[IAEP] Library collections and content for Sugar by outsiders.

[Nate Ridderman]

Although I agree with what David said, people may contribute how they see
fit, because the project is voluntary and open source. If you see a hole
regarding content creation, feel free to jump in and start improving things.
At the very least, it would be helpful to document on the wiki what you've
learned as well as what pitfalls you've encountered. As other folks come
along, they can learn from your experiences. The wiki is still young, so
there are many holes to fill. I didn't find much at all regarding content.
It would be good to have a page that answers question such as: What types of
content can I use with Sugar? (PDFs, Webpages, etc) What free content is
available on the web? How can I convert content into something suitable for
Sugar? How do I bundle content into lesson plans? How do I distribute
content to the kid's computers? There is a lot of info on wiki.laptop.org,
so we should link to it liberally. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Content for
starters.

In the long run, I think it makes sense to have a Content Team that is
focused on making it easier for educators to create, find, package, and
distribute content. But it probably doesn't make sense to have a team unless
there are several active members. You could argue that this is part of the
Education Team, but I see them as complimentary, not homogeneous.

This is all just my opinion and I have little experience to back it up :-)

Thanks,
Nate



On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 10:57 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 7:48 PM, C.W. Holeman II
> <cwhii_cplo at julianlocals.com> wrote:
> > I have just looked over http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs
> > The words "library", "collection" and "content" appear once in a section
> on
> > translating content.
> >
> > I have posted a number of messages to this list in the last couple of
> > months related to the ease of outsiders contributing content for Sugar.
> > My personal interest was to find how to adjust my software, Emle -
> > Electronic Mathematics Laboratory Equipment (http://emle.sf.net), to
> > fit into the Sugar environment. I have run into a number of bumps.
> > Though I may be able to over come these issues they make it rather
> > non friendly to outsiders.
> >
> > With all of the efforts in the recent months, content contribution is
> still
> > hard to figure out especially if one is not in the XO owners club which
> > is the case for most outsiders that have existing content that could be
> > used in Sugar.
>
> Sugar Labs is entirely a voluntary project.  We, luckily, have a few
> developers that are being paid by third parties.  Everything else,
> from infrastructure to documentation, is done by volunteers.
>
> It is pretty hard to interest people in developing content when: a.
> They have no platform on which to develop.  b. There are relatively
> few users of the platform in the developer's area. Content tends to be
> quite specific to countries for reasons of language, culture, and
> legislation.
>
> For the past six months we have focused entirely on developing,
> supporting, and distributing the Sugar platform. The Sugar Labs
> development team has stabilized and is releasing progressively better
> software on a fixed cycle. Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Suse, and
> Mandriva have invested both volunteer and paid engineers to package
> and support Sugar.
>
> We are now ready to start getting Sugar into the hands of writers,
> developers, and users through deployments.  Over the next several
> months we will be focusing heavily on establishing Local Labs as
> deployment catalysts.  A Local Lab is not required for a deployment.
> But, a Local Labs will help generate the critical mass of support
> necessary for a self sustaining deployment.
>
> Finally, by spring, the Local Labs formation process should be self
> sustaining.  Then we can focus on activities and content.  This is
> probably not the answer that you, or any one else, wanted to hear.
> With a finite amount of resources there is only so much we can work on
> at once.  We have to focus our effort on what will have the most
> significant long term impact.
>
> On the other hand, I could be completely wrong about all of the above:(
> david
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
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>
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