program is difficult to
 find and
 there's not always a community where we can share what we
 make.

 While I can't speak for Sugar Labs, this sound like a very good problems to 
 address. Scratch has a website to 'upload' its programs. I would really 
 love to see a way to help young sugar activity hacker have a place for them 
 to 'hack' on their games/activities. Maybe Activities.sugarlabs.org or some 
 website in .uy? And maybe a forum? (I'm not someone to do this sadly but 
 would think that the very capable people around the sugar community would 
 find this idea motivating)

  Also I
 think Sugar needs activities, unlike desktops, where
 practically all
 is already made.

 Just Edward suggested us to tell our stories, but at the
 moment I'll
 not get into many details and only answer your questions.

  Are there activity hacking classes?
 In Uruguay there is only one activity hacking teacher:
 Flavio Danesse.

 OH wow. I have recently started to 'hack' on JAMedia and JAMediaTube. So I 
 know his work. I wonder if making videos of his lecture would be something he 
 could do and the kids could watch?

 He is an IT teacher, and every year he organizes a workshop
 where he
 teaches volunteer students to program in Python. The group
 Python
 Joven, in English Young Python..

 If you and others can make 'clubs' in your area, that would be great, maybe 
 they can setup a web 'forum' for everyone to exchange ideas.



 Currently, his students contributing here are Agustin
 Zubiaga and
 Cristhofer Travieso, they told me about another student who
 develops
 applications for Android.

  Is this kind of experimentation part of a turtleart
 class?
 For my part I can say yes and no... When I received my XO
 with Sugar
 I liked very much TurtleArt, but the teachers don't teach it
 very
 often, I had to look for documentation.

 Oh, that is sad, I'm surprised to read that.



 Have kids 'goggled' about programming on their own time
 and wanted to know about programming?
 Now you are right, I learn practically all 'googling'.
 Flavio's
 students told me they also learn(ed) a big part of what they
 know
 searching and investigating by them self.
 I think it's better because we can learn what we are
 interested in,
 also if it's not related with Sugar.

 yes that is true. learning what you want (being an auto-didact) is powerful.


  Are there computer programming classes and teachers
 that have assignments that ask the kids to explore?

 Programming is not often a subject at the school.
 I know about optional workshops, like Flavio's. My parents
 are
 teachers, and about three-four years ago, when I was ten
 years old, I
 used to go to the highschool where my parents worked and I
 listened to
 a workshop about web design (basic HTML development) and
 graphic
 design (with GIMP). That workshop was not a way to get
 young
 programmers, but it removed me the fear of seeing a source
 code as
 something strange or made for be understood by non-human
 people.

 Yes, many people have a fear of this 'scary' stuff. It something everyone who 
 wants to learn about programming has to face. Turtleart and Scratch was 
 suppose to help.


 Cheers.
 ~danielf

 P.S: Sorry, I don't speak English very well.

 Thanks you very much for your answers. I think you write English very well!
 -Kevin aka kevix
 ___
 Sugar-devel mailing list
 sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
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Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18

2012-09-20 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

Sounds good.
Thanks.
Gerald

P.S. And congratulations on the pending new arrival.

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 9:05 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
 Daniel and others,

 This thread has really inspired me. I am going to work with my
 students to develop Sugar activities.
 I have James' book. Are there other resources I need?

 I'd recommend using the Duplicate function in View Source. Have them
 make some changes to a favorite existing Sugar activity.

 regards.

 -walter


 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 4:16 AM, Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net wrote:


 --- On Wed, 9/19/12, S. Daniel Francis fran...@sugarlabs.org wrote:

 From: S. Daniel Francis fran...@sugarlabs.org
 Subject: Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
 To: Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net
 Cc: James Simmons nices...@gmail.com, iaep 
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org, Sugar-dev Devel 
 sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org, community-n...@lists.sugarlabs.org
 Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 11:27 PM
 Hi Kevin,

 2012/9/19 Kevin Mark kevin.m...@verizon.net:
  Hearing from the kids who are making Sugar activities
 and more contributions, I'm really wanting to
  know what teaching environment made this possible?

 Summing my case all the cases I listened about, we usually
 learn by our self.
 Thinking about why Sugar, well, we could make desktop
 applications,
 but a free and decent way to share a program is difficult to
 find and
 there's not always a community where we can share what we
 make.

 While I can't speak for Sugar Labs, this sound like a very good problems to 
 address. Scratch has a website to 'upload' its programs. I would really 
 love to see a way to help young sugar activity hacker have a place for them 
 to 'hack' on their games/activities. Maybe Activities.sugarlabs.org or some 
 website in .uy? And maybe a forum? (I'm not someone to do this sadly but 
 would think that the very capable people around the sugar community would 
 find this idea motivating)

  Also I
 think Sugar needs activities, unlike desktops, where
 practically all
 is already made.

 Just Edward suggested us to tell our stories, but at the
 moment I'll
 not get into many details and only answer your questions.

  Are there activity hacking classes?
 In Uruguay there is only one activity hacking teacher:
 Flavio Danesse.

 OH wow. I have recently started to 'hack' on JAMedia and JAMediaTube. So I 
 know his work. I wonder if making videos of his lecture would be something 
 he could do and the kids could watch?

 He is an IT teacher, and every year he organizes a workshop
 where he
 teaches volunteer students to program in Python. The group
 Python
 Joven, in English Young Python..

 If you and others can make 'clubs' in your area, that would be great, maybe 
 they can setup a web 'forum' for everyone to exchange ideas.



 Currently, his students contributing here are Agustin
 Zubiaga and
 Cristhofer Travieso, they told me about another student who
 develops
 applications for Android.

  Is this kind of experimentation part of a turtleart
 class?
 For my part I can say yes and no... When I received my XO
 with Sugar
 I liked very much TurtleArt, but the teachers don't teach it
 very
 often, I had to look for documentation.

 Oh, that is sad, I'm surprised to read that.



 Have kids 'goggled' about programming on their own time
 and wanted to know about programming?
 Now you are right, I learn practically all 'googling'.
 Flavio's
 students told me they also learn(ed) a big part of what they
 know
 searching and investigating by them self.
 I think it's better because we can learn what we are
 interested in,
 also if it's not related with Sugar.

 yes that is true. learning what you want (being an auto-didact) is powerful.


  Are there computer programming classes and teachers
 that have assignments that ask the kids to explore?

 Programming is not often a subject at the school.
 I know about optional workshops, like Flavio's. My parents
 are
 teachers, and about three-four years ago, when I was ten
 years old, I
 used to go to the highschool where my parents worked and I
 listened to
 a workshop about web design (basic HTML development) and
 graphic
 design (with GIMP). That workshop was not a way to get
 young
 programmers, but it removed me the fear of seeing a source
 code as
 something strange or made for be understood by non-human
 people.

 Yes, many people have a fear of this 'scary' stuff. It something everyone 
 who wants to learn about programming has to face. Turtleart and Scratch was 
 suppose to help.


 Cheers.
 ~danielf

 P.S: Sorry, I don't speak English very well.

 Thanks you very much for your answers. I think you write English very well!
 -Kevin aka kevix
 ___
 Sugar-devel mailing list
 sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel

Re: [IAEP] [SLOBS] meeting reminder

2012-09-17 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I'll be there.
Gerald

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Sebastian Silva
sebast...@somosazucar.org wrote:
 I'll be there.
 Regards,

 Sebastian

 On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 08:04:20 -0400
 Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:

 For once I remembered to send a meeting reminder :P

 We (the Sugar Labs Oversight Board) will be meeting tomorrow (Tuesday,
 September 18) at 17:00 EST, (21:00 UTC) on irc.freenode.net
 (#sugar-meeting).

 Please join us for a discussion of our annual report to the Software
 Freedom Conservancy and some topics regarding our programs in
 internationalization (i18n).

 regards.

 -walter
 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
 ___
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 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
 ___
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 sl...@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/slobs
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Re: [IAEP] [SLOBS] scheduling our next meeting

2012-09-14 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
+1

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 7:57 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:
 I forgot to send out a reminder about yesterday's meeting and thus we
 did not have a quorum. I'd like to try again early next week. How
 about Tuesday, 18 September at 17:00 EST, (21:00 UTC).

 Topics include our year-end summary for the SFC and  Endangered
 Languages Project.

 regards.

 -walter

 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
 ___
 SLOBs mailing list
 sl...@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/slobs
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Re: [IAEP] [SLOBS] Local Labs motion

2012-05-30 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
+1

Gerald

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 7:13 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:
 Buried in the meeting log [1] is a motion [5] to adopt three changes
 [2, 3, 4] to the Trademark [6] and Local Labs [7] pages in the wiki.
 The motion was seconded and we began a vote, but whereas it seemed to
 be a controversial decision, I though it prudent to ask those who were
 not able to attend today's Sugar Labs oversight board meeting to also
 vote.

 So far,

 walter +1
 cjl +1

 icarito -1

 alsroot has not voted yet.

 cjb, canoeberry, and geralda were not present.

 Please respond to this email with your vote.

 Also, there was motion [8], not yet seconded, to ask Tony if he was OK
 with a change in the wording of [4]. There was not consensus on the
 wording, but there was consensus on asking for Tony's input.

 Tony, could you please chime in?

 thanks.

 -walter

 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org


 [1] http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2012-05-30T21:08:10
 [2] 
 http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2012-05-30T21:08:10#i_2739410
 [3] 
 http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2012-05-30T21:08:10#i_2739421
 [4] 
 http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2012-05-30T21:08:10#i_2739445
 [5] 
 http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2012-05-30T21:08:10#i_2739570
 [6] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Trademark
 [7] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Local_Labs
 [8] 
 http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2012-05-30T21:08:10#i_2739707
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Re: [IAEP] [SLOBS] meeting proposal: Thursday, 3 May, at 21:00 UTC (17:00 EST)

2012-04-27 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I'll be there.

Gerald

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Chris Ball c...@laptop.org wrote:

 Hi,

 On Fri, Apr 27 2012, Walter Bender wrote:
  It has been a while. A few things to catch up on. Can we muster a
  quorum for the proposed date/time?

 I'll be there.

 Thanks,

 - Chris.
 --
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Re: [IAEP] [Sur] TI MSP430 running on XO 1 - Robotics!

2012-02-11 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Yama,

Thanks so much for sharing this.
I am planning to order some to test out with my students on the XOs.

Perhaps we can open some wiki pages devoted to this?

Cheers,
Gerald

2012/2/11 Luis Galindo llwwwl...@gmail.com

 I just bought the TI MSP430 to test it with the Xo 1.0.

 Thank you Yama :-)

 Luis

 El 10 de febrero de 2012 11:06, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.comescribió:

 2012/2/10 Yamaplos . yamap...@gmail.com:
  The TI MSP430 chips are a very attractive alternative to add robotic
  options for XO / Sugar users. Microcontrolers are the brain behind
  many engineering hobby and educational pursuits, but many alternatives
  are expensive or very hard to run in the XO.
 
  The TI Launchpad board, with a G2553 microcontroler and an extra G2452
  in the box, is available from Texas Instruments for $4.30 USD,
  including shipping anywhere in the world (yes, hard to believe).
 
 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MSP430_LaunchPad_%28MSP-EXP430G2%29
 
  Here are the instructions for running the Launchpad with the G2452.
  Maybe if the next iteratiuon of Sugar uses Fedora 15 we will be able
  to use the G2553 as well.
 
  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OLPC_XO-1

 The next release will be based on F-17 but both those packages are
 listed. You might want to use one of the test releases based on F-17
 that I've released (new one coming soon) to make sure it all works OK
 and feedback any issues to ensure we get them fixed for the final
 release.

 Peter
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Re: [IAEP] What makes examples good for novices? and How do we tell if an example is good for novices?

2012-02-02 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Steve,

Your question made me think about research I read about a couple of years
ago. The researcher was investigating narratives between patients and
doctors. Their major finding was that patients naturally needed to narrate
what they were experiencing, and that close to 100% of the time, the doctor
stopped them from talking.

What makes the examples good is that are narrative, rather than functional.
For example, I want to do this, instead of here's how you define a class.

I hope this helps.

Gerald

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 7:56 PM, Steve Thomas sthom...@gosargon.com wrote:

 So I am taking a P2PU course On How to Teach Web Programmin to Free Range
 Learnershttp://p2pu.org/en/groups/how-to-teach-webcraft-and-programming-to-free-range-students/and
  a couple of questions came up:

 So I pose them to the community:

1. What makes examples good for novices?
2. How do we tell if an example is good for novices?

 Also where can I find a good set of examples for learning programming?

 It would be nice to have a curated set of Great literature.

 Pointers to any research on the topic would be appreciated.

 Stephen

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Re: [IAEP] something to aspire to...

2012-01-08 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
What about an Activity (maybe branching from Physics) that would allow
children to build their own virtual Rube Goldberg machines?
I would be happy to help.

Gerald

2012/1/8 Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com


 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/nyregion/brooklyns-joseph-herscher-and-his-rube-goldberg-machines.html

 -walter

 --
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Re: [IAEP] Sugar Labs Website Revamp IRC Mtg 1-8-12 11:00amEST(16:00UTC)

2012-01-08 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Christian,

I'll be there.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 2:21 PM, Christian Marc Schmidt 
christianm...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi all

 We met today on IRC to discuss the website design and content, but not
 many were present. It is important that we get your feedback as the work on
 the website progresses. Therefor, I am looking to reschedule our meeting to
 another time that works for everyone. See John's original email below: We
 are looking for feedback on the design as well as volunteers to help us
 generate content for the new website.

 Does this coming Saturday 14th at 11:00am EST/16:00 UTC work for everyone?
 Or is a time during the week better? Suggestions welcome.

 Thank you,


 Christian


 On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:10 PM, John Tierney jtis4...@hotmail.com wrote:

  Hello All,

 Happy New Year! As the New Year starts we are making another effort to
 restart the
 Sugar Labs Website Revamp.

 Designer and community member Christian Marc Schmidt has put together a
 Design Template along with a
 Sugar Labs Website Refresh: Content Document. These two documents along
 with the work and content
 gathering done by RIT Co-op students Mike Devine and JT Mengel last year
 will hopefully give us solid basis
 to start from.

 Our Kick-off IRC meeting will take place this Sunday Jan. 8th
 on#sugar-meeting at 11:00amEST(16:00UTC),
 after the Design Meeting surrounding Write To Journal Anytime taking
 place at 10:00amEST.

 Please join us if you are available-our key shortcoming last year in our
 attempt was a lack of content to effectively
 create the new site. All help is Welcome and needed.

 Because this is in the Building and Design stage please email me at:
 jtis4...@hotmail.com to get links to the preview
 documents if you are interested in being part of the process.

 Our First Step is to give Christian the Thumbs Up/Make Enhancements to
 the Design.

 Our Second Step will look to get individual community members to take
 responsibility in Content Gathering Areas that flow out of
 the documents Christian has prepared.

 Our Third Step is to execute Content Gathering

 Upon receiving enough content Christian will then commence the build
 phase.

 We hope you can join us on Sunday and look forward to working with the
 community to do this important
 work. Please let us know of your interest in taking part in this
 important endeavor.

