[IAEP] Teacher in Uruguay enchanted to see his ideas integrated into global Sugar update [pr mockup]

[Christoph Derndorfer]

*** DISCLAIMER (ESPECIALLY FOR ALL YOU COPY-PASTE JOURNALISTS OUT 
THERE): THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL PRESS RELEASE BUT A MOCKUP OF WHAT SUCH A 
PRESS RELEASE BY SUGAR LABS COULD LOOK LIKE ***

Montevideo, Uruguay / Cambridge, USA - September 16 - Recent reports 
declaring that the Sugar educational platform was dead seem unfounded 
when talking to teachers like Senor Albarez in the small Colegio de 
Rosario do Sul in Uruguay. Albarez, who had been using Sugar in his 
class with 39 children for the past 9 months, described how enchanted he 
was when he found out that feedback he had given to a visiting Sugar 
Labs intern was integrated into the most recent global Sugar update.

"We often use the ebook mode on the XO to practice reading or play one 
of the popular physics games that we recently received. My colleague and 
I noticed that children often had a hard time remembering which of the 
buttons next to the screen did what since that varied from game to 
game." As a stop-gap solution Albarez prepared Post-Its explaining what 
the buttons in each game did and handed them out to pupils who had 
trouble remembering them.

As part of their global feedback program Sugar Labs, the non-profit 
organization which serves as a support base and gathering place for the 
project, regularly sends