Re: [IAEP] Letter to GPA Parents
On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Bill Kerr billk...@gmail.com wrote: supply a phone number to call if it is not working? We want them to wait till classes start in Sept. We expect, based on our experiences this summer, that a number of the sticks will become corrupt. Nothing we can do about it over the phone. :( I promised the kids they could take the sticks home and I think some of them will have success. won't the families have to go into CMOS (or whatever) to configure booting off the USB stick? BIOS. No, if we give them a CD and they put that in first most computers are set to boot from CD. I have had students take sticks home (last year) and come back saying they can't get it to work. To enter CMOS requires holding down either Delete or F2 key depending on the PC and then figuring out settings. I would see this as the main block point. ie. you could demo to a student at school but it might be different at home. Right and we have 2nd and 3rd graders. Bigger challenge then we can attack in one session this week. Big important challenge. I would replace kids with students throughout Thanks yes, I would have put in less background information - as long as the opportunity is there somehow for those who want more to obtain it I'm hoping to learn more about what the right amount of detail is with experience. The parents have a variety of primary languages and I imagine a variety of literacy levels. The school will translate into spanish for us but some of the parents are not native Spanish speakers either. Perhaps I am worrying about this too much. Thanks for your input. Parent communication will be one of our big challenges this Sept. Cheers, Caroline cheers On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: First draft - Comments? Suggestions? Do you think I put in too much background information? Dear Parent, Your child will take home from camp a USB stick and a CD that they used in school this summer. Their work this summer is the first part of a school wide program to use “Sugar on a Stick” at the GPA. The GPA will be the first school that uses a USB stick to bring Sugar home. Sugar is the name of the software and you can learn more at www.sugarlabs.org. Your kids are the first ones to use it on a USB stick but almost a million kids are using it on the “One Laptop per Child” computers in countries like Peru and Uruguay. If there is a computer at home the students can try to use Sugar. We will teach them how to do it in class. It may not work on your computer yet. The stick may also stop working at some point. That is fine, we are doing a pilot test and we know there are still problems. We will work all next year to make sure it works for all students. Please have your student bring the stick back to school on the first day of school regardless of whether or not it works. The kids all had a wonderful time working with Sugar this summer and produced some amazing things! Pictures of their work are up on the web: We may also be creating some videos that will include your children and their work, if you have signed a release form. If you would like to know more about Sugar and our plans for the Fall or if you’d like to volunteer to help in the fall please email carol...@sugarlabs.org Thank you and we look forward to meeting you all in September! Sincerely Caroline Meeks Sugar Labs Instructions for booting your computer with Sugar. Put in the CD Turn off the computer Plug in the USB Turn on the computer If you have a Mac, hold down the “c” key as it starts up and as you hear the chime. Please don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work! We’ll figure out why and fix it this fall. -- 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 http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Letter to GPA Parents
supply a phone number to call if it is not working? won't the families have to go into CMOS (or whatever) to configure booting off the USB stick? I have had students take sticks home (last year) and come back saying they can't get it to work. To enter CMOS requires holding down either Delete or F2 key depending on the PC and then figuring out settings. I would see this as the main block point. ie. you could demo to a student at school but it might be different at home. I would replace kids with students throughout yes, I would have put in less background information - as long as the opportunity is there somehow for those who want more to obtain it cheers On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: First draft - Comments? Suggestions? Do you think I put in too much background information? Dear Parent, Your child will take home from camp a USB stick and a CD that they used in school this summer. Their work this summer is the first part of a school wide program to use “Sugar on a Stick” at the GPA. The GPA will be the first school that uses a USB stick to bring Sugar home. Sugar is the name of the software and you can learn more at www.sugarlabs.org. Your kids are the first ones to use it on a USB stick but almost a million kids are using it on the “One Laptop per Child” computers in countries like Peru and Uruguay. If there is a computer at home the students can try to use Sugar. We will teach them how to do it in class. It may not work on your computer yet. The stick may also stop working at some point. That is fine, we are doing a pilot test and we know there are still problems. We will work all next year to make sure it works for all students. Please have your student bring the stick back to school on the first day of school regardless of whether or not it works. The kids all had a wonderful time working with Sugar this summer and produced some amazing things! Pictures of their work are up on the web: We may also be creating some videos that will include your children and their work, if you have signed a release form. If you would like to know more about Sugar and our plans for the Fall or if you’d like to volunteer to help in the fall please email carol...@sugarlabs.org Thank you and we look forward to meeting you all in September! Sincerely Caroline Meeks Sugar Labs Instructions for booting your computer with Sugar. Put in the CD Turn off the computer Plug in the USB Turn on the computer If you have a Mac, hold down the “c” key as it starts up and as you hear the chime. Please don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work! We’ll figure out why and fix it this fall. -- 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
Re: [IAEP] Letter to GPA Parents
looks pretty good to me. On 7/30/09, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: First draft - Comments? Suggestions? Do you think I put in too much background information? Dear Parent, Your child will take home from camp a USB stick and a CD that they used in school this summer. Their work this summer is the first part of a school wide program to use “Sugar on a Stick” at the GPA. The GPA will be the first school that uses a USB stick to bring Sugar home. Sugar is the name of the software and you can learn more at www.sugarlabs.org. Your kids are the first ones to use it on a USB stick but almost a million kids are using it on the “One Laptop per Child” computers in countries like Peru and Uruguay. If there is a computer at home the students can try to use Sugar. We will teach them how to do it in class. It may not work on your computer yet. The stick may also stop working at some point. That is fine, we are doing a pilot test and we know there are still problems. We will work all next year to make sure it works for all students. Please have your student bring the stick back to school on the first day of school regardless of whether or not it works. The kids all had a wonderful time working with Sugar this summer and produced some amazing things! Pictures of their work are up on the web: We may also be creating some videos that will include your children and their work, if you have signed a release form. If you would like to know more about Sugar and our plans for the Fall or if you’d like to volunteer to help in the fall please email carol...@sugarlabs.org Thank you and we look forward to meeting you all in September! Sincerely Caroline Meeks Sugar Labs Instructions for booting your computer with Sugar. Put in the CD Turn off the computer Plug in the USB Turn on the computer If you have a Mac, hold down the “c” key as it starts up and as you hear the chime. Please don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work! We’ll figure out why and fix it this fall. -- 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 -- Anurag Goel ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Letter to GPA Parents
Hi Caroline, Your letter does a good job of conveying your message to the parents. Since I'm new here, I'm wondering how much those parents have heard about Sugar up to this point. Unless you are sure they have been hearing a lot about it, I would include a bit more explanation. I re-arranged your letter a bit -- take what you like. Bill Cowie - - - - - - - - We are very pleased to tell you about a new and innovative computer-based educational program designed especially for children. We call it “Sugar”. The kids at GPA had a wonderful time working with Sugar this summer, and we have put some pictures of their work on the World Wide Web. You can see them at (*insert link here*). Your son or daughter is one of the first to receive this program on a USB memory stick, which we call “Sugar on a Stick”. He or she will bring this memory stick and a CD home at the end of the GPA summer camp. If you have a computer at home, they will be able to try it and perhaps show you what they have learned. This memory stick is a brand new way of using Sugar on your computer, and we haven’t had time to test it on many different types of computers. It works on the computers at school, but we don’t know if it will work on yours. Please try it, but if it doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with your computer. We will continue to work on getting it to run on all computers in the months ahead. Please have your son or daughter bring back the Sugar stick and the CD on the first day of school in the Fall, whether or not it works on your computer. Parents and family can find out more about Sugar by visiting our web site at www.sugarlabs.org If you have any questions, or would like to know about our plans for the Fall, or would like to volunteer to help in the Fall, please email carol...@sugarlabs.org Thank you and we look forward to meeting you all in September! Sincerely Caroline Meeks Sugar Labs Instructions for booting your computer with Sugar. Put in the CD Turn off the computer Plug in the USB Turn on the computer If you have a Mac, hold down the “c” key as it starts up and as you hear the chime. Please don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work! We’ll figure out why and fix it this fall. - - - - - - - - On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Anurag Goel agoe...@gmail.com wrote: looks pretty good to me. On 7/30/09, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: First draft - Comments? Suggestions? Do you think I put in too much background information? Dear Parent, Your child will take home from camp a USB stick and a CD that they used in school this summer. Their work this summer is the first part of a school wide program to use “Sugar on a Stick” at the GPA. The GPA will be the first school that uses a USB stick to bring Sugar home. Sugar is the name of the software and you can learn more at www.sugarlabs.org. Your kids are the first ones to use it on a USB stick but almost a million kids are using it on the “One Laptop per Child” computers in countries like Peru and Uruguay. If there is a computer at home the students can try to use Sugar. We will teach them how to do it in class. It may not work on your computer yet. The stick may also stop working at some point. That is fine, we are doing a pilot test and we know there are still problems. We will work all next year to make sure it works for all students. Please have your student bring the stick back to school on the first day of school regardless of whether or not it works. The kids all had a wonderful time working with Sugar this summer and produced some amazing things! Pictures of their work are up on the web: We may also be creating some videos that will include your children and their work, if you have signed a release form. If you would like to know more about Sugar and our plans for the Fall or if you’d like to volunteer to help in the fall please email carol...@sugarlabs.org Thank you and we look forward to meeting you all in September! Sincerely Caroline Meeks Sugar Labs Instructions for booting your computer with Sugar. Put in the CD Turn off the computer Plug in the USB Turn on the computer If you have a Mac, hold down the “c” key as it starts up and as you hear the chime. Please don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work! We’ll figure out why and fix it this fall. -- 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 -- Anurag Goel ___ 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
Re: [IAEP] Letter to GPA Parents
On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 11:05 PM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote: We found out today that summer school ends a week sooner then we thought! It ends next week. We want to send the sticks home with the kids. We need to write a letter to the parents explaining what the stick is. Does anyone have any suggestions or sample letters? What would be good, but probably impractical at short notice, is to invite the parents to the last session, so the kids can show what they have achieved. That would give the opportunity to explain the sticks. The parents all work, I assume, so I doubt that will work this summer. Next year we will make a point of being at as many events where parents come to the school as possible. (It has also a sound base in constructionist and social constructivist pedagogy, the creation of public entities) Tony -- 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] Letter to GPA Parents
This doesn't answer Caroline's question, but I think a workshop led by the kids we worked with the summer to kick off the fall where parents and the whole school community is invited would be a great way to go. -walter On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 11:05 PM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote: We found out today that summer school ends a week sooner then we thought! It ends next week. We want to send the sticks home with the kids. We need to write a letter to the parents explaining what the stick is. Does anyone have any suggestions or sample letters? What would be good, but probably impractical at short notice, is to invite the parents to the last session, so the kids can show what they have achieved. That would give the opportunity to explain the sticks. (It has also a sound base in constructionist and social constructivist pedagogy, the creation of public entities) Tony ___ 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
Re: [IAEP] Letter to GPA Parents
First draft - Comments? Suggestions? Do you think I put in too much background information? Dear Parent, Your child will take home from camp a USB stick and a CD that they used in school this summer. Their work this summer is the first part of a school wide program to use “Sugar on a Stick” at the GPA. The GPA will be the first school that uses a USB stick to bring Sugar home. Sugar is the name of the software and you can learn more at www.sugarlabs.org. Your kids are the first ones to use it on a USB stick but almost a million kids are using it on the “One Laptop per Child” computers in countries like Peru and Uruguay. If there is a computer at home the students can try to use Sugar. We will teach them how to do it in class. It may not work on your computer yet. The stick may also stop working at some point. That is fine, we are doing a pilot test and we know there are still problems. We will work all next year to make sure it works for all students. Please have your student bring the stick back to school on the first day of school regardless of whether or not it works. The kids all had a wonderful time working with Sugar this summer and produced some amazing things! Pictures of their work are up on the web: We may also be creating some videos that will include your children and their work, if you have signed a release form. If you would like to know more about Sugar and our plans for the Fall or if you’d like to volunteer to help in the fall please email carol...@sugarlabs.org Thank you and we look forward to meeting you all in September! Sincerely Caroline Meeks Sugar Labs Instructions for booting your computer with Sugar. Put in the CD Turn off the computer Plug in the USB Turn on the computer If you have a Mac, hold down the “c” key as it starts up and as you hear the chime. Please don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work! We’ll figure out why and fix it this fall. -- 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] Letter to GPA Parents
We found out today that summer school ends a week sooner then we thought! It ends next week. We want to send the sticks home with the kids. We need to write a letter to the parents explaining what the stick is. Does anyone have any suggestions or sample letters? Thanks! Caroline -- 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] Letter to GPA Parents
We found out today that summer school ends a week sooner then we thought! It ends next week. We want to send the sticks home with the kids. We need to write a letter to the parents explaining what the stick is. Does anyone have any suggestions or sample letters? What would be good, but probably impractical at short notice, is to invite the parents to the last session, so the kids can show what they have achieved. That would give the opportunity to explain the sticks. (It has also a sound base in constructionist and social constructivist pedagogy, the creation of public entities) Tony ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