 Appreciate the Collaboration!
 John Tierney

 P.S. Please get into the hands of those who will be best able to
 assist-Thank You!




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 anyth...@christianmarcschmidt.com
 917/ 575 0013

 http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com
 http://www.facebook.com/christianmarcschmidt
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmarcschmidt
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Re: [IAEP] [SLOBS] scheduling future meetings

2011-12-08 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
It's good for me, too.
Gerald

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 I've not heard back from everyone yet, but it seems that Tuesdays at
 4PM EST (21 UTC) may work. Let's schedule our next meeting for the
 20th?

 regards.

 -walter

 --
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 Sugar Labs
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Re: [IAEP] Why is Scratch more popular than Etoys?

2011-09-11 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I have been using Scratch and Etoys with students in grades 5-8 for the past
4 years or so. In this work, I have seen an interesting pattern. The younger
students (5th and 6th graders) ALWAYS prefer Etoys to Scratch. (I am talking
here about first exposure).They love the drawing component and then being
able to make their drawings move or do something. The older students ALWAYS
prefer Scratch. They get the bricks metaphor right away and so can get
things done very quickly.

And sometimes students using Etoys get frustrated because there are so many
options and choices and opportunities for functionality.

What is also interesting is the degree to which the tools are owned by the
students. Whichever one they are using starts to become a powerful form of
expression for them so that, if given the opportunity, they will use it to
complete projects and presentations, etc.

I just wanted to add this experience to the conversation.

Gerald

On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:54 PM, Maria Droujkova droujk...@gmail.comwrote:

 Scratch looks a bit more sleek (modern?) and is a bit easier to use. I
 think these bits add up.

 I think Scratch has easier media tools, but I may be mistaken there - maybe
 I just don't know how to use Etoys media tools.

 Cheers,
 Maria Droujkova
 919-388-1721

 Make math your own, to make your own math




 On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 10:04 PM, Steve Thomas sthom...@gosargon.comwrote:

 I have taught both Scratch and Etoys to kids and hands down most kids
 prefer Scratch.  I also prefer Scratch for certain things, but prefer Etoys
 for most learning and teaching.

 What can we learn from Scratch (and TurtleArt et al) to improve Etoys?
  And vice versa what can be done to improve Scratch?
 .
 I have ideas, which I will share later, but I am curious to hear the
 thoughts of others (as mine add nothing to my current understanding and
 repeating them will simply further ingrain incomplete and incorrect
 assumptions and prejudices ;)

 Stephen
 P.S. I fully believe kids should learn multiple languages and am not
 looking for the one ring to rule them all.  Each language/environment has
 its advantages and we need multiple.

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Re: [IAEP] Update on the Sugar Labs website refresh

2011-06-30 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Sean,

I would be happy to participate on the panel.
Gerald

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 7:11 AM, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:

 Many thanks Christian for this update

 Yes I too saw that although Walter (the Sugar Digest [1]), myself (on
 the lists [2] plus the olpcnews piece [3]), John (on the lists [4]),
 JT  Mike (on the lists [5]) all asked for content, there was little
 or no reaction. I believe we need to ask more concretely, i.e. for
 the X page we need a Y visual - even if this means a list of
 requests. I can't help but feel that the day the new site goes live
 there will be complaints, while assistance now will make the site the
 best it can be!

 Another next step is to assemble a teacher panel to assess the site
 usability. The Marketlab study [6] clearly showed that teachers are
 not finding the information they need on our current sites, and
 coupled with the high technical barriers to installing and configuring
 Sugar means we discourage too many teachers from even trying
 Activities. Teachers, contact us please to participate in the panel!

 thanks

 Sean

 1. http://walterbender.org/?p=431
 2. http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2011-March/012783.html
 3.
 http://www.olpcnews.com/software/sugar/teachers_help_us_improve_the_sugarlabs_website.html
 4. http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2011-April/012959.html
 5. http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2011-April/012843.html,
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/dextrose/2011-April/001234.html
 6. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team#MIT_Sloan_MarketLab_Study


 On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:22 PM, Christian Marc Schmidt
 anyth...@christianmarcschmidt.com wrote:
  Hi everyone,
 
  John and I wanted to give you a brief update on the status of the
  website. For the last few months we had the benefit of working with
  two RIT students, JT and Mike, who helped us take initial steps in
  launching a new and improved public-facing website. With their help,
  we identified the shortcomings of the current site and the
  opportunities for (a) better articulating the Sugar value proposition
  and (b) keeping the site current with events and progress made by the
  developer community.
 
  There were a few learnings along the way: While JT and Mike were able
  to gather and produce a fair number of assets, it was far more
  difficult to get all the content we had hoped for and which we know
  does exist. This means that we will be reaching out to the community
  again in a short while to help us fill in the missing pieces. In the
  meantime, thank you to all of you who helped to provide content in the
  first round!
 
  Next steps are to make further traction on the UI design in order to
  give us a scaffold to populate with content as it comes in. This will
  be happening over the next few weeks, and we'll keep all of you
  updated when there are opportunities for feedback.
 
  Thanks, and more to come,
 
 
  Christian
 
  --
  anyth...@christianmarcschmidt.com
  917/ 575 0013
 
  http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com
  http://www.facebook.com/christianmarcschmidt
  http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmarcschmidt
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Re: [IAEP] Turtles All The Way Out

2011-06-07 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter and Edward,

I am very interested in this conversation.
As you know, I have been working with 5th graders and XO Laptops for the
past 3 years in the middle school in which I teach.
For next year, I have designed a pilot program to teach our 6th graders
about programming software and devices. I have seen the sequence as
beginning with software and then leading to robots of some kind.
I think Turtle Art is a perfect place to start, especially given this
conversation, and the availability of the XOs.
So, I am willing to test out the work you are doing with these students.

I have some questions:
1. Will the recent version of Turtle Art (Turtle Blocks) run on the latest
XO build?
2. In order to use sensors, what kind of devices are you talking about
(WeDos?; Arduino? Something else?).
3. Do you have or know of a curriculum that addresses our project?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 8:11 PM, John Gilmore g...@toad.com wrote:

 I had to think about this some before having a useful response.


 Lots of good ideas here, so thank you for taking the time.


  I cannot speak for every Sugar developer, but the approach I have tried
 to
  take with Turtle Art is a bit different than you are describing. The
  block-based programming environment is not meant to be a substitute for
 real
  tools; it is meant to be a place to get started; to learn that you can
 write
  and modify code; and to provide multiple motivations and launch pads for
  getting into the real thing. I've worked pretty hard to make the
  structured thing behind the view more approachable, and have provided
  multiple ways in and out: exporting your fluffy view into Logo that
 can be
  run in Brian Harvey's text-based Logo environment; direct, in-line
  extensions written in Python; the ability to create new blocks by
 importing
  Python; a plugin mechanism for making major interventions; and a
 refactoring
  of the underlying structures to make the code more approachable. (The
 source
  code is peppered with comments and examples of how to make
 modifications.)
  None of these interventions are intended to keep the kids programming in
  Turtle Art. They are all intended to get the kids started down the path
 of
  real programming. But I content that we need to engage them; let them

  discover that they can write code; and make changes; and that it is not
  something just for others but for everyone.

 Walter, this is a worthwhile approach.

 But it was all invisible from an OLPC user's point of view (i.e. a
 child's).  All they get is a GUI in which they can hook blocks
 together and see graphics.

 Even finding the library of fun looking pre-existing designs was hard
 (it's hiding behind a bizarre looking icon that you can't even see
 until you go to a different tab in the Frame than the default one).
 If you show a kid how to find one of those designs, they get the idea
 of TurtleArt, and can modify them to see how the design changes.
 Until they see a complete, working design in 10 blocks including a
 loop, TurtleArt is a morass where new users can drag things around but
 it doesn't do anything fun.

 (Note I'm working from memory of a several-year-old TurtleArt.  Perhaps
 it's better now.)


 Please grab a recent version. It is quite different from even a year ago.


 (Also, it's hard to make the leap from a slow turtle leaving marks
 behind as it goes two steps and turns, to the whole screen being
 filled with colors in a flash.  Most things in the world don't have
 the many-orders-of-magnitude speedups that we in computing have become
 blase about.  It wouldn't occur to us that to paint an entire wall in
 a second, we should tell the painter to move the brush one inch and
 then repeat that over and over until done.  We'd look for a spray gun,
 or toss a whole bucket of paint, or recruit a crowd of painters, or
 something.  Fast things and painstaking things aren't disjoint in
 computing, as they are elsewhere; how do you teach that powerful insight?)


 Cute idea for a project: fill the screen. There are of course many ways
 to do it: from using the fill-screen block to setting the pen size to the
 screen width to discovering the repeat block to discovering that you can
 launch as many turtles as you'd like, each of which has a pen.


  I am open to suggestions as to how to get more kids to move on from
 Turtle
  Art to ___ (insert you favorite real programming environment here).

 First, have Turtle Art start up not with a blank slate, but by
 bringing in one of the predefined designs -- preferably at random, so
 they'll see more of the corpus as they run it over and over.


 I have gone back and forth on this one. I think that you are right: I
 should start with a program on the screen, probably a simple example of a
 spiral that introduces the concepts of loops and variables (and perhaps
 sensors).



 Second, I suggest that if some blocks are 

Re: [IAEP] Turtles All The Way Out

2011-06-07 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

Thanks. And I'll check out Fred Martin's book.
If you are up for another visit to us in the Fall to do some more intensive
Turtle Art work, we'd love to have you.


Gerald

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 Walter and Edward,

 I am very interested in this conversation.
 As you know, I have been working with 5th graders and XO Laptops for the
 past 3 years in the middle school in which I teach.
 For next year, I have designed a pilot program to teach our 6th graders
 about programming software and devices. I have seen the sequence as
 beginning with software and then leading to robots of some kind.
 I think Turtle Art is a perfect place to start, especially given this
 conversation, and the availability of the XOs.
 So, I am willing to test out the work you are doing with these students.

  I have some questions:
 1. Will the recent version of Turtle Art (Turtle Blocks) run on the latest
 XO build?

 Yes. v108 should run on any XO build.

 2. In order to use sensors, what kind of devices are you talking about
 (WeDos?; Arduino? Something else?).

 Those are all nice, but just using the microphone in works nicely. Plus you
 have the camera.


 3. Do you have or know of a curriculum that addresses our project?

 There are lots of bits and pieces. Regarding robots, there is a nice book
 written by Fred Martin that came out maybe 5 years ago. (Fred was one of the
 principal designers of the original Lego robotics kits at MIT and helped
 develop with 6.270 curriculum. He teaches at UMass-Lowell.

 enjoy.

 -walter


 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 8:11 PM, John Gilmore g...@toad.com wrote:

 I had to think about this some before having a useful response.


 Lots of good ideas here, so thank you for taking the time.


  I cannot speak for every Sugar developer, but the approach I have
 tried to
  take with Turtle Art is a bit different than you are describing. The
  block-based programming environment is not meant to be a substitute
 for real
  tools; it is meant to be a place to get started; to learn that you can
 write
  and modify code; and to provide multiple motivations and launch pads
 for
  getting into the real thing. I've worked pretty hard to make the
  structured thing behind the view more approachable, and have
 provided
  multiple ways in and out: exporting your fluffy view into Logo that
 can be
  run in Brian Harvey's text-based Logo environment; direct, in-line
  extensions written in Python; the ability to create new blocks by
 importing
  Python; a plugin mechanism for making major interventions; and a
 refactoring
  of the underlying structures to make the code more approachable. (The
 source
  code is peppered with comments and examples of how to make
 modifications.)
  None of these interventions are intended to keep the kids programming
 in
  Turtle Art. They are all intended to get the kids started down the
 path of
  real programming. But I content that we need to engage them; let
 them

  discover that they can write code; and make changes; and that it is
 not
  something just for others but for everyone.

 Walter, this is a worthwhile approach.

 But it was all invisible from an OLPC user's point of view (i.e. a
 child's).  All they get is a GUI in which they can hook blocks
 together and see graphics.

 Even finding the library of fun looking pre-existing designs was hard
 (it's hiding behind a bizarre looking icon that you can't even see
 until you go to a different tab in the Frame than the default one).
 If you show a kid how to find one of those designs, they get the idea
 of TurtleArt, and can modify them to see how the design changes.
 Until they see a complete, working design in 10 blocks including a
 loop, TurtleArt is a morass where new users can drag things around but
 it doesn't do anything fun.

 (Note I'm working from memory of a several-year-old TurtleArt.  Perhaps
 it's better now.)


 Please grab a recent version. It is quite different from even a year ago.



 (Also, it's hard to make the leap from a slow turtle leaving marks
 behind as it goes two steps and turns, to the whole screen being
 filled with colors in a flash.  Most things in the world don't have
 the many-orders-of-magnitude speedups that we in computing have become
 blase about.  It wouldn't occur to us that to paint an entire wall in
 a second, we should tell the painter to move the brush one inch and
 then repeat that over and over until done.  We'd look for a spray gun,
 or toss a whole bucket of paint, or recruit a crowd of painters, or
 something.  Fast things and painstaking things aren't disjoint in
 computing, as they are elsewhere; how do you teach that powerful
 insight?)


 Cute idea for a project: fill the screen. There are of course many ways
 to do it: from using

Re: [IAEP] Turtles All The Way Out

2011-06-07 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

That would be great. Thanks.
Can you look and see when in September might work for you?

Gerald

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:17 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 Walter,

 Thanks. And I'll check out Fred Martin's book.
 If you are up for another visit to us in the Fall to do some more
 intensive Turtle Art work, we'd love to have you.


 Sounds like fun. Maybe early in the semester to get them up and running.

 -walter




 Gerald


 On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito 
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:

 Walter and Edward,

 I am very interested in this conversation.
 As you know, I have been working with 5th graders and XO Laptops for the
 past 3 years in the middle school in which I teach.
 For next year, I have designed a pilot program to teach our 6th graders
 about programming software and devices. I have seen the sequence as
 beginning with software and then leading to robots of some kind.
 I think Turtle Art is a perfect place to start, especially given this
 conversation, and the availability of the XOs.
 So, I am willing to test out the work you are doing with these students.

  I have some questions:
 1. Will the recent version of Turtle Art (Turtle Blocks) run on the
 latest XO build?

 Yes. v108 should run on any XO build.

 2. In order to use sensors, what kind of devices are you talking about
 (WeDos?; Arduino? Something else?).

 Those are all nice, but just using the microphone in works nicely. Plus
 you have the camera.


 3. Do you have or know of a curriculum that addresses our project?

 There are lots of bits and pieces. Regarding robots, there is a nice book
 written by Fred Martin that came out maybe 5 years ago. (Fred was one of the
 principal designers of the original Lego robotics kits at MIT and helped
 develop with 6.270 curriculum. He teaches at UMass-Lowell.

 enjoy.

 -walter


 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Walter Bender 
 walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 8:11 PM, John Gilmore g...@toad.com wrote:

 I had to think about this some before having a useful response.


 Lots of good ideas here, so thank you for taking the time.


