[IAEP] Its.an.education.project Digest, Vol 2, Issue 147

[Bryan Berry]

+1 

There are enough "idea people" in education in general, perhaps even a
surplus compared to the number of doers. Sugar labs should employ a core
technical and education staff that makes stuff "just work" for kids and
teachers and make spaces for volunteers to meaningfully contribute.

wade brainerd wrote:
> I believe this is one way in which non-profits often falter, compared
> with their for-profit competitors.  I have worked with non-profits who
> have high caliber "idea" people and a regular supply of volunteer
> labor, but no core technical staff.  When each volunteer engineer
> burns out and leaves, their work is discarded and begun anew by the
> next volunteer, because nobody is there to carry it forward, or
> explain it to the next person.
> 
> The same issue applies to companies who employ a lot of contractors.
> 
> You need at least one senior representative of each discipline
> required by the project, full time and on staff.  For Sugar, I think
> this includes project management, user interface design, artwork,
> shell interface programming, system programming, packaging (and
> release management), documentation, infrastructure, and activity
> development.
> 
> Also, I think that activity development must be a core part of the
> team.  Someone needs to be responsible to develop the "killer apps"
> that sell the platform (where would the Wii be without Wii Sports?),
> and someone needs to be able to take over important projects when
> volunteers leave.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Wade
> 

-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Systems Engineer
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org