Hi All...
Here are a few random musings about the first 2 days of SCaLE 8X.
Day One... OSSIE (Open Source Software In Education)... my presentation went
well and a lot of folks have commented on how much they enjoyed it. It was
definitely "low tech." I had a slide set to talk about followed by a
demonstration of some of the Sugar Activities using SoaS Strawberry running on
my Mac with the help of Virtual Box.
Not many teachers attended. Too hard to get Friday off. It would be nice if
this track could be on Saturday.
Some of the OSSIE track talks were very high tech... way over my head. Did
hear one about web filters that I could understand at least some of... it was
interesting. Another about programmable robots was interesting too.
Day Two... We had our OLPC/Sugar Labs booth. Powered up my Roadshow In A BOx
(5 XO-1s and one XO-1.5). Soon after, the "internet police" came by to tell us
that our mesh network was messing up the conference wifi. I didn't know this
could happen. He told us to connect them to the wifi to eliminate the problem.
We did and it must have worked because he didn't come back... not to us anyway.
Lots of people played with both the XO-1s and the 1.5. There is a lot of
interest in getting a 1.5, especially among the ones who already have an XO-1.
Someone suggested that a special G1G1 program with the 1.5s could be done at
tech conferences like SCaLE. This would have the added advantage of getting
the machines into the hands of more developers.
Adam said if I could get 10 people to sign up for a SoCal mailing list we could
have one. I already have close to 50 interested people and there is still
tomorrow!
Interesting thing happened with Speak after running it for a while. On some
(not all), the mouth stopped moving. Closing and re-opening the Activity did
not help. I was able to get one of them to do the "frequency" mode, but the
other 2 modes did not work. Very strange!
I got some help making a SoaS from someone in the Engineers Without Borders
booth next to ours. In fact, they made one for me. The folks in the LUG booth
on the other side of them couldn't figure out how to do it. Something about
they were running the wrong kind of Linux??? Someone else took a stick from me
to make one in the exhibit hall and never brought it back. Maybe tomorrow.
The ethernet to usb connectors Adam sent for swag are a big hit. I have been
giving them to everyone who tells me they are an XO owner. Some will go to
others tomorrow since it looks like I should have enough.
I also gave out some of the picture cards Adam sent. I tried printing
information and links on the back of them but the paper has a very slick finish
and the ink just sort of balled up and smeared. I gave up. The information is
on the back of my "business" card anyway, which I give them along with the
picture card.
Tomorrow we will have the booth again and I will be doing a 1 hour hands-on
session right after lunch. We will use 10 XOs from the CUELA XO lending library
and 6 m-stock machines I have repaired. The Roadshow machines will stay in the
booth.
We will also have one PC set up as a station where people can make their own
SoaS (if they bring a usb drive) and machines for then to try them on. The one
they make them on will be running Windows. Unfortunately that appears to be the
easiest way to make them. Linux has too many varieties and Mac can't do it
stand-alone. So much for the open source purists.
2 people from the UCSB Contributors Program project will be coming tomorrow to
help in the booth.
I met someone who worked on the XO-1.5 software and also has a 1.5 at the
conference. He is a Gnash developer. I will get his name tomorrow.
It is late. I am still on South American time and right now it would be 4 am.
Nitey-nite!
Caryl
P.S. Don't you all wish you were here?????
P.P.S. Tomorrow's (Sunday's) conference call/online meeting sounds great.
Unfortunately, it comes at the same time as my hands-on session so I will have
to miss it. I hope it is recorded. If you get a chance to attend... don't
miss it!
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