  I cannot speak for every Sugar developer, but the approach I have
 tried to
  take with Turtle Art is a bit different than you are describing. The
  block-based programming environment is not meant to be a substitute
 for real
  tools; it is meant to be a place to get started; to learn that you
 can write
  and modify code; and to provide multiple motivations and launch pads
 for
  getting into the real thing. I've worked pretty hard to make the
  structured thing behind the view more approachable, and have
 provided
  multiple ways in and out: exporting your fluffy view into Logo
 that can be
  run in Brian Harvey's text-based Logo environment; direct, in-line
  extensions written in Python; the ability to create new blocks by
 importing
  Python; a plugin mechanism for making major interventions; and a
 refactoring
  of the underlying structures to make the code more approachable.
 (The source
  code is peppered with comments and examples of how to make
 modifications.)
  None of these interventions are intended to keep the kids
 programming in
  Turtle Art. They are all intended to get the kids started down the
 path of
  real programming. But I content that we need to engage them; let
 them

  discover that they can write code; and make changes; and that it is
 not
  something just for others but for everyone.

 Walter, this is a worthwhile approach.

 But it was all invisible from an OLPC user's point of view (i.e. a
 child's).  All they get is a GUI in which they can hook blocks
 together and see graphics.

 Even finding the library of fun looking pre-existing designs was hard
 (it's hiding behind a bizarre looking icon that you can't even see
 until you go to a different tab in the Frame than the default one).
 If you show a kid how to find one of those designs, they get the idea
 of TurtleArt, and can modify them to see how the design changes.
 Until they see a complete, working design in 10 blocks including a
 loop, TurtleArt is a morass where new users can drag things around but
 it doesn't do anything fun.

 (Note I'm working from memory of a several-year-old TurtleArt.
  Perhaps
 it's better now.)


 Please grab a recent version. It is quite different from even a year
 ago.


 (Also, it's hard to make the leap from a slow turtle leaving marks
 behind as it goes two steps and turns, to the whole screen being
 filled with colors in a flash.  Most things in the world don't have
 the many-orders-of-magnitude speedups that we in computing have become
 blase about.  It wouldn't occur to us that to paint an entire wall in
 a second, we should tell the painter to move the brush one inch and
 then repeat

Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] New activity from OLPC France

2011-04-18 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Walter,

The type of lab notebook activity you describe could be extended beyond the
cooking area. I can see students using this for all kinds of scientific
investigations.

My two cents.
Gerald

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 7:47 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Stefanie Nobel
 stefanie.no...@googlemail.com wrote:
  Hello,
 
  I’m glad to present you a new project from OLPC France. For the next six
  months we will develop a new playful software, which aims at educating
  children about a healthier nutrition.
  In this game children are taking care of an avatar by providing him with
  meals, which they have to prepare before. By doing so the children are
 meant
  to learn the importance of good nutrition for their healthy.
  The game will be supported by Danone Research. They will not only finance
  the project but also share their great knowledge on this topic with us.
 
  We’re just at the begining of the development but here is a short
  description of our first ideas:
  The game will be split in two parts:
 
  In one part the children can create their own recipes in a virtual
  environment, similar to a “cook studio”. There is also the possibility to
  share these recipes with other children.
  The other part is for validation: Here the meal will be “validated” by
 the
  avatar, (for example, a reaction might be, that the avatar can’t do
 homework
  because he has not sufficient energy).
 
  So at first we will have to define the relevant parameters, which you
 have
  to consider when you validate a healthy meal, for example:
 
  The need of the different nutritional values,
  The nutritional value of the aliment
  In natural and organic state and
  after the preparation of the meal
  The activities, the avatar/child do/did during the day
  The season and the weather
  The times of the meals during the day(this has an impact on the gain of
 the
  food)
  The health of the avatar/child
  The extent of hygienic conditions when preparing the food
 
 
 
  The next step will be to collect all those information and integrate it
 into
  a rough logic.
 
 
 
  So don’t hesitate to comment about this project and share your thoughts.
 
  We appreciate all kinds of input!
 

 FWIW, several of us have been thinking about a different angle on a
 cooking activity, one more geared towards chemistry and the science of
 the kitchen: getting the kids to experiment with recipes, for example,
 changing the 'resting time' when making noodles from flour and water,
 and observing how this changes the consistency,  flavor, etc. The
 Activity would be more like a lab notebook and set of simple data
 analysis tools than anything else, but then the kids could presumably
 photograph their results with their XO and share their successes and
 failures, and aggregate data more widely. It be interesting to fold in
 nutrition into the mix: does Danone have data we can use re how
 cooking impacts the foods we eat?

 regards.

 -walter

 
  Stefanie
 
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  Sugar-devel mailing list
  sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org
  http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
 
 



 --
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 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
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Re: [IAEP] Feedback needed: pippy use cases?

2011-02-23 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Thanks, Scott.
Gerald

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 5:42 AM, C. Scott Ananian csc...@cscott.net wrote:

 http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/pippy-examples/tree/ has a set
 of pippy examples in both English and Spanish, based on the example
 code in the Commodore 64 user's manual (which taught me how to
 program, once upon a time).  I've used this to teach programming with
 pippy in Peru.

 It's best if these are presented on a blackboard for the student to
 type in, not just clicked-through.
  --scott
 --
  ( http://cscott.net/ )

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Re: [IAEP] Feedback needed: pippy use cases?

2011-02-22 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I wanted to add that I agree with Steve.
I have been working with 5th-8th graders, many of whom love Turtle Art,
Scratch, and Etoys. When they get the bug from this kind of programming, I
want to introduce them to Pippy, but, like Steve said, I am not sure what to
do other than press run.

Gerald

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 4:45 AM, Steve Thomas sthom...@gosargon.com wrote:

 An interface and examples like: http://tryruby.org/ would be a nice.  It;s
 a hand's on tutorial that walks you through learning ruby step by step and
 you feel like you are actually doing and learning something.  Ideally you
 could also build a framework where users could create their own lesson's
 following a similar format.

 Part of the challenge of the existing Pippy is while it has some nice fun
 examples they don't invite you in to start coding the way tryruby.orgdoes.  
 To me when I first saw it I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do
 other than hit Run!'.

 FYI, the Thanks program does not work on my XO.

 Stephen
 http://mrstevesscience.blogspot.com/



 On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Anish Mangal 
 an...@activitycentral.orgwrote:

 Hi,

 As Pippy maintainer, I'm looking for inputs as to how is Pippy
 intended to be used in a classroom environment and how is it currently
 used. In particular:

 1. What grades use Pippy? Could it be used in lower grades with some
 changes? If so, what could be the nature of those changes?

 2. Collaborative code editing? How much is it actually used? What
 could be made better?

 3. Sharing/reviewing of examples by other kids/teachers?

 4. Would more explanatory code comments in Pippy examples help?

 5. Would having a central repository of having pippy code examples
 help... For example, the ability to download/upload to a url like
 pippy.sugarlabs.org?

 6. Would it help to have the examples in different languages wherever
 possible (spanish, for example)?

 Inputs will help guide future releases of Pippy.

 --
 Anish
 ___
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Re: [IAEP] Another Etoys Question

2011-01-31 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Cherry,

I am going to be using the manual with some teachers soon.
I will make updates from those sessions.

Gerald

On Monday, January 31, 2011, Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org wrote:
 Hi Carlos,

 The manual is not completely done. It needs editing and we would appreciate 
 all the feedback that we can get.

 If you'd like to spearhead the effort of translating it to Spanish, it will 
 be most appreciated! The original manual was done using FLOSS Manuals.
 You can open an account for free and email them of your intent to start a 
 book or manual and go from there: http://en.flossmanuals.net/

 Thank you for all of your support!

 --Cherry

 On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Carlos Rabassa car...@me.com wrote:

 Cherry,
 interesting you mention the manual.
 What is the status of the manual?
 At one point I had volunteered to translate it into Spanish.

 Then there were other volunteers,  then there was some other book and then no 
 more talk.
 My offer is still on.
 Is there anything you think I could start translating about Etoys?

 Carlos Rabassa

 On Jan 31, 2011, at 8:49 PM, Cherry Withers wrote:
 Hi Caryl,

 I wrote that chapter on the manual. I would really like to know if there's 
 anything at all that's unclear about what I wrote.
 I would also be happy to go through it with you on Skype at your convenience.

 Cheers,
 Cherry

 On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Steve Thomas sthom...@gosargon.com wrote:

 Caryl,
 From the supplies bin, drag out a book. Then click on the Triangle in the 
 upper left corner of the book (when you hover over it it will say More 
 Controls.  You will then be able to add pages by clicking on the + in the 
 Book header and you can also duplicate pages from the menu in the header.



 More details are in the Etoy floss manual Chapter 
 5 http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/Etoys/Objects (search for book 
 within the page).


 Stephen

 On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote:






 OK, so I have watched the tutorials and even looked at 2 books I have about 
 Squeak and still haven't found out how to make a multi-page book or slide 
 show like we want to do for the Water Lessons.

 Innocent that I am, I assumed that clicking on the page symbol (looks like a 
 page symbol used in other programs) would give me a new page.  I got what I 
 thought was a new page.  Constructed it and saved.  Then I discovered it 
 created a new project, not a new page!  Rats!

 Oh well, the page I lost was just the title page and it will be easy to 
 remake it.  However I would like to keep the second page I made, put the 
 title page before it and then add several more pages after.

 Is there a link to instructions for doing this?  I don't need to learn about 
 loops, variables, tiles and stuff like that... already know that and can, and 
 have, taught it.

 Caryl
   

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Re: [IAEP] Importing Photos to Etoys on Mac or PC, not running Sugar???? How To???

2011-01-24 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Caryl,

I am working on a MacBook Pro running OX 10.6.6 and Etoys 4.1.
Just like in Sugar, I just drag the photo onto Etoys and it is imported.
I do the same in Windows.

Hope this helps.
Gerald

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote:

  Hi Folks,


 What is the method for importing a photo to Etoys when working on a Mac or
 PC?  I found instructions for doing it in Sugar, but not elsewhere.


 Thanks,


 Caryl

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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] Communities around technology for learning (was: Re: When teaching restrains discovery)

2011-01-22 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Edward,

I like your idea. And plan on setting up a blog, or other site, where
the students I am working with could share with one another about
their experiences with the XOs.

Gerald

On Saturday, January 22, 2011, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote:
 I have suggested creating a walled garden Web site for all OLPC
 children. We can discuss whether teachers should be allowed in, but
 definitely no parents. ^_^ They should have their own place to discuss
 whatever concerns them. Education, poverty, government corruption,
 international e-commerce...

 On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 17:32, Christoph Derndorfer
 e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote:
 I finally got around to reading Claudia's article and one of the core
 take-aways for me is that building communities (plural!) which help
 disseminate knowledge about how to use technology for learning is a
 core challenge which hasn't been sufficiently addressed yet.

 To me 2010 did show the first promises of this happening within the OLPC
 / Sugar community with collaboration starting between Plan Ceibal and
 ParaguayEduca, the work of organizations and communities such as
 ceibalJAM and RAP Ceibal, a better integration of Latin American
 contributors in the global community, eKindling's work in the
 Philippines, all the time Bernie, Daniel, Claudia, Walter and others are
 spending sharing with and learning from deployments, events such the
 community summit in San Francisco and the realness summit, the
 olpcMAP.net project, etc.

 And with some OLE Nepal staff having started the year by flying out to
 Rwanda to support the deployment there 2011 is also definitely beginning
 on a high-note.

 Having said that I personally feel that at the moment this network of
 networks (or community of communities, take your pick;-) is wide rather
 than deep - often seemingly ending at people living in capitals or major
 cities, being experienced with FLOSS and/or innovative education, etc.
 rather than reaching and benefiting the children, parents, teachers,
 principals, and administrators who are really the major stakeholders of
 education initiatives.

 I don't have a simple answer on how to deal with this (and who knows, it
 might just be an issue perceived by yours truly) but I think keeping it
 in the back of the head might be a start.

 Cheers,
 Christoph

 Am 20.01.2011 17:24, schrieb Holt:
 Thanks Bastien.  Back on the home front, also check out Claudia Urrea's
 (OLPC Assoc's Chief Learner ;) article today on one-to-one edutech etc:
 http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/technologies-for-learning-vs-learning-about-technology/

 On 1/20/2011 9:46 AM, Bastien wrote:
 Hi Christoph and all,

 I always enjoy those resources about education, thank you for the
 pointers -- and to everyone for the comments!

 Let me share two recent readings of mine:

 John Maeda : The Laws of Simplicity

    
 http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Simplicity-Design-Technology-Business/dp/0262134721

 My attention got caught when I saw John Maeda referring to Nicholas
 Negroponte in the chapter « Context ».  While discussing the importance
 of focusing, he mentions this advice from NN : Be as an electric bulb,
 not as a lazer ray.  Which I found to be quite an inspiring metaphor in
 the context of learning: let's all learn how to shed light on things as
 bulbs, taking care of others and the context, not as lazer ray, only
 taking care of the subject matter.

 George Steiner - « Éloge de la transmission - Le maître et l'élève »

    
 http://livre.fnac.com/a1904995/George-Steiner-Eloge-de-la-transmission-le-maitre-et-l-eleve

 (Sorry, only published in french.)

 In the debate about instructionisme vs. [constructionisme, project-based
 method, Montessori method, etc.], most people would certainly say that
 Steiner -- George, not Rudolph! -- is rather conservative, expressing
 opinions shared by teachers with a classical-instructionist attitude.
 The title of this book says it all.

 Still, he proposes a definition for what it is to be a master: it is
 someone from which students can always feel the love behind the irony.
 Of course, So--
 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://www.earthtreasury.org/
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Re: [IAEP] Communities around technology for learning (was: Re: [support-gang] When teaching restrains discovery)

2011-01-21 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Christoph,

Thanks for your email.

I also got to read Claudia's article. I have been familiar with and inspired
by her research. In fact, in informed my doctoral dissertation, which
focused on the changes to the classroom learning environment through the use
of the XO laptops.

I have been participating in this community for about 2 years. I have
received much help and support and encouragement for which I am grateful.
But I have been reluctant to have my fellow teachers (who are less
technically inclined) to participate because of the frequently highly
technical and operational nature of many conversations.

I have been struggling with trying to include more teachers and students in
these conversations and in this community. I feel that their participation
would benefit many, and add to the depth you discussed.

I am now working with 5 schools in the US using XOs, and will try to find a
way for those teachers and students to participate.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 5:32 PM, Christoph Derndorfer 
e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote:

 I finally got around to reading Claudia's article and one of the core
 take-aways for me is that building communities (plural!) which help
 disseminate knowledge about how to use technology for learning is a
 core challenge which hasn't been sufficiently addressed yet.

 To me 2010 did show the first promises of this happening within the OLPC
 / Sugar community with collaboration starting between Plan Ceibal and
 ParaguayEduca, the work of organizations and communities such as
 ceibalJAM and RAP Ceibal, a better integration of Latin American
 contributors in the global community, eKindling's work in the
 Philippines, all the time Bernie, Daniel, Claudia, Walter and others are
 spending sharing with and learning from deployments, events such the
 community summit in San Francisco and the realness summit, the
 olpcMAP.net project, etc.

