[IAEP] Fwd: [sugar] Narrative

[Caroline Meeks]

Are there any User Stories/Use Cases for creating narratives?

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Seth Woodworth <seth at laptop.org> wrote:

> Wow, I'm really really glad to see this kind of conversation happening.
> This kind of reflection is exactly what is going to make sugar the defacto
> education platform.
>
>
> I think that two things are needed for children to create narratives; tools
> as has already have been discussed (I suggest Audacity for audio editing,
> already packaged, need to be improved).  Secondly I would like to see the
> ability to upstream.
>
>
> Ideally I would like the school server to host blogs, edublog, or some
> other method of wysiwyg publishing of websites.  We have talked a lot about
> the XO allowing people to communicate up and out about the troubles they
> face in these countries[1], to make us aware of how we can help/teach (or
> not as the events warrent).
>
>
> There aren't academic formal education studies about how OLPC/Sugar is
> improving education.  If anecetdotal is all that exists, let's use it to
> engage our community, to encourage volunteerism.
>
>
> Free software == awesome
> Free software that you can see helping people  *>*  awesome
>
>
>
> [1] http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/high-on-a-hill/post.htm?id=63006514&t=tag
>
>
> --Seth
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 2:06 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
>> wrote:
>> > This takes us back to the collaboration server discussions from last
>> week.
>> >
>> > Rather than attempting to organizing content it may be preferable to
>> improve
>> > the tools which help users self organize into communities.
>> >
>> > Last night I got into a discussion about the value of the Neighborhood
>> view
>> > with my 2nd grade niece:)  She was pretty befuddled as to why she had to
>> > chose between belkin_019, linksys_1, meshview_11,....  From her
>> perspective
>> > it made more sense to click on 'Mrs. Kings class' if she wanted to do
>> her
>> > homework, or 'After school fun' if she wanted to talk with her friends.
>> >
>> > While the idea of APs and mesh networks is important to us as geeks and
>> > developers.  From a user point of view the idea of virtual communities
>> or
>> > rooms seems clearer.
>> >
>> > Maybe it is my misunderstanding of the nature of a jabber sever.  A IRC
>> > server is pretty useless until the users can self select into channels.
>> >
>> > Possibly, the idea of manipulating narratives could be best handled by
>> > helping communities develop which can discover, share, and reflect on
>> > _their_own_ stories.
>> >
>> > thanks
>> > david
>> >
>> > On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> We need to add an its.an.education.project alias to this list...
>> >>
>> >> -walter
>> >>
>> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> >> From: Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
>> >> Date: Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:29 PM
>> >> Subject: Re: [sugar] Narrative
>> >> To: Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu>
>> >> Cc: Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com>, bens at alum.mit.edu, sugar
>> >> <sugar at lists.laptop.org>, "its. an. education. project"
>> >> <its.an.education.project at lists.sugarlabs.org>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Each of us seems to have interpreted Michael's note differently, so
>> >> perhaps some more clarity of definitions is in order. In any case, my
>> >> focus was on the assertion that there are  "no excellent way to
>> >> manipulate narratives" within Sugar. Excellence is the standard we
>> >> should be striving for and I do agree we have a ways to go in terms of
>> >> developing tools for "manipulating" "narratives" within Sugar. But it
>> >> seems a funny dichotomy: manipulating narratives vs. modes for
>> >> discovery.
>> >>
>> >> When I think about Sugar, I think about its providing a scaffolding
>> >> for discovering, expressing, critiquing, and reflecting. Manipulating
>> >> narrative seems to cut across all of these area (as does
>> >> collaboration). We have a browser--the "discovery" platform du
>> >> jour--but also an ebook reader and media player, and various tools for
>> >> collecting and inspecting data (e.g, Measure and Distance). In terms
>> >> of expression, we have a wide variety of tools, including word
>> >> processing, rich media, programming, etc. Tools for critique and
>> >> reflection seems the least developed thus far: we have chat and we
>> >> have sharing and simple debugging tools, and we have the Journal, but
>> >> we don't yet support (natively) much in the way of organizing data to
>> >> make an analysis or argument. Is this the role Bryan expects Moodle to
>> >> play? If so, I don't really see how.  There are beginnings of tools
>> >> such as spreadsheets, mindmaps, etc. being "Sugarized". What else
>> >> should we add to this list? There is also a powerful presentation
>> >> toolkit built into Etoys--is it the lack of PowerPoint that Bryan is
>> >> missing?--but it is not very easy to find. Perhaps something more
>> >> wiki-like or HTML-based would be better. Having it available off-line
>> >> is probably as important as accessing an on-line system, such as is
>> >> already available in Moodle and in general on any GNU/Linux (or even
>> >> Windows) server. In terms of organizing school itself, Moodle and its
>> >> like certainly have an important role to play. Sugar is not intended
>> >> to be all things, but part of a learning ecosystem.
>> >>
>> >> There is certainly a paucity of lesson plans developed around Sugar:
>> >> how does one best leverage this collection of tools for learning. And
>> >> undoubtedly, a dearth of content readily packaged and categorized. But
>> >> I don't see these as fundamental design flaws in Sugar as much as a
>> >> place where more effort needs to be invested. Sugar is reaching a
>> >> point of maturity where such investments make sense.
>> >>
>> >> In any case, I'd love to hear Michael's "interesting ideas".
>> >>
>> >> -walter
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Walter Bender
>> >> Sugar Labs
>> >> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> >> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> I like your niece's model of the neighborhood view--maybe we can have
>> some way of generating aliases for the various APs based upon which
>> Jabber server you are on; the Jabber servers themselves could have
>> nicknames too, based on their intended constituency. But it skirts the
>> question of what tools communities use to organize content and
>> generate their narratives.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>
>
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-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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