By the way, we always talk about the XS School Server in our public communications for several reasons:
* We've identified filtering online access as a key concern of teachers and parents; education buyers and education IT staff need to know that a software solution is available which can be configured with a filter * Sugar on a Stick in any deployment needs tech support, the kind that also configures access to wifi, worries about how to replace lost or damaged sticks, etc. * The Intel Learning Series teacher tools are stiff competition for any non-XO Sugar deployment, in particular the new Education Appliance classroom server box by Critical Links: http://www.intellearningseries.com/product-info/ http://education.critical-links.com/education/export/sites/default/docs/education-datasheet.pdf http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/the-intel-educational-appliance-where-do-i-get-one/3771 * Teachers are adopting Moodle, to the point where Microsoft supports it with GPL'd software (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=128648 , http://www.educationlabs.com/projects/moodleproduct/Pages/default.aspx) * There is an upper limit to effective collaboration using ad-hoc networking; I'm not sure what the limit is, but I believe it's a small enough number of machines to concern teachers * Martin has consistently worked to support Sugar on non-OLPC hardware. Always keep in mind that our two main barriers to adoption are Sugar's unfamiliarity and installation difficulty. Knowing that a school server exists will motivate teachers to overcome these barriers. Here's a suggestion to address your concern about testing: add a qualifying "your mileage may vary" phrase: "Installation and configuration of an XS School Server requires an IT administrator. For more information, please visit http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/School_Server and http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server"; Sean On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 9:08 AM, Sean DALY <[email protected]> wrote: > Mel - our marketing policy has been to say "K-6" or "ages 5 to 12" > (http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press&article=20090316&language=english#20090316) > or "children" or "young learners" because the Microsoft / CMPC offer > is so poor in that range. Of course, that doesn't exclude any age > group (including seniors and computer beginners of all ages), but it > needs to be clear that the focus is on grade-school children. Part of > the planned media campaign for the XO-1.5 involves promoting the dual > desktop with Gnome, better suited to teenagers. > > Martin - any comment on the XS School Server text? > > thanks > > Sean > > > On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 6:15 AM, Mel Chua <[email protected]> wrote: >> Since SoaS is now a Fedora Spin, we also get a shiny Fedora Spin >> webpage, courtesy of the Fedora Marketing, Design, and Websites teams: >> http://spins.fedoraproject.org/soas/ >> >> Not all the wiki/other links pointed-to from this spin page are fully >> built up (for instance, our openhatch link needs more work), but there's >> time to do that before the release date of 5/18, and we needed to get >> this specific website itself up today (Fedora's freeze date). >> >> Thanks to Sean Daly for graciously stepping in with last-minute patches >> to the content on very short notice! You can see Sean's changes here: >> http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=fedora-web.git;a=commitdiff;h=5812da649b6c132b43b51b72f09c56dff236076b >> >> There were two changes requested that I did /not/ make, and wanted to >> note here for transparency (and also pushback, so that people can tell >> me if they think I'm wrong in doing so. :) >> >> * I left the age range from grades K-8 (requested: K-6) because of >> positive feedback from middle school teachers, and also because of the >> project's history of targeting a broader range >> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Our_market#Child_is_a_nebulous_term.3B_what_is_the_exact_age_range_you_are_targeting.3F). >> >> * I love this paragraph, but I haven't seen tests run with Sugar on a >> Stick and the XS - and until we have that, I'm hesitant to put that in: >> "In a classroom setting, this automatic saving to each pupil's stick can >> also be backed up to a school server, solving any lost stick problems. >> The XS School Server (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server), also >> based on Fedora, can provide content distribution, homework collection, >> Moodle integration (http://docs.moodle.org/en/OLPC_XS_installation), and >> filtered access to the Internet." >> >> You may also notice that the webpage does not contain the SL logo, >> because we generally do not use trademarks in our Fedora Spin webpages, >> since everything we put out needs to be freely redistributable and we >> don't want to dilute anyone's mark. Instead, it features a banner >> created by Melanie Kim, adapted from a banner by Mo Duffy made with >> artwork by Maria Leandro, all contributors from Fedora Design. >> >> In general, enjoy the shiny and please shoot comments and feedback and >> such this-a-way. ;) >> >> --Mel (wearing my Fedora Marketing hat in this email as well as my Sugar >> Labs one) >> _______________________________________________ >> SoaS mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas >> > _______________________________________________ SoaS mailing list [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