 And with some OLE Nepal staff having started the year by flying out to
 Rwanda to support the deployment there 2011 is also definitely beginning
 on a high-note.

 Having said that I personally feel that at the moment this network of
 networks (or community of communities, take your pick;-) is wide rather
 than deep - often seemingly ending at people living in capitals or major
 cities, being experienced with FLOSS and/or innovative education, etc.
 rather than reaching and benefiting the children, parents, teachers,
 principals, and administrators who are really the major stakeholders of
 education initiatives.

 I don't have a simple answer on how to deal with this (and who knows, it
 might just be an issue perceived by yours truly) but I think keeping it
 in the back of the head might be a start.

 Cheers,
 Christoph

 Am 20.01.2011 17:24, schrieb Holt:
  Thanks Bastien.  Back on the home front, also check out Claudia Urrea's
  (OLPC Assoc's Chief Learner ;) article today on one-to-one edutech etc:
 
 http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/technologies-for-learning-vs-learning-about-technology/
 
  On 1/20/2011 9:46 AM, Bastien wrote:
  Hi Christoph and all,
 
  I always enjoy those resources about education, thank you for the
  pointers -- and to everyone for the comments!
 
  Let me share two recent readings of mine:
 
  John Maeda : The Laws of Simplicity
 
 
 http://www.amazon.com/Laws-Simplicity-Design-Technology-Business/dp/0262134721
 
  My attention got caught when I saw John Maeda referring to Nicholas
  Negroponte in the chapter « Context ».  While discussing the importance
  of focusing, he mentions this advice from NN : Be as an electric bulb,
  not as a lazer ray.  Which I found to be quite an inspiring metaphor in
  the context of learning: let's all learn how to shed light on things as
  bulbs, taking care of others and the context, not as lazer ray, only
  taking care of the subject matter.
 
  George Steiner - « Éloge de la transmission - Le maître et l'élève »
 
 
 http://livre.fnac.com/a1904995/George-Steiner-Eloge-de-la-transmission-le-maitre-et-l-eleve
 
  (Sorry, only published in french.)
 
  In the debate about instructionisme vs. [constructionisme, project-based
  method, Montessori method, etc.], most people would certainly say that
  Steiner -- George, not Rudolph! -- is rather conservative, expressing
  opinions shared by teachers with a classical-instructionist attitude.
  The title of this book says it all.
 
  Still, he proposes a definition for what it is to be a master: it is
  someone from which students can always feel the love behind the irony.
  Of course, Socrates comes to mind as a master of both irony and love
  towards its pupils -- I bet Steiner would agree.
 
  I like this definition.  It is general enough to escape the opposition
  between instructionism / [constructionisme, ...].  But still, I feel
  this definition captures something essential that any teacher could
  fruitfully think about.
 
  My 2 cents,
 
 

 --
 Christoph Derndorfer
 co-editor, www.olpcnews.com
 e-mail: 

Re: [IAEP] reluctant/proactive leader

2011-01-21 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Yama,

Your response actually gave me an idea.
In the various situations in which I have worked, I have been able to
develop students (even at ages 9 and 10) to be real leaders. Perhaps they
are the way in to this dilemma.
I will find a way to add them to this community.
Perhaps, just as in the classroom, when teachers (and others) find the
students participating so actively and responsibly, they will be called to
join in?

What do you think.
Gerald

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Yamandu Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.comwrote:


 On 01/21/2011 08:54 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote originally about something
 else, but said there:

 I have been participating in this community for about 2 years. I have
 received much help and support and encouragement for which I am grateful.
 But I have been reluctant to have my fellow teachers (who are less
 technically inclined) to participate because of the frequently highly
 technical and operational nature of many conversations.


  I am lost for words. So totally lost for words.

 What kind of a community you would *not* feel reluctant to have your
 teachers participate?

 IAEP is as common ground as you possibly can get.  Or are you talking
 about the support gang?  There I can understand sort of maybe, though all
 kinds of people can benefit to lurk there, and even contribute - maybe they
 just need to be given a chance, and they will flourish!

 Of course there is a continuum for the choices an education administrator
 can make, from wholesale advocacy for participating in all and every
 community (probably not wise), to a complete ban and prohibition leading to
 termination for those caught connecting with strangers.

 Somewhere along the middle I suspect most deployments just do not encourage
 enough nor their leaders model participation (the later not your case,
 Gerald, you do participate generously of your time and experience).
 I am amazed that, for example, Ceibal has over 14.000 teachers with
 connectivity, and apparently less than 3% have ever signed up to a list or
 open forum.  Peru's emails set up for their project often returned a box
 full error.

 I am convinced that one of the the main lessons to be learned through this
 Education Project is precisely about remote collaboration. It hasn't taken
 off yet, and I wonder how we can help it happen.  How can we bridge real
 issues like fear of reprisals, fear to seem dumb? Lack of time (real, or
 imagined for people that otherwise spend hours by the TV or Faisbuk)?
 Relevant, interesting communication? The next step: kids collaborating
 beyond their bailiwick?

 Yama
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Re: [IAEP] reluctant/proactive leader

2011-01-21 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Yama,

Thanks for your kind words.

Onward and upward!

Gerald


On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Yamandu Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.comwrote:

  WOW!

 you *are* a Courageous Leader! (not to be confused with a N k0rea title
 :-)

 which reminds me of an excerpt from Krishnamurti that I have had doing the
 rounds, precisely on how younger people have an easier time collaborating
 than so-called adults.  Because of its potential OT nature, I am copying it
 below the fold to mitigate offense - I put in bold the relevant part, to
 make the load lighter... :-)

 BTW, reading in between the lines, it turns out it was not that *you* were
 reluctant, but rather your teachers?  Nice of you to take up the blame. I
 feel so encouraged by your attitude, and much honored to learn from you

 Yama


 On 01/21/2011 10:04 AM, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote:

 Yama,

 Your response actually gave me an idea.
 In the various situations in which I have worked, I have been able to
 develop students (even at ages 9 and 10) to be real leaders. Perhaps they
 are the way in to this dilemma.
 I will find a way to add them to this community.
 Perhaps, just as in the classroom, when teachers (and others) find the
 students participating so actively and responsibly, they will be called to
 join in?

 What do you think.
 Gerald


 one of my favorite blogs, framablog.org, had recently a version of this
 text by Krishnamurti.  Since great friends Padmanabha and Rama Rao run the
 Krishnamurti school in India, it all came together to make me wish to share
 this with y'all - the subject matter is something we all wonder a lot about:
 *the purpose of education, cooperation...*

 
 One of the basic problems confronting the world is the problem of
 cooperation. What does the word cooperation mean? To cooperate is to do
 things together, to build together, to feel together, to have something in
 common so that we can freely work together.

 But people generally don't feel inclined to work together naturally,
 easily, happily; and so they are compelled to work together through various
 inducements: threat, fear, punishment, reward. This is the common practice
 throughout the world. Under tyrannical governments you are brutally forced
 to work together; if you don't cooperate you are liquidated or sent to a
 concentration camp. In the so-called civilized nations you are induced to
 work together through the concept of my country, or for an ideology which
 has been very carefully worked out and widely propagated so that you accept
 it; or you work together to carry out a plan which somebody has drawn up, a
 blueprint for Utopia.

 So, it is the plan, the idea, the authority which induces people to work
 together. This is generally called cooperation, and in it there is always
 the implication of reward or punishment, which means that behind such
 cooperation there is fear. You are always working for something--for the
 country, for the king, for the party, for God or the Master, for peace, or
 to bring about this or that reform. Your idea of cooperation is to work
 together for a particular result. You have an ideal--to build a perfect
 school, or what you will--towards which you are working, therefore you say
 cooperation is necessary. All this implies authority, does it not? There is
 always someone who is supposed to know what is the right thing to do, and
 therefore you say, We must cooperate in carrying it out.

 Now, I don't call that cooperation at all. That is not cooperation, it is a
 form of greed, a form of fear, compulsion. Behind it there is the threat
 that if you don't cooperate the government won't recognize you, or the
 Five Year Plan will fail, or you will be sent to a concentration camp, or
 your country will lose the war, or you may not go to heaven. There is always
 some form of inducement, and where there is inducement there cannot be real
 cooperation.

 Nor is it cooperation when you and I work together merely because we have
 mutually agreed to do something. In any such agreement what is important is
 the doing of that particular thing, not working together. You and I may
 agree to build a bridge, or construct a road, or plant some trees together,
 but in that agreement there is always the fear of disagreement, the fear
 that I may not do my share and let you do the whole thing.

 So it is not cooperation when we work together through any form of
 inducement, or by mere agreement, because behind all such effort there is
 the implication of gaining or avoiding something.

 To me, cooperation is entirely different. Cooperation is the fun of being
 and doing together--not necessarily doing something in particular. Do you
 understand? *Young children normally have a feeling for being and doing
 together. Haven't you noticed this? They will cooperate in anything. There
 is no question of agreement or disagreement, reward or punishment; they just
 want to help. They cooperate instinctively, for the fun of being and doing
 together

Re: [IAEP] [realness] a school is not a building

2010-12-06 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
I think back to the various work (especially Piaget, Vygotsky, and Papert)
that investigates learning as a social phenomenon.
The XO Laptops and Sugar derive directly, in my humble opinion, from these
principles, especially Papert's concept of Constructionism.
The issue for me, then, is not schools versus laptops (or some other
technology), but how these devices and their software can be used to shape
the learning environment itself.
I have seen classrooms in my school change (in terms of student
independence) as a result of the students being deeply engaged with the XOs
and Sugar. This change has been reflected in both the students and their
teachers.
I think more focus should be spent on this ecosystem of learning.

Best,
Gerald

On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 8:51 PM, Blake Elias blakeel...@gmail.com wrote:

 It's not that Ministries of Education should *stop* their core
 activities, but another possibility to consider before *starting*.

 A physical school where children can learn and work together is
 wonderful.  In some situations where it's a struggle to build a
 physical school, where it really may be a dichotomy between
 buildings/laptops because of the expense, maybe they want to make
 digital collaboration their main goal instead of building with brick
 and mortar.

 Blake Elias

 On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote:
  What he said. I hate false dichotomies. They abound in discussions of
  education and in the politics of education, indeed in any situation
  where the more extreme the position, the more likely it is to be
  heard.
 
  On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 18:04, Ian Thomson i...@spc.int wrote:
  Personally, I think the whole approach is wrong. You will never convince
  Ministries of Education to stop their core activities just because
  there are laptops.
 
  The better approach is to show how laptops can enhance education in
  schools.
  This should not be an either/or approach. We can do both.
 
  As a simple example, children can leave the school earlier after
  suitable teaching and complete work on the laptops at home or other
  locations. This will free up the school to take a second shift of
  students.
  Teachers can restructure their teaching to have groups working together
  to learn, so freeing them up to take more students.
 
  Ian Thomson
  ICT Outreach Section
  Economic Development Division
  Secretariat of the Pacific Community
  B.P. D5 - Noumea Cedex - 98848
  New Caledonia
 
  Phone +687-265419
 
  Fax +687 26 38 18
  http://www.spc.int
 
  -Original Message-
  From: iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org
  [mailto:iaep-boun...@lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Bernie Innocenti
  Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 8:36 AM
  To: Timothy Falconer
  Cc: olpc-ha...@lists.laptop.org; grassroots OLPC;
  olpc-o...@lists.laptop.org; Squeakland List; Maho 2010; IAEP;
  ht2011-win...@waveplace.org
  Subject: Re: [IAEP] [realness] a school is not a building
 
  On Sun, 2010-12-05 at 15:18 -0500, Timothy Falconer wrote:
  Hi all,
 
  A favor:  help me make this case (or refute it) as we prepare once
  more for Haiti ... spend money on training  laptops instead bricks
  and mortar.
 
  http://waveplace.com/news/blog/archive/001035.jsp
 
  It's a beautiful thought that touches deep into my hacker spirit, but
  the conclusion seems weak: what is it that we are advocating for? Remote
  learning? Home-schooling? Having classes under a tree? It's unclear.
 
  The point that you were making with the military canteen vs cooking at
  home metaphor is that compulsory education doesn't follow individual
  inclinations. Then, the conclusion should state the proposed solution
  for this problem.
 
  --
// 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
 
  ___
  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://www.earthtreasury.org/
  ___
  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 -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] votes you missed

2010-12-03 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
+1 to all motions from me as well.

Gerald

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:06 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 In case you are interested in casting your vote on the 3 motions we
 passed (Please see
 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/Meeting_Minutes-2010-12-01),
 please send email to SLOBs.

 Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 9 December 2010 at 20UTC
 (15 EST). Hope to see you in #sugar-meeting (or #sugar-meeting-es).

 regards.

 -walter

 --
 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
 ___
 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] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

2010-09-28 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

Thanks so much.
I am sure this will work well for us.

Best,
Gerald

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 9:52 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:

 It's the make a car you can drive yourself one which starts with the
 painting of a car, scripting it to go in a circle, steering by modifying the
 script on the fly, adding a steering wheel, moving the steering wheel's
 heading to the car turn by, making a gear by dividing the heading by 3,
 making a car that will follow a track, etc.

 This has proved to be a great opening sequence with most 5th graders, and
 it goes best with one on one guidance. They learn a lot of things about
 Etoys (we counted about 35) and the next few months projects can be done
 with what they encounter in their first half hour or so.

 It is extremely difficult to pull off in a mass class with either children
 or adults because of the range of pace and what it takes for individuals to
 get it, and what questions and prompts they need. Kind of a perfect example
 where mass class loses badly and one on one is very efficient and
 effective.

 Cheers,

 Alan

 --
 *From:* Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 *To:* Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com
 *Cc:* Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com; Cherry Withers 
 cwith...@ekindling.org; danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar; Tim McNamara 
 paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz; Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep 
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 *Sent:* Mon, September 27, 2010 6:00:52 PM

 *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

 Alan,

 Thanks for this.
 I am just beginning to work with our 5th grade students and teachers and
 will put this into action.

 One question for you, if I may. Can you tell me about the first Etoys
 lesson you mentioned (with 35 things in 30 minutes)?

 Thanks again.
 Gerald

 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Hi Gerald,

 Yes, I think the experts approach is a good one also -- we first saw it
 used by Betty Edwards (the drawing teacher) and it works very well if the
 ratio is about 1 expert to 6 or 7 learners or better.

 And we have tried this with Etoys (mostly on adult teachers).

 However, of all the ways we've tried, doing one on ones, and then using
 the new learners as one on one teachers for the next group (so you are
 doubling each time) works the best (and is also the most efficient with
 regard to how much time it takes to successfully do the first Etoys exercise
 -- in which the learners do and learn about 35 things in about 30 minutes).

 Best regards,

 Alan

 --
 *From:* Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 *To:* Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com
 *Cc:* Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com; Cherry Withers 
 cwith...@ekindling.org; danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar; Tim McNamara 
 paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz; Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 *Sent:* Mon, September 27, 2010 4:31:13 PM

 *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

 Alan,

 First, I just want to clarify that I meant challenged in a positive way.
 The 5th graders dove into Etoys first through painting, and then through
 scripting. However, I agree with what you say about artifacts of a
 pedagogical approach. We saw this, too.

