[math4] teacher recruitment letter

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2009, Shawn Willden wrote:

> On Tuesday 17 March 2009 10:14:51 am Mel Chua wrote:
>> In case it helps, here is the email I'm using to ask for edu folk. It is
>> mostly copypastes of Caroline and Greg because they're more eloquent and
>> I'm getting RSI. ;)
>
> Good letter.
>
> One thing that we should think about, to help motivate teacher participation,
> is how we can deliver the project applications on other platforms --
> primarily Windows.
>
> I understand the controversy with regard to porting Sugar to Windows, but I
> think we'll get a LOT more interest and support from teachers if what they're
> working on is something they can use in their own classrooms which, at least
> for the teachers where I live, means on computers running Windows.
>
> Is there a reasonably easy way to ensure that math4 applications can run on
> both the real target environment and on Windows?  Is there some subset of the
> Sugar APIs we can use to make this easy?  Is being limited to that subset
> going to unacceptably constrain the math4 apps?
>
> Perhaps we can explore other options, like Sugar on a Linux VM that's
> relatively easy to distribute and install?
>
> I'm not sure what the options are, but I am sure that enabling the
> participating teachers to use the math4 apps with their own students will
> really help the project.

This is, frankly, a tricky problem, and different people will give you 
dramatically different opinions.  Here are my two principles for Mongo:

1. I choose python because it runs everywhere.

2. Sugarization can and should be optional.  (Right now, Mongo isn't 
Sugarized at all.)

So, Mongo should run on Windows.  I would encourage others to make sure 
that they choose Python apps that can run on Windows.

--g

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