[Sugar-news] Sugar Digest 2015-07-07

[Walter Bender]

== Sugar Digest ==

1. Sugar 106 has been released [1]. Some great new features, including
the integration of social help and the ability to launch Activities
from other Activities, and lots of work on bug fixing and
stabilization. Many thanks to the developers, testers, and our release
master, Martin Abente. For those of you who are so inclined, Sam
Parkinson make a fun video about the new release [2].

2. A few weeks ago I was at the Google Code-in meet up in San
Francisco where I had the opportunity to spend time with Ignacio
Rodriguez and Sam Parkinson, our two finalists. They are not only
productive members of our community in terms of coding, but also
exemplars of a new generation of well-rounded, articulate, observant
and caring human beings. I'm honored that they have chosen our
community in which to develop their skills. Bonus: as I was hoping, we
got some coding time in amidst all the activities that Google
scheduled. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Raul at Twitter.

3. I ran a Turtle Blocks workshop in Bridgeport, Connecticut at a
charter school that serves disadvantaged youths. The workshop was
organized by Dennis Wong, an old friend from my Media Lab days and an
active member of the local Rotary Club. The kids were enthusiastic
despite the difficult circumstances under which we worked -- the
computer lab is typically used for taking tests, so it was arranged to
minimize the possibilities that the learners would interact with and
help each other. I'm hoping as a follow up, the Rotary can help the
school make the room into more of a maker space.

=== In the community ===

4. Call for papers for the special issue of RED (Journal of Distance
Education):"Skills for coding and pre-coding":
* Deadline for submitting manuscripts: 31 July 2015
* Estimated Publishing Date: 15 September 2015.
Publishing standards and guidelines for authors can be found at [3].

Llamada a contribuciones para el número especial de RED (Revista de
Educación a Distancia): "Competencias para la codificación y la
precodificación":
* Fecha límite para enviar manuscritos: 31deJuliode 2015
* Fecha estimada para la publicación: 15 de Septiembre de 2015.
Normas de publicación y pautas para los autores [3].

5. For those of you who are interested, we hold our GSoC group
meetings on Fridays, 11:00 EST (Boston), 13:00 UTC on irc.freenode.net
#sugar-meeting.

6. We will be holding a new Sugar Oversight Board (SLOB) election this
fall. The Membership Committee -- Samson Goddy, Caryl Bigenho, and
Sebastian Silva -- are gearing up to make a major push to enroll
community members onto our members list and we implore everyone to
encourage both participation in the election and to consider running
for one of the open seats on the board. Details forthcoming. As part
of the push, Caryl is putting together a newsletter about recent Sugar
activities. If you have stories to share, please contact Caryl (caryl
AT laptop DOT org).

7. Dear colleagues,

Sugar Labs is organizing a survey of its youth contributors with the
aim of publishing a report in the special issue of RED mentioned
above. Towards this end, we invite you to answer the questions below.
Please send your answers (written in your native language) to walter
AT sugarlabs DOT org or francis AT sugarlabs DOT org.

How and why did you first get involved in programming?

How did you get involved with Sugar? What were your motivations for
contributing to the Sugar project?

Did the fact that the project was FOSS (Software Libre) impact your
decisions? your motivation? your habits?

What work or contribution that you have participated in has most
motivated you? Why?

What work or contribution that you have participated in has least
motivated you? Why?

When you program, how do you decide what to work on? Where to you get
ideas? help? Do you help others?

How do you communicate your ideas? your questions? your doubts?
Do you have any regrets?

What are your plans regarding programming in the future?
Any other comments?

----

Estimados colaboradores,

Sugar Labs está organizando una encuesta a sus colaboradores jóvenes
con el objetivo de generar un artículo y publicarlo a un medio de
prensa en castellano.

Por este motivo la junta desde Sugar Labs los invitamos a responder la
siguiente serie de preguntas que hemos armado.

Este mensaje va con copia a aquellos jóvenes que recuerdo involucrados
en la comunidad y sé que han realizado aportes. Si consideran que
alguien más es apropiado para responder esta encuesta pueden agregarlo
al CC e invitarlo a responder la encuesta.

Las preguntas son:

¿Cómo, cuándo y por qué comenzaste a involucrarte en la programación?

¿Cómo te involucraste con Sugar? ¿Cuáles fueron tus motivaciones para
contribuir al proyecto de Sugar?

El hecho de que el proyecto sea FOSS (Free and Open Source Software)
¿afectó tus decisiones? ¿Afectó tu motivación? ¿Afectó tus hábitos?

¿Cuál ha sido el trabajo o contribución en que has participado que más
te ha motivado? ¿Por qué?

¿Cuál ha sido el trabajo o contribución en que has participado que
menos te ha motivado? ¿Por qué?

Cuando tu programas, ¿cómo decides en qué trabajar? ¿De dónde sacas
las ideas? ¿Dónde obtienes ayuda? ¿Ayudas a los demás?

¿Cómo compartes, comunicas o debates tus ideas? ¿Y tus preguntas? ¿Y tus dudas?

¿Hay algo que lamentas o que no te haya gustado de haberte involucrado
con el proyecto Sugar?

¿Cuáles son tus planes con respecto a la programación para el futuro?

¿Quieres agregar algún otro comentario?

Esperamos sus respuestas.

=== Tech Talk ===

8. Please help Martin and the Developer Team test Sugar 106 [4]. Your
feedback is important to us.

9. Progress continues on Turtle Blocks JS [5], which runs in a web
browser (the Android version is still experimental [6]). Some new
features include the ability to pass arguments to action stacks and to
return values. Thanks to GSoC intern Amit Kumar Jha for his
contributions. The other GSoC projects are also progressing nicely.

=== Sugar Labs ===

10. Please visit our planet [7].

-walter

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

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.106/Notes
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXFaXAGIw04&feature=youtu.be
[3] http://www.um.es/ead/red/normasRED.htm#_Toc324610817
[4] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.106/Testing
[5] http://turtle.sugarlabs.org
[6] http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/turtleblocksjs.apk
[7] http://planet.sugarlabs.org