 Our learning situation involved 4-6 student experts with whom I spent
 time showing them the key elements of Etoys needed to begin the project.
 Then, when we introduced this project to larger class, these experts were
 free to move around the room helping other students.

 We found this model to be a good one for generating a very productive
 classroom environment with the XOs (in fact, it was the topic of my
 dissertation which I completed last May). However, I wished we had spent
 more time with the scripting piece. We had not developed those skills
 enough.

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:

 I'd be curious to hear what the process is with the 5th graders. These
 were our main subjects. We worked only through regular classroom teachers
 (who had been carefully coached). You will not see any challenged 5th
 graders if you use a one on one session with them for about 20-30 minutes.
 The best way to do this is to teach a few this way, and then use a
 spreading wave of one on ones. We found that this was much better with both
 children and adults than to try to teach all of them in mass.

 So you might be seeing artifacts of pedagogical approach here (and a lot
 of challenged students result from such artifacts).

 Cheers,

 Alan

 --
 *From:* Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 *To:* Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com
 *Cc:* Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org;
 danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar; Tim McNamara paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz;
 Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 *Sent:* Mon, September 27, 2010 2:29:57 PM

 *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Etoys

Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

2010-09-27 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Caroline,

You are remembering well. And I agree with your hypothesis.

The 5th graders took pretty well to Etoys. It is the drawing piece that
hooks them, and then the scripting part that really challenges them. And the
7th and 8th graders love Scratch. It is interesting to me because they also
do plenty of painting of sprites and backgrounds, but something about the
bricks seems to match their thinking process.

I am getting ready to introduce my current 7th grade classes to Scratch and
am looking forward to that.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com
 wrote:

 Gerald did some interesting work last year introducing both Scratch and
 eToys to 5th and 8th graders.

 Gerald please correct me if I am misremembering.

 I think the results were the 8th graders took to Scratch more and the 5th
 graders took to eToys more.

 Our hypothesis is that the first thing you do with eToys in draw and that
 is very accessible to 5th graders. They can engage with the system before
 they have to start understanding programming.

 On the other hand 8th graders were directly ready to engage with
 programming and had a easier/faster time picking that up with Scratch.

 This is very much a hypothesis, not proven and not based on much data but
 it would be interesting to explore further.

 On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 OK, I'll send it to you separately. Anybody else is still welcome to join
 in.

 On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 20:47, Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Edward,
  Thanks, please send me the outline and what you think needs to be more
  easily discoverable and I will work on it.
  Stephen
 
  On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 6:06 PM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  It is true that you can do all of these things in EToys, if you know
  where to start. It is also true that the start screen of EToys could
  be improved by providing a path to each of them, and to other
  education modules, and Etoys could be improved with a few more
  introductory modules.
 
  Since children and untrained teachers cannot be expected to discover
  these paths, and paths in other Activities, on their own, I am in the
  middle of writing a guide to Discovery on the XO. The starting point
  is my Wiki page,
 
  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable
 
  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick
  The undiscoverable  is an unofficial FAQ for tips, tricks, and
  solutions to common problems that may otherwise be tricky to find.
  These are being considered for inclusion in the official SoaS
  documentation.
 
  The Etoys section needs vast expansion. I have an outline in mind,
  which I can share with anybody who would like to work on it.
 
  On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 15:59, Tim McNamara 
 paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz
  wrote:
   The analogy doesn't quite fit, as it's possible to do complex things
 in
   all
   of those tools and it's easy to do simple things in EToys. Each
 Activity
   can
   be used in this learning model, e.g. training wheels to motorbike.
  
   Tim
  
   On 25 September 2010 05:48, Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org
   wrote:
  
   And Scratch? ... don't remember where I read it,  but it sounded
   logical
   to me.
   Use progressively difficult tools for progressively difficult tasks.
   To confirm this statement,  I add the phrase: Visible learning,
   invisible
   technology.
   Children would first learn TurtleArt.
   When they outgrow it switch to Scratch.
   When all its possibilities are exhausted, continue with eToys.
  
   ___
   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://www.earthtreasury.org/
  ___
  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://www.earthtreasury.org/
 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep




 --
 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] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

2010-09-27 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

First, I just want to clarify that I meant challenged in a positive way.
The 5th graders dove into Etoys first through painting, and then through
scripting. However, I agree with what you say about artifacts of a
pedagogical approach. We saw this, too.

Our learning situation involved 4-6 student experts with whom I spent time
showing them the key elements of Etoys needed to begin the project. Then,
when we introduced this project to larger class, these experts were free
to move around the room helping other students.

We found this model to be a good one for generating a very productive
classroom environment with the XOs (in fact, it was the topic of my
dissertation which I completed last May). However, I wished we had spent
more time with the scripting piece. We had not developed those skills
enough.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:

 I'd be curious to hear what the process is with the 5th graders. These were
 our main subjects. We worked only through regular classroom teachers (who
 had been carefully coached). You will not see any challenged 5th graders
 if you use a one on one session with them for about 20-30 minutes. The best
 way to do this is to teach a few this way, and then use a spreading wave
 of one on ones. We found that this was much better with both children and
 adults than to try to teach all of them in mass.

 So you might be seeing artifacts of pedagogical approach here (and a lot of
 challenged students result from such artifacts).

 Cheers,

 Alan

 --
 *From:* Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 *To:* Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com
 *Cc:* Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org; danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar;
 Tim McNamara paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz; Steve Thomas 
 stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 *Sent:* Mon, September 27, 2010 2:29:57 PM

 *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

 Caroline,

 You are remembering well. And I agree with your hypothesis.

 The 5th graders took pretty well to Etoys. It is the drawing piece that
 hooks them, and then the scripting part that really challenges them. And the
 7th and 8th graders love Scratch. It is interesting to me because they also
 do plenty of painting of sprites and backgrounds, but something about the
 bricks seems to match their thinking process.

 I am getting ready to introduce my current 7th grade classes to Scratch and
 am looking forward to that.

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Caroline Meeks 
 carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote:

 Gerald did some interesting work last year introducing both Scratch and
 eToys to 5th and 8th graders.

 Gerald please correct me if I am misremembering.

 I think the results were the 8th graders took to Scratch more and the 5th
 graders took to eToys more.

 Our hypothesis is that the first thing you do with eToys in draw and that
 is very accessible to 5th graders. They can engage with the system before
 they have to start understanding programming.

 On the other hand 8th graders were directly ready to engage with
 programming and had a easier/faster time picking that up with Scratch.

 This is very much a hypothesis, not proven and not based on much data but
 it would be interesting to explore further.

 On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 OK, I'll send it to you separately. Anybody else is still welcome to join
 in.

 On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 20:47, Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Edward,
  Thanks, please send me the outline and what you think needs to be more
  easily discoverable and I will work on it.
  Stephen
 
  On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 6:06 PM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  It is true that you can do all of these things in EToys, if you know
  where to start. It is also true that the start screen of EToys could
  be improved by providing a path to each of them, and to other
  education modules, and Etoys could be improved with a few more
  introductory modules.
 
  Since children and untrained teachers cannot be expected to discover
  these paths, and paths in other Activities, on their own, I am in the
  middle of writing a guide to Discovery on the XO. The starting point
  is my Wiki page,
 
  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable
 
  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick
  The undiscoverable  is an unofficial FAQ for tips, tricks, and
  solutions to common problems that may otherwise be tricky to find.
  These are being considered for inclusion in the official SoaS
  documentation.
 
  The Etoys section needs vast expansion. I have an outline in mind,
  which I can share with anybody who would like to work on it.
 
  On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 15:59, Tim McNamara 
 paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz
  wrote:
   The analogy doesn't quite fit, as it's possible to do complex things
 in
   all
   of those tools and it's easy to do simple things in EToys. Each

Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

2010-09-27 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Alan,

Thanks for this.
I am just beginning to work with our 5th grade students and teachers and
will put this into action.

One question for you, if I may. Can you tell me about the first Etoys lesson
you mentioned (with 35 things in 30 minutes)?

Thanks again.
Gerald

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Hi Gerald,

 Yes, I think the experts approach is a good one also -- we first saw it
 used by Betty Edwards (the drawing teacher) and it works very well if the
 ratio is about 1 expert to 6 or 7 learners or better.

 And we have tried this with Etoys (mostly on adult teachers).

 However, of all the ways we've tried, doing one on ones, and then using the
 new learners as one on one teachers for the next group (so you are doubling
 each time) works the best (and is also the most efficient with regard to how
 much time it takes to successfully do the first Etoys exercise -- in which
 the learners do and learn about 35 things in about 30 minutes).

 Best regards,

 Alan

 --
 *From:* Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 *To:* Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com
 *Cc:* Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com; Cherry Withers 
 cwith...@ekindling.org; danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar; Tim McNamara 
 paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz; Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep 
 iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 *Sent:* Mon, September 27, 2010 4:31:13 PM

 *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

 Alan,

 First, I just want to clarify that I meant challenged in a positive way.
 The 5th graders dove into Etoys first through painting, and then through
 scripting. However, I agree with what you say about artifacts of a
 pedagogical approach. We saw this, too.

 Our learning situation involved 4-6 student experts with whom I spent
 time showing them the key elements of Etoys needed to begin the project.
 Then, when we introduced this project to larger class, these experts were
 free to move around the room helping other students.

 We found this model to be a good one for generating a very productive
 classroom environment with the XOs (in fact, it was the topic of my
 dissertation which I completed last May). However, I wished we had spent
 more time with the scripting piece. We had not developed those skills
 enough.

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:

 I'd be curious to hear what the process is with the 5th graders. These
 were our main subjects. We worked only through regular classroom teachers
 (who had been carefully coached). You will not see any challenged 5th
 graders if you use a one on one session with them for about 20-30 minutes.
 The best way to do this is to teach a few this way, and then use a
 spreading wave of one on ones. We found that this was much better with both
 children and adults than to try to teach all of them in mass.

 So you might be seeing artifacts of pedagogical approach here (and a lot
 of challenged students result from such artifacts).

 Cheers,

 Alan

 --
 *From:* Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 *To:* Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com
 *Cc:* Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org; danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar;
 Tim McNamara paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz; Steve Thomas 
 stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
 *Sent:* Mon, September 27, 2010 2:29:57 PM

 *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

 Caroline,

 You are remembering well. And I agree with your hypothesis.

 The 5th graders took pretty well to Etoys. It is the drawing piece that
 hooks them, and then the scripting part that really challenges them. And the
 7th and 8th graders love Scratch. It is interesting to me because they also
 do plenty of painting of sprites and backgrounds, but something about the
 bricks seems to match their thinking process.

 I am getting ready to introduce my current 7th grade classes to Scratch
 and am looking forward to that.

 Thanks.
 Gerald

 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Caroline Meeks 
 carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote:

 Gerald did some interesting work last year introducing both Scratch and
 eToys to 5th and 8th graders.

 Gerald please correct me if I am misremembering.

 I think the results were the 8th graders took to Scratch more and the 5th
 graders took to eToys more.

 Our hypothesis is that the first thing you do with eToys in draw and that
 is very accessible to 5th graders. They can engage with the system before
 they have to start understanding programming.

 On the other hand 8th graders were directly ready to engage with
 programming and had a easier/faster time picking that up with Scratch.

 This is very much a hypothesis, not proven and not based on much data but
 it would be interesting to explore further.

 On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 OK, I'll send it to you separately. Anybody else is still welcome to
 join in.

 On Sat, Sep 25, 2010

Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

2010-09-27 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Edward,

Sure thing. The citation for the dissertation would be:
Ardito, G. (2010). The shape of disruption: xo laptops in the fifth grade
classroom (Doctoral dissertation). Available from Pace University.

I hope my work will be of some service to your projects. Please let me know
if there is anything else I can do.

Best,
Gerald

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote:

 Can we add your dissertation to the Bibliography?

 On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 19:31, Dr. Gerald Ardito
 gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote:
  Alan,
 
  First, I just want to clarify that I meant challenged in a positive
 way.
  The 5th graders dove into Etoys first through painting, and then through
  scripting. However, I agree with what you say about artifacts of a
  pedagogical approach. We saw this, too.
 
  Our learning situation involved 4-6 student experts with whom I spent
 time
  showing them the key elements of Etoys needed to begin the project. Then,
  when we introduced this project to larger class, these experts were
 free
  to move around the room helping other students.

 This is excellent information. I need to see how to integrate what you
 have found with my work on Discovery and The Undiscoverable. My notion
 had been to work out the constraints between Sugar features, and then
 a sequence of topics that would allow teachers to introduce one or two
 features per lesson. Your work may allow us to speed up the process
 considerably.

  We found this model to be a good one for generating a very productive
  classroom environment with the XOs (in fact, it was the topic of my
  dissertation which I completed last May). However, I wished we had spent
  more time with the scripting piece. We had not developed those skills
  enough.
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com wrote:
 
  I'd be curious to hear what the process is with the 5th graders. These
  were our main subjects. We worked only through regular classroom
 teachers
  (who had been carefully coached). You will not see any challenged 5th
  graders if you use a one on one session with them for about 20-30
 minutes.
  The best way to do this is to teach a few this way, and then use a
  spreading wave of one on ones. We found that this was much better with
 both
  children and adults than to try to teach all of them in mass.
 
  So you might be seeing artifacts of pedagogical approach here (and a lot
  of challenged students result from such artifacts).
 
  Cheers,
 
  Alan
 
  
  From: Dr. Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  To: Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com
  Cc: Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org; danielgast...@yahoo.com.ar
 ;
  Tim McNamara paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nz; Steve Thomas
  stevesar...@gmail.com; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org
  Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 2:29:57 PM
  Subject: Re: [IAEP] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?
 
  Caroline,
 
  You are remembering well. And I agree with your hypothesis.
 
  The 5th graders took pretty well to Etoys. It is the drawing piece that
  hooks them, and then the scripting part that really challenges them. And
 the
  7th and 8th graders love Scratch. It is interesting to me because they
 also
  do plenty of painting of sprites and backgrounds, but something about
 the
  bricks seems to match their thinking process.
 
  I am getting ready to introduce my current 7th grade classes to Scratch
  and am looking forward to that.
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Caroline Meeks
  carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote:
 
  Gerald did some interesting work last year introducing both Scratch and
  eToys to 5th and 8th graders.
  Gerald please correct me if I am misremembering.
  I think the results were the 8th graders took to Scratch more and the
 5th
  graders took to eToys more.
  Our hypothesis is that the first thing you do with eToys in draw and
 that
  is very accessible to 5th graders. They can engage with the system
 before
  they have to start understanding programming.
  On the other hand 8th graders were directly ready to engage with
  programming and had a easier/faster time picking that up with Scratch.
  This is very much a hypothesis, not proven and not based on much data
 but
  it would be interesting to explore further.
 
  On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  OK, I'll send it to you separately. Anybody else is still welcome to
  join in.
 
  On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 20:47, Steve Thomas stevesar...@gmail.com
  wrote:
   Edward,
   Thanks, please send me the outline and what you think needs to be
 more
   easily discoverable and I will work on it.
   Stephen
  
   On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 6:06 PM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com
 
   wrote:
  
   It is true that you can do all of these things in EToys, if you
 know
   where to start. It is also true that the start screen of EToys
 could
   be improved by providing a path

Re: [IAEP] Peer tutoring initiatives

2010-07-27 Thread Dr. Gerald Ardito
Jennifer,

I manage a deployment of 140 XOs with 5th grade students in a middle school
in Westchester County, NY. We trained about 4-5 students per classroom (we
call them the Tech Team), and they support their teachers and fellow
students.

You can read about it here:
http://web.me.com/geraldar/The_Shape_of_Disruption/Documents.html

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.

Best,
Gerald

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Jennifer Martino mart...@laptop.orgwrote:

 Good afternoon everyone,

 I am a learning consultant currently supporting OLPC deployments in Latin
 America. I am putting together a document regarding peer tutoring
 initiatives (available in both English and Spanish) and would like to
 include more examples from OLPC deployments around the world. If you are
 aware of advancements in this area, or know someone who might be, I would
 really appreciate hearing from you!

 Thank you in advance for your support,

 Jennifer

 ___
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 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

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http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] InfoTech Report and link to Photos

2010-04-25 Thread Gerald Ardito
Caryl,

Thanks for all of your work to make this happen.
Please keep us posted.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.comwrote:


 Hi All,

 Today was showtime for SoaS at the LAUSD InfoTech and Parent Summit at
 the Los Angeles Convention center. This year's event was sponsored by Target
 as one of their community involvement projects. Everything was free... even
 parking and a great lunch!  They said there were about 4000 people there
 including kids.

 We had a lot of parents and teachers stop by and ask about getting XOs for
 their schools and about SoaS.  I gave them a special handout with links to
 lots of info. Some also signed up for the olpc-SoCal mailing list. Their
 names will be added sometime next week.

 You can see some photos of the event here. I wish I had had time to take
 more (and to see the other booths).

 http://bit.ly/9xfTAz

 We showed SoaS Blueberry running on the eeePC and MacBook (with a boot
 helper cd) and it worked fine.  This was a non-persistant version.  A couple
 of teachers who stopped by were very interested in trying it and may help us
 work on the Grannies Guide. I will keep working on it myself in the next
 couple of weeks.

 Thanks again to all of you who helped me get the project this far!
 Hopefully by CUELA's Tech Fair in November we will be ready for a hands-on
 make and take workshop... BYOLT and usb, take home SoaS ready to go!

 Caryl

 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

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Re: [IAEP] Homework turn-in without server (was: Re: Data vs Critical Thinking - Can Sugar give schools both?)

2010-04-23 Thread Gerald Ardito
Sascha,

Speaking as a teacher, this workflow seems really good.

Gerald

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 7:49 AM, Sascha Silbe 
sascha-ml-ui-sugar-i...@silbe.org wrote:

 On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 11:18:14AM +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:

  On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 02:08, Gonzalo Odiard godi...@gmail.com wrote:

 In the context of Sugar we need a simple way to students to send their
 work
 to the teacher and a simple way to the teacher to group these works, and
 follow the progress.
 Can we start with it?


 You mean something that works without a server such as Moodle?

 If so, I think we should start by thinking who is going to review and
 stabilize that work, as we are getting very short of maintainers.

 Maybe we should start by designing a work flow / UI for this? I believe the
 actual code changes could be fairly small and easily reviewed if done right.

 If we transfer metadata during file transfer (Journal Send To feature)
 as suggested in #1344 [1], we have everything needed for the most basic
 workflow:

 1. Student opens completed work in Journal details view.
 2. Student adds tags as instructed by the teacher (e.g. Class-6a homework
 bees).
 3. Student uses Send To name of teacher.
 4. Teacher accepts file transfer.
 5. Teacher opens Journal and uses full text search with the given tags.
 6. Teacher annotates the work (either inline or (ab)using the description
 field).
 7. Teacher uses Send To name of student.
 8. Student accepts file transfer.


 There are obviously quite a few ways to improve on this workflow, but we
 can get there step by step with incremental, self-contained changes that are
 easy enough to review.


 [1] https://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/1344

 CU Sascha

 --
 http://sascha.silbe.org/
 http://www.infra-silbe.de/
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Re: [IAEP] [SoaS] SoaS For Dummies?

2010-04-18 Thread Gerald Ardito
I am excited about trying this. I manage a deployment of 140 XO-1's in a
school in Westchester County, New York and have really wanted to upgrade our
software from the official build.
How do I disable security?

Many thanks.
Gerald

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Thomas C Gilliard 
satel...@bendbroadband.com wrote:

 Caryl;

 I just bought a G1G1 XO-1 on e-bay for testing.
 * I requested and downloaded a developer key
 * disabled security (very important!)
 * installed f11-xo-1-py  (fedora 11 gnome and sugar)
 http://people.sugarlabs.org/bernie/olpc/f11-xo1-py/os140py.img
 http://people.sugarlabs.org/bernie/olpc/f11-xo1-py/os140py.crc

 This is great software and expands the capabilities of the OLPC XO-1
 that bernie has developed for the Paraguay deployment (english and spanish)

 In the Gnome desktop terminal program on the XO-1:
  su
  yum install liveusb-creator

 liveusb-creator runs using 2 USB sticks:
 1-) Target USB 2GB or larger
 2-) USB with Blueberry/strawberry.iso's (downloaded on another PC)

  DO NOT DOWNLOAD soas.iso's to the XO-1
   It has too small a working solid state HD to do this.
 This is very similar to running a 3 stick solution on a EeePC900

 The XO-1 is much slower (50min for Blueberry soas) than the EeePC900;
 but it makes Soas Live USB's fine.
 (Plus they boot on the XO-1, just leave them inserted and do a shutdown
 and restart.)
 I just did this with the soas-2-blueberry.iso and it boots on the XO-1
 plus on the EeePC900.
 (A EeePC900 livecd-iso-to-disk script created live usb will not boot on
 the XO-1)

 This could be a nice way to demonstrate sugar and the OLPC XO-1
 while it makes and runs Soas Live USB's


 Tom Gilliard
 satellit






 Caryl Bigenho wrote:
  Thanks Tom for the confirmation!  I suspected it might work like that,
 but not being a PC person, I wasn't sure.
 
  Sounds like a piece of cake.
 
  Caryl
 
  Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:08:38 -0700
  From: satel...@bendbroadband.com
  To: cbige...@hotmail.com
  CC: s...@lists.sugarlabs.org; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org;
 support-g...@laptop.org
  Subject: Re: [SoaS] SoaS For Dummies?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Caryl Bigenho wrote:
 
Hi Bert, Tom, and All,
 
  In case you are all wondering why I want to make this so easy, remember
 that while I am sort of a closet techie and could learn to do all these
 fancy work-arounds, I also have many years experience working with  and
 training other educators who are very shy about using computers.
 
  For most of them it has to be very simple and work almost as a
 plug-'n-play. Even the boot-helper disk is a stretch, but I think it is
 doable with some very clear step-by-step instructions. It needs to be easy,
 and hopefully fun, with a high probability of success.
 
  Bert wrote:
 
  The iso file is a CD image. ISO is short for ISO 9660, a.k.a. CDFS
 (Compact Disc File System). It is a file system designed for CDs, which is
 read-only.
 
  So, I could save money and just use an image on a cd, but unfortunately
 the live CD will not boot on a MacBook. It needs a boot helper cd to run the
 usb stick version and there is only one optical drive on the machine.
 
  Probably about 50% of the teachers will have Macs.
 
  And, Tom suggested using Virtual Box:
 
  I really didn't want to use the Virtual Box again. I did that with an
 early version of Strawberry.  I think the Virtual Box would be a deal
 breaker for a lot of teachers, whereas a usb version with the boot helper cd
 should be quite acceptable and easy to use. That is why I was hoping to get
 a usb version that could be used on both PCs and Macs.
 
  After all the advice I got from you folks, I ordered a refurbished eeePC
 900 with Windows XP today.  It will arrive Monday.  I chose to get one with
 Windows XP because the Fedora Live USB Creator seems to be the easiest route
 to success... sort of SoaS for Dummies!
 
  So... according to the instructions at 
 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/SoaS_Blueberry_Instructions you download the
 blueberry image while in the LiveUSB Creator.  Rather than downloading all
 over again, can I just plug in one of my usb sticks with SoaS (created on
 the Mac) and use it?  Or could I download it to the eeePC once and use it
 there?  What would be the easiest, most fool-proof way to do this?
 
 
 
  Caryl;
 
  YOU DO NOT NEED external CD to do this:
 
  * Copy-paste the Blueberry.isofile from the SugarCreation Kit
  CD onto an empty USB inserted in your MAC
 
  * transfer the .iso to your EeePC900 by inserting that USB into the
  EeePC900 and (drag - drop/copy-paste) the .iso to the XP Desktop.
 
 
 
  * Install Liveusb-creator for Windows:  (See attached .png file)
 
  https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/
 
  * Use Liveusb-creator for windows to make a soas USB with it.
 
  * Do not do a Download again. use left  select box (use existing live
  CD/ Browse) to find the blueberry.iso on the XP Desktop
 
  * Insert a new target USB  (2GB fat16) into EeePC900 ad see it appear
  

Re: [IAEP] [SoaS] SoaS For Dummies?

2010-04-18 Thread Gerald Ardito
Dave,

Thanks. I will probably train my 20 Tech Team students to do this, which
will empower them and help the process.

Gerald

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Dave Bauer dave.ba...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  I am excited about trying this. I manage a deployment of 140 XO-1's in a
  school in Westchester County, New York and have really wanted to upgrade
 our
  software from the official build.
  How do I disable security?
 

 Check out this page:

 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activation_and_developer_keys#Getting_a_developer_key_for_your_running_XO_laptop

 You need to open Browse, click get developer key from the OLPC home
 page (if your build is new enough) or type file:///home/.devkey.html
 in the address bar. Then there are further instructions to disable
 security on that wiki page

 You need a key for every XO so this might be time consuming.

 Dave

  Many thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Thomas C Gilliard
  satel...@bendbroadband.com wrote:
 
  Caryl;
 
  I just bought a G1G1 XO-1 on e-bay for testing.
  * I requested and downloaded a developer key
  * disabled security (very important!)
  * installed f11-xo-1-py  (fedora 11 gnome and sugar)
  http://people.sugarlabs.org/bernie/olpc/f11-xo1-py/os140py.img
  http://people.sugarlabs.org/bernie/olpc/f11-xo1-py/os140py.crc
 
  This is great software and expands the capabilities of the OLPC XO-1
  that bernie has developed for the Paraguay deployment (english and
  spanish)
 
  In the Gnome desktop terminal program on the XO-1:
   su
   yum install liveusb-creator
 
  liveusb-creator runs using 2 USB sticks:
  1-) Target USB 2GB or larger
  2-) USB with Blueberry/strawberry.iso's (downloaded on another PC)
 
   DO NOT DOWNLOAD soas.iso's to the XO-1
It has too small a working solid state HD to do this.
  This is very similar to running a 3 stick solution on a EeePC900
 
  The XO-1 is much slower (50min for Blueberry soas) than the EeePC900;
  but it makes Soas Live USB's fine.
  (Plus they boot on the XO-1, just leave them inserted and do a shutdown
  and restart.)
  I just did this with the soas-2-blueberry.iso and it boots on the XO-1
  plus on the EeePC900.
  (A EeePC900 livecd-iso-to-disk script created live usb will not boot on
  the XO-1)
 
  This could be a nice way to demonstrate sugar and the OLPC XO-1
  while it makes and runs Soas Live USB's
 
 
  Tom Gilliard
  satellit
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Caryl Bigenho wrote:
   Thanks Tom for the confirmation!  I suspected it might work like that,
   but not being a PC person, I wasn't sure.
  
   Sounds like a piece of cake.
  
   Caryl
  
   Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:08:38 -0700
   From: satel...@bendbroadband.com
   To: cbige...@hotmail.com
   CC: s...@lists.sugarlabs.org; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org;
   support-g...@laptop.org
   Subject: Re: [SoaS] SoaS For Dummies?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Caryl Bigenho wrote:
  
 Hi Bert, Tom, and All,
  
   In case you are all wondering why I want to make this so easy,
 remember
   that while I am sort of a closet techie and could learn to do all
 these
   fancy work-arounds, I also have many years experience working with
  and
   training other educators who are very shy about using computers.
  
   For most of them it has to be very simple and work almost as a
   plug-'n-play. Even the boot-helper disk is a stretch, but I think it
 is
   doable with some very clear step-by-step instructions. It needs to be
 easy,
   and hopefully fun, with a high probability of success.
  
   Bert wrote:
  
   The iso file is a CD image. ISO is short for ISO 9660, a.k.a.
 CDFS
   (Compact Disc File System). It is a file system designed for CDs,
 which is
   read-only.
  
   So, I could save money and just use an image on a cd, but
 unfortunately
   the live CD will not boot on a MacBook. It needs a boot helper cd to
 run the
   usb stick version and there is only one optical drive on the machine.
  
   Probably about 50% of the teachers will have Macs.
  
   And, Tom suggested using Virtual Box:
  
   I really didn't want to use the Virtual Box again. I did that with an
   early version of Strawberry.  I think the Virtual Box would be a deal
   breaker for a lot of teachers, whereas a usb version with the boot
 helper cd
   should be quite acceptable and easy to use. That is why I was hoping
 to get
   a usb version that could be used on both PCs and Macs.
  
   After all the advice I got from you folks, I ordered a refurbished
 eeePC
   900 with Windows XP today.  It will arrive Monday.  I chose to get one
 with
   Windows XP because the Fedora Live USB Creator seems to be the easiest
 route
   to success... sort of SoaS for Dummies!
  
   So... according to the instructions at
   http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/SoaS_Blueberry_Instructions you
 download the
   blueberry image while in the LiveUSB Creator.  Rather than downloading
 all
   over again, can I just plug

Re: [IAEP] SoaS change of direction: heads-up on convos in other lists

2010-03-20 Thread Gerald Ardito
I have to agree with Martin and Yama, here.
Speaking for teachers working with students, the extra work to download the
extra activities desired for over a hundred flash drives would be daunting
at best.

Gerald

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka yamap...@gmail.comwrote:

 Totally 120% with Martin here.  I am completely unhappy with the
 usability of the concept of download your own activities for the total
 n00b.  20?
 Maybe as an option a stripped-down somewhere for power users who really
 want to do what is proposed.

 (I seem to recall there was a request for discussing this elsewhere, but
 I don't remember and erased the original email, so my apologies)

 Martin Langhoff wrote:
  On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 10:23 PM, Mel Chua m...@melchua.com wrote:
 
  The short version is that instead of include all Activites by default,
  we're thinking of shipping very few (6) Activities by default - the ones
  that help users get further Activities and help
 
 
  I read Sebastian's post... and is less drastic than that. He seems to
  say: include only the well tested, known to work, actively maintained
  activities, with an eye towards activitries that serve as a good intro
  to the platform and that demo well.
 
  But you say only 6... Which one is it?
 
  The initial proposal I like; makes a lot of sense and raises the bar.
  IT basically increases the chances of a satisfactory first use.
 
  Six activities not so much -- you need many steps + internet to add
  activities... and it'll be random activity from ASLO, may well be
  unstable or useless. It significantly _reduces_ chances of
  satisfaction.
 
  All IMHO...
 
 
  m
 
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Re: [IAEP] Fwd: [Edu-sig] Computer Science For Kids Book Announcement

2010-03-19 Thread Gerald Ardito
Walter,

I am looking it over this morning, and seeing how to use it with some of our
students.
As soon as I have some feedback, I'll send it along.

Gerald

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 8:19 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 5:36 AM, Bert Freudenberg b...@freudenbergs.de
 wrote:
  Looks nice :)

 Pretty good.  A few places it could be improved. For example, in his
 compression example, Page 28, he gets confused about bits and bytes.
 And his page on Open Source is a bit off the mark IMHO. Still, it may
 appeal to some. I'd be curious to get some teacher reactions.

 -walter

 
  - Bert -
 
  Begin forwarded message:
 
  From: Andre Lessa an...@lessaworld.com
  Date: 19. März 2010 05:28:54 MEZ
  To: edu-...@python.org
  Subject: [Edu-sig] Computer Science For Kids Book Announcement
 
  Hey Python Community,
 
  I just self published this brand new book and I'm making its PDF
  available for (free) download on my web site.
 
  My goal is to explain some very basic fundamentals of computer science
  to kids who are starting to learn about computers at school and/or at
  home. For the tiny hints of programming, I referenced Python. If you
  (or a kid you know) ends up having access to this book, please send
  your feedback (suggestions/corrections) directly to me so I can start
  thinking about the next edition and how I can make it even cooler for
  kids.
 
  Thanks!
  Andre Lessa
 
  You can download the entire book here (no registration required).
  Computer Science For Kids
  http://www.LessaWorld.com/kids/
  ___
  Edu-sig mailing list
  edu-...@python.org
  http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
 
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 Walter Bender
 Sugar Labs
 http://www.sugarlabs.org
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Re: [IAEP] Bert is working on Journal Support for Scratch!

2010-03-16 Thread Gerald Ardito
I am also cheering!

Gerald

On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Claudia Urrea callaur...@gmail.comwrote:

 Yay!!


 On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 11:11 PM, Caroline Meeks 
 solutiongr...@gmail.comwrote:

 Hip Hip Hooray!!!

 On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:52 PM, Bert Freudenberg 
 b...@freudenbergs.dewrote:

 Indeed I'm working on adding Journal support to Scratch, almost done in
 fact. But I can't say when John is going to make a release with that. I'm
 not working on sound or other issues, but Derek did something in that
 direction IIRC.

 Btw you can read about ongoing development at
 https://launchpad.net/~scratch

 - Bert -

 On 15.03.2010, at 19:32, Claudia Urrea wrote:
 
  Hi Bernie,
 
  Thanks for your email. I am waiting on the visa... but I shouldn't
  have any problems (I am still waiting for Cecilia to send a letter to
  me).
 
  I don't have the agenda yet, I am planning to work with the team of
 Formadores.
 
  Yes. Bert is working on the new version of Scratch (hired by OLPC). I
  think it is going to be ready very soon!
 
  See you soon!
 
  Claudia
 
  On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 9:17 PM, Bernie Innocenti ber...@codewiz.org
 wrote:
  Continuing our earlier irc conversation on iaep@:
 
  bernie I need an updated version of Scratch for the XO...
  the current version has issues with sound
  ClaudiaU_ thanks for the report! You are in Paraguay?
 
  Indeed! I'll be working on field until August to bridge Sugar Labs
 with
  one of the best deployments out there. It's happening bidirectionally:
 
  1) learn about real-world issues with our software and relay such
  information directly to the Sugar developers and community.
 
  2) at the same time, deliver the latest and greatest of our software
 in
  the hands of local children.
 
  More than just a bridge, I'm hoping to build a self-reinforcing
 feedback
  loop, the kind of thing which powers successful free software
 projects.
 
 
  ClaudiaU_ bernie: I don't have a public version of Scratch yet, but
 I
  am hoping soon... Bern is working on it!
 
  You mean Bert? Or me? Or someone I don't know?
 
  Some kids here taught themselves Scratch and are doing great things
 with
  it:
 
 
 http://codewiz.org/wiki/blog/2010/03#fri-mar-12--interview-with-los-scratcheros
 
 
  It's incredible if you consider to children in Caacupè did not have
 easy
  access to computers and fancy electronic gadgets. Most children and
  teachers have been using computers for the first time less than one
 year
  ago.
 
  So I think we're just starting to... scratching the surface.
  (ok, please forgive me for this silly pun).
 
 
  ClaudiaU_ Bernie: I am coming to Paraguay next week let me
  know if you are there
 
  This is great news. Today Cecilia told me you'll be here on the 22nd.
  What's your schedule like for the week? Anything you would like to
 work
  on together?
 
  --
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
  \X/  Sugar Labs   - http://sugarlabs.org/
 
 


 - Bert -


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 Solution Grove
 carol...@solutiongrove.com

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Re: [IAEP] Need ideas for 1 hour Sugar introductory lessons

2010-03-14 Thread Gerald Ardito
Caroline,

I like Edward's idea.
If you use it, you can build to Etoys.
There is a nice lesson in the Peru lesson book on animating a caterpillar
that is really good. If you don't have the book, let me know and I'll send
it to you.

Gerald

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote:

 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/images/0/0e/Gravity.odt

 Alan Kay's gravity lesson for ten-year-olds in Turtle Art and Record.

 On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 10:50, Caroline Meeks
 carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote:
  We are planning for April vacation week and working with the public
 library
  a few blocks from the GPA school.
  We will be doing 1 to 5 1-hour sessions with a few students during April
  vacation week.  We will then extend that program to after school.
  My thought is to do focus on a different activity each session.  Its a
  recreational setting. We can ask for different age ranges for different
  sessions when we advertise.
  I definitely want to do one with Physics.
  Do people have suggestions for what are some of the best 1 hour
  introductions for kids?
  Thanks,
  Caroline
  --
  Caroline Meeks
  Solution Grove
  carol...@solutiongrove.com
 
  617-500-3488 - Office
  505-213-3268 - Fax
 
  ___
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  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://www.earthtreasury.org/
 ___
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 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
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Re: [IAEP] Anki - open source memorization tool.

2010-03-10 Thread Gerald Ardito
I particularly like the ability to download existing decks.
This would be a good thing for Sugar/XOs.

Gerald

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Luke Faraone l...@faraone.cc wrote:

 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1

 On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 21:38, Caroline Meeks  wrote:
  An open source memorization tool.  Looks simple and cool and already runs
 on
  Linux, might be a good addition to Sugar.

 In fact, it's even written in Python, so supporting it in Sugar should
 be straightforward. Do we have a page on the Wiki where we can put
 such activity ideas?

 - --
 Luke Faraone
 http://luke.faraone.cc


 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
 Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
 Comment: Use GnuPG with Firefox : http://getfiregpg.org (Version: 0.7.10)

 iEYEARECAAYFAkuYWdEACgkQtrC51grHAgbmeQCgseBCDIvPaIft1t15Ao/sXgwa
 dfcAoLwmVoTedVWtxdQlzSIuqT7Ha/dv
 =ZRyD
 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
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Re: [IAEP] sharing an interesting message

2010-03-09 Thread Gerald Ardito
Gabriel,

This is just fantastic.
Thanks for sharing it with us.

Gerald

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Gabriel Eirea gei...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi all,

 Sometimes at ceibaljam.org we receive comments from children, always
 very interesting to read. I thought I should share the following. This
 kid created a new group in drupal with the following message (roughly
 translated from http://drupal.ceibaljam.org/?q=node/698):

 
 Let's improve Phisics (sic) together

 hi, my name is German Vargas and I'm thinking about a very good
 idea... I'm an 11-years-old kid, this year I turn 12 on December 3rd.
 One of my favorite games in the xo is: Phisics. I love this game
 beacause it's about logic, I love experiments and logic games,
 construction games, in this game, I play in version 4, I have created
 many things like: cars, motorbikes, houses, dolls, people, laberynths
 with marbles, etc. I realized that many things are missing, more tools
 for this game, to build more things, objects and tools are needed
 like: first of all arrows that would let you move the map and COMPUTE
 HOW MUCH SPACE YOU WILL NEED TO BUILD WHAT YOU WANT, also woods, bike
 wheels, car wheels, wheels of the size you want and need, rockets,
 gasoline, oil, diesel, fire, water, explosives, mortar, bricks,
 cannons, metal balls, wood balls, stone balls, many things are
 missing, motors with their speed, cables, wind, fans, propellers,
 small motors, batteries, sockets, electricity, one controller that
 controls everything, etc, many things, and for this a lot of effort is
 needed... I need you to help me and make a group that together, we
 could do all this and improve Phicics every day a little, so children
 and teenagers can use this activity in class and build what the
 teacher asks them. Phicics also has to have animals that move by
 themselves or that you can move, people that drive by themselves, or
 even that you drive them so they can drive trucks and cars, bikes,
 etc. Please, I need your help and that we all together can improve
 Phicics, let's work as a team, please!!! bye!!!...
 

 Regards,

 Gabriel
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Re: [IAEP] Math on Web

2010-03-06 Thread Gerald Ardito
Caroline,

I think that this can connect in some way to your RTI Project.
What do you think?

Gerald

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Caroline Meeks
carol...@solutiongrove.comwrote:

 Yes it does.


 On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.comwrote:

 Maria,

 This looks very promising.
 Caroline, what do you think?

 Gerald


 On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 7:59 AM, Maria Droujkova droujk...@gmail.comwrote:

 Gerald,

 I talked to Nibipedia people about this. Here is the reply:

 ---
 On Sugar.  Our hope all along was that we would build a giant semi
 automated aggregation tool that would make a giant video/text database that
 would work in Sugar.  We're much closer than we've ever been to opening up
 for crowdsourcing.  If you know some folks at Sugarlabs, we definitely would
 like to talk to them. In particular, we'd love to show them our upcoming
 iPhone App.

 Troy
 CEO Nibipedia
 612 747 2730
 ---

 I am CCing Troy and Terry, as well.

 Cheers,
 Maria Droujkova
 http://www.naturalmath.com

 Make math your own, to make your own math.




 On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Maria Droujkova droujk...@gmail.comwrote:

 Gerald,

 Check out Nibipedia for that sort of software. The creators may be open
 for collaboration.


 Cheers,
 Maria Droujkova
 http://www.naturalmath.com

 Make math your own, to make your own math.




 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 Caroline,

 Something else that may be worth considering is the development of an
 activity like Info Slicer, where teachers can provide annotations for the
 videos, and/or prompts for notes or reflections.

 Gerald


 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Caroline Meeks 
 solutiongr...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin 
 echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 Anybody know about this? I wonder whether he would be willing to let
 us adapt his materials to laptops.


 Good idea!  What ideas do you have about how we would adopt it?

 We could start by asking him if he would make them CC license. I'm
 traveling to the Bay Area next month. If we can get some good ideas I'm
 happy to maybe team up with Cherry take him out to coffee and ask.

 Caroline








 --
 Caroline Meeks
 Solution Grove
 carol...@solutiongrove.com

 617-500-3488 - Office
 505-213-3268 - Fax

___
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Re: [IAEP] Math on Web

2010-03-05 Thread Gerald Ardito
Maria,

This looks very promising.
Caroline, what do you think?

Gerald

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 7:59 AM, Maria Droujkova droujk...@gmail.com wrote:

 Gerald,

 I talked to Nibipedia people about this. Here is the reply:

 ---
 On Sugar.  Our hope all along was that we would build a giant semi
 automated aggregation tool that would make a giant video/text database that
 would work in Sugar.  We're much closer than we've ever been to opening up
 for crowdsourcing.  If you know some folks at Sugarlabs, we definitely would
 like to talk to them. In particular, we'd love to show them our upcoming
 iPhone App.

 Troy
 CEO Nibipedia
 612 747 2730
 ---

 I am CCing Troy and Terry, as well.

 Cheers,
 Maria Droujkova
 http://www.naturalmath.com

 Make math your own, to make your own math.




 On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Maria Droujkova droujk...@gmail.comwrote:

 Gerald,

 Check out Nibipedia for that sort of software. The creators may be open
 for collaboration.


 Cheers,
 Maria Droujkova
 http://www.naturalmath.com

 Make math your own, to make your own math.




 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Gerald Ardito 
 gerald.ard...@gmail.comwrote:

 Caroline,

 Something else that may be worth considering is the development of an
 activity like Info Slicer, where teachers can provide annotations for the
 videos, and/or prompts for notes or reflections.

 Gerald


 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com
  wrote:



 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 Anybody know about this? I wonder whether he would be willing to let
 us adapt his materials to laptops.


 Good idea!  What ideas do you have about how we would adopt it?

 We could start by asking him if he would make them CC license. I'm
 traveling to the Bay Area next month. If we can get some good ideas I'm
 happy to maybe team up with Cherry take him out to coffee and ask.

 Caroline





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Re: [IAEP] Math on Web

2010-03-01 Thread Gerald Ardito
Iago,

Thanks for this.
Gerald

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:18 AM, itoral ito...@igalia.com wrote:


 On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:08:14 +0100, Tomeu Vizoso to...@tomeuvizoso.net

 wrote:

  On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 17:57, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com

  wrote:

  Caroline,

 

  You do a good job outlining the problem.

  Even with bandwidth, the Browse activity is just not that great (at

  least on

  the XOs) for streaming video.

 

  An activity based on Grilo could be optimized for this use case:

 

  http://blogs.igalia.com/itoral/2010/02/10/grilo/



 Grilo would not help with the bandwidth problems as much as

 it would help with allowing teachers organize the multimedia

 contents and simplifying the development of an activity

 focused on providing structured multimedia content to

 students.



 Grilo abstracts the location of the actual video feeds,

 which could then be stored on Youtube, some local

 streaming server, on a network share, usb storage,...

 anywhere, this would provide quite a lot of flexibility

 to teachers. Also, activity developers would not have

 to care about where the video file really is.



 Teachers would be able to organize the contents they are

 interested in so that this multimedia content can be browsed

 easily both by teachers and students. Also, teachers

 would be able to add metadata to the video files (again,

 no matter where the actual file lives), like summaries

 of the contents, hints to understand the video, additional

 work or other related content. All this information could

 then be grabbed by an activity and present it to the

 student appropriately, enriching the learning

 experience.



 Iago

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Re: [IAEP] [FIELDBACK] Etoys

2010-02-26 Thread Gerald Ardito
Subbu,

Thanks for this.
Your idea about watchers is a really good one.

Gerald

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:53 AM, K. K. Subramaniam subb...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Friday 26 February 2010 12:12:19 pm Cherry Withers wrote:
  It's definitely a balancing act trying to get them to focus on finishing
 up
  something and getting them to explore. Once they realize that they
  can affect the object by scripts they just want to do everything they can
  possibly do in one sitting (dragging and dropping tiles in one script
  window ..then I'm in fire fighting mode). Too much resulted in chaos in
 my
  class. Not doing THAT again. I now give them some time to go nuts on
  exploration then pull them back in to finish a project. Now I'm
  introducing just a max of two concepts (or tiles) in one 40min. session.
 When a new tile is introduced, kids tend to use it over and over many times
 before they get to a state where they can use it in a project. This is par
 for
 the course.

 Alan's car demo script starts with commands. When the script says forward
 5
 what exactly is 5 in that blank space? Introducing watchers before commands
 helps ease the up ramp. Learning about watchers for shapes
 (length/width/heading), color and border and then position (x,y,..) allows
 kids to grasp spatial and angular dimensions gradually.

 BTW, I wouldn't worry about kids finishing a project in the first few
 sessions. Curiosity and experimentation will dominate the sessions. Only
 when
 they reach a zone of comfort with the system will they become receptive to
 tips on saving their projects.

 My experience is limited to non-English students in rural India using the
 English GUI. I don't know how much it would apply to students in other
 regions.

 YMMV .. Subbu
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Re: [IAEP] Math on Web

2010-02-26 Thread Gerald Ardito
Maria,

Thanks for the tip.

Gerald

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Maria Droujkova droujk...@gmail.comwrote:

 Gerald,

 Check out Nibipedia for that sort of software. The creators may be open for
 collaboration.

 Cheers,
 Maria Droujkova
 http://www.naturalmath.com

 Make math your own, to make your own math.





 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.comwrote:

 Caroline,

 Something else that may be worth considering is the development of an
 activity like Info Slicer, where teachers can provide annotations for the
 videos, and/or prompts for notes or reflections.

 Gerald


 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Caroline Meeks 
 solutiongr...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 Anybody know about this? I wonder whether he would be willing to let
 us adapt his materials to laptops.


 Good idea!  What ideas do you have about how we would adopt it?

 We could start by asking him if he would make them CC license. I'm
 traveling to the Bay Area next month. If we can get some good ideas I'm
 happy to maybe team up with Cherry take him out to coffee and ask.

 Caroline



 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/north_america/jan-june10/khan_02-22.html
 Feb. 22, 2010
 Math Wiz Adds Web Tools to Take Education to New Limits

 --
 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://www.earthtreasury.org/
 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep




 --
 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



 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep



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Re: [IAEP] Math on Web

2010-02-26 Thread Gerald Ardito
Caroline,

You do a good job outlining the problem.
Even with bandwidth, the Browse activity is just not that great (at least on
the XOs) for streaming video.

I am imagining some combination of teachers providing scaffolding or a
preview of some video(s), and then the students watching them from home (or
outside of the classroom) and then reflecting/having classroom discussions.

Gerald

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com
 wrote:

 Here is a page on 4 YouTube Math Tutors

 http://www.squidoo.com/Youtube-Math-Tutors

 I think Gerald is right, we need a general way to help Sugar Teachers use
 YouTube resources.

 Can people help me brainstorm?

 Challenges to using YouTube Resources:


1. YouTube is blocked by the district
2. No internet access
3. Bandwidth if everyone is watching a video at once
4. Workflow/Classflow challenges how do we get the kids watching the
video we want them to watch and doing the work before and after to make it 
 a
learning experience.
5. Legal issues, what is and isn't fair use of the a YouTube resource?


 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.comwrote:

 Caroline,

 Something else that may be worth considering is the development of an
 activity like Info Slicer, where teachers can provide annotations for the
 videos, and/or prompts for notes or reflections.

 Gerald


 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Caroline Meeks 
 solutiongr...@gmail.comwrote:



 On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:22 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.comwrote:

 Anybody know about this? I wonder whether he would be willing to let
 us adapt his materials to laptops.


 Good idea!  What ideas do you have about how we would adopt it?

 We could start by asking him if he would make them CC license. I'm
 traveling to the Bay Area next month. If we can get some good ideas I'm
 happy to maybe team up with Cherry take him out to coffee and ask.

 Caroline



 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/north_america/jan-june10/khan_02-22.html
 Feb. 22, 2010
 Math Wiz Adds Web Tools to Take Education to New Limits

 --
 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://www.earthtreasury.org/
 ___
 IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
 IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep




 --
 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





 --
 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
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Re: [IAEP] [FIELDBACK] Etoys

2010-02-26 Thread Gerald Ardito
Edward,

I know that my 5th graders who are using XOs and Sugar would love to
participate with you in this project.

Gerald

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote:

  I would also like to hear any such ideas. I am writing about
 exploring the XO and its software, to be followed by a teacher's guide
 that will show how to introduce everything that children cannot
 discover for themselves in dependency order, and a bite at a time,
 with appropriate reinforcement. I need all of the real-world
 information I can get about both problems and solutions.

 Then, of course, I will need people to try out what I write and tell
 me what's wrong with it. ^_^ I would particularly like to hear from
 children who have issues, and be able to discuss those issues with
 them.

 On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 01:42, Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org
 wrote:
  Gerald,
 
  It's definitely a balancing act trying to get them to focus on finishing
 up
  something and getting them to explore. Once they realize that they
  can affect the object by scripts they just want to do everything they can
  possibly do in one sitting (dragging and dropping tiles in one script
 window
  ..then I'm in fire fighting mode). Too much resulted in chaos in my
 class.
  Not doing THAT again. I now give them some time to go nuts on exploration
  then pull them back in to finish a project. Now I'm introducing just a
 max
  of two concepts (or tiles) in one 40min. session.
 
  Kathleen Harness has really good lesson plans for teaching one concept at
 a
  time: www.etoysillionois.org
 
  I would like to hear more best practices/ideas, etc. for teaching Etoys
 in
  the classroom.
 
  Cheers,
  Cherry
 
  On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  I agree. Watching the car script is fun for a while. But when they make
  their own first script, it is exciting each and every time.
 
  I also find that the students (I work with 10 year olds) get overwhelmed
  by the number of choices they have.
 
  Anyone else have that experience?
 
  Thanks.
  Gerald
 
  On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Cherry Withers cwith...@ekindling.org
 
  wrote:
 
  The very first time a child sees their object move with a simple
 forward
  script is always a magical moment for me and the kids. Never fails.
  Exploration and excitement explodes after that. I'm new to teaching
 Etoys as
  well. Definitely caught the bug. :-)
 
  On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Simon Schampijer si...@schampijer.de
 
  wrote:
 
  Hi,
 
  I am teaching on a regular basis in the Planetarium pilot in Berlin,
  Germany [1]. I have been using Etoys now for several weeks and here is
  some first feedback.
 
  First: The kids do like it a lot! I want to encourage everyone to
  include it in his curriculum.
 
  For example you can teach easily the concepts of the coordinate system
  with Etoys. You create an object and print out the X and Y values when
  moving it on the screen. Or you can use a joystick to alter the
 position
  of this object and use this method to deepen the coordinate system
  concept.
 
  Of course we did as well the famous car example. It was slightly
 changed
  in my class: A bug has to crawl a lane using one or two sensors to
 stay
  on the lane. A lot of interesting concepts to learn here, too
 (positive
  and negative numbers for example).
 
  And to bring this all together into a portfolio you can use the book
  tool (found in the treasure chest) to create a story including all
 your
  objects and games, pictures etc you created.
 
  I wrote down a few items I was missing when using the book tool and
  while doing so, I figured they were all there, just hidden by default.
 
  - resize all of the book not just one page
  - maybe that could be the default option?
  - duplicate a page
  - different background color
  - different sound when turning the page
 
  When you hit the little button at the far left you will get more
  options. And when you use the menu in the middle of the book toolbar
 you
  get all of these options and a lot of more. Just in case someone runs
 as
  well into this :)
 
  A few things that I came across, too:
  - German: When you drop the 'joystick up down' and 'joystick left
 right'
  option onto the world it will change to English. Not when you use it
 in
  a script though.
  - some buttons are hard to use: for example when you want to alter the
  behavior of the X value of an object (increase..). Those are hard to
  navigate. Or dropping options into the test script does not work as
  smooth.
 
  That's all for now - keep up the good work, team Etoys!.
 
  Thanks,
  Simon
 
  PS: Of course I am happy to turn items into bugs later. Just thought I
  give here a little summary first.
 
 
  [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployments/Planetarium
 
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Re: [IAEP] SoaS deployment (1st grade) in CFS (Boston area)

2010-02-11 Thread Gerald Ardito
Mel,

This is just great. I look forward to see what happens next.
If I can help at all, just let me know.

Gerald

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 11:34 PM, Mel Chua m...@melchua.com wrote:

 Some of you may have seen this news come across Planet already, but
 we're doing a small SoaS deployment in a 1st grade classroom in
 Cambridge, MA. It's meant to be small, short-term (Feb-May) and very
 well-documented - basically, what is the simplest complete SoaS
 deployment mechanism you could set up? is the question we are trying to
 answer by doing it.

 More information at http://blog.melchua.com/category/soas/,
 http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2010/02/im-excited-seriously.html,
 and https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Sugar.

 There's a wiki page up about the deployment at
 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mchua/SoaS_pilot, but this is a very
 temporary location until the students pick a name for the deployment -
 at which point we'll move to mainspace with that name.

 --Mel
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Re: [IAEP] planet

2010-01-27 Thread Gerald Ardito
Tomeu,

This seems like a really good resource, and one I did not know about before.
As with any blog, it is only useful if updated regularly, so that would be
my only reservation about promoting it.

My two cents.
Gerald

On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org wrote:

 Hi,

 I'm under the impression that the SLs planet
 (http://planet.sugarlabs.org/) isn't well known even between the
 members in our mailing lists.

 What do people think about linking to it more prominently? Maybe in
 Walter's digest?

 Regards,

 Tomeu
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Re: [IAEP] Looking for Montreal XO/Sugar users

2010-01-21 Thread Gerald Ardito
Tabitha,

One of the teachers has an affinity for the city, and Canada is part of the
5th grade social studies curriculum.
Did you have somewhere else in mind?

Thanks.
Gerald

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 4:29 AM, Tabitha Roder tabitha.ro...@gmail.comwrote:

 2010/1/21 Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com

 I have a classroom of 5th grade XO users and their teacher who are looking
 to become electronic pen pals with students in Montreal.


 Hi Gerald
 Any reason Montreal?
 Tabitha

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Re: [IAEP] Looking for Montreal XO/Sugar users

2010-01-21 Thread Gerald Ardito
Tabitha,

I would like to be contacted by other XO using schools interested in pen pal
arrangements. And yes, 5th graders are about 10 years old.
Thanks for your help with this.

Gerald

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 4:50 AM, Tabitha Roder tabitha.ro...@gmail.comwrote:


 One of the teachers has an affinity for the city, and Canada is part of the
 5th grade social studies curriculum.
 Did you have somewhere else in mind?

 No where else in mind, just having the reasons helps people decide if they
 should put their hand up with alternatives - would you like to be contacted
 by other XO using schools if they are interested in a penpal arrangement?
 (what age is 5th grade? is that 10 year olds? we have different terminology
 here).
 Thanks


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[IAEP] EToys Saving Problem

2010-01-08 Thread Gerald Ardito
Bert,

I have been working with students to create EToys projects.
Two of them were working yesterday on their projects, which I saw. Their
work was very good, and almost done. When they went to finish it today,
yesterday's work was not in the Journal, nor were there any other records in
the Journal of earlier sessions on this project.

So, I have some questions:
1. Under what conditions could this happen?
2. Is it possible that the project is on the XO, but not showing in the
Journal? If so, where might I find it.
3. Can you suggest any way to recover this work?

Thanks.
Gerald
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Re: [IAEP] EToys Saving Problem

2010-01-08 Thread Gerald Ardito
Bert,

Thanks.
Which log should I look at?
I'll try the other stuff on Monday when I am back at school.

Gerald

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 5:14 PM, Bert Freudenberg b...@freudenbergs.dewrote:

 On 08.01.2010, at 22:14, Gerald Ardito wrote:

 Bert,

 I have been working with students to create EToys projects.
 Two of them were working yesterday on their projects, which I saw. Their
 work was very good, and almost done. When they went to finish it today,
 yesterday's work was not in the Journal, nor were there any other records in
 the Journal of earlier sessions on this project.

 So, I have some questions:
 1. Under what conditions could this happen?


 Don't know. Is there anything in the log?

 2. Is it possible that the project is on the XO, but not showing in the
 Journal? If so, where might I find it.


 It's unlikely, but try

  su
  find /home/olpc/isolation -name \*.pr

 which would look for Etoys projects in the rainbow-jailed folders.

 3. Can you suggest any way to recover this work?


 If you find a project file you can use copy-to-journal to add it to the
 Journal.

 - Bert -


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Re: [IAEP] Sharing work between XOs/SOAS devices

2009-12-15 Thread Gerald Ardito
Aleksey,

I think option 1 is good. It keeps the favorites metaphor from elsewhere
and allows for the sharing of multiple things at the same time.

Thanks.
Gerald

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Aleksey Lim alsr...@member.fsf.org wrote:

 On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:30:22PM -0500, Gerald Ardito wrote:
  Hello all.
 
  As our 5th graders are doing more and more work with their XOs, their
 being
  able to turn in and share their work products (as opposed to
 collaborating
  with others) is becoming more and more important.
 
  My temporary solution is having them upload their work (along with
  reflections, if desired) to Moodle, which I can do because we have an XS
  implementation. However, this means that if a student has created a
 Memorize
  vocabulary game that s/he want to share s/he has to:
  1. Create the game.
  2. Save it to the Journal
  3. Go to Browse
  4. Navigate to Moodle
  5. Find the right course/right assignment within the course
  6. Upload game.
 
  S/he pretty much has to do the same thing to download and then play other
  games. This is certainly workable, but dramatically slows down the
 momentum
  of creating games and wanting others to play them.
 
  So, I am asking to create/offering to help create an Activity that allows
  users to share work products easily. I know that Bert was working on
  something called Distribute, which may be a starting place. It seems to
  share Journal objects, which seems right.
 
  I am happy to work with developers on this. I could create requirements,
 if
  need be. Just say the word.
 
  I look forward to what comes next.
 
  Thanks and best,
  Gerald

 What do you think about followed workflows, which is preferable

 1) user, using search controls, minimize list of entries in Journal
   bookmark this entirely list(names it)
   share the whole list(bookmark)
   user can have several bookmarks
   other users see that 1st user shared some bookmarks and can open
   these bookmarks in theirs Journal(it could be separate icon like USB)
   (bookmarks could be useful not only for sharing)

 2) there is no bookmarks
   user can share any object w/o bookmarking(e.g. by clicking star icon or
 so)
   other user see only one list of shared objects

 --
 Aleksey

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[IAEP] Sharing EToys projects

2009-12-06 Thread Gerald Ardito
Hello.

I am working with 140 5th grade students who are using XOs (mostly) and
netbooks with SOAS.
About 50 of them are using Etoys to create projects.
I am trying to find a way to share them with their teachers and each other.
When I try to upload them to a Moodle course and them download them, the
downloaded files can't be read by EToys.

Any ideas?


Thanks.
Gerald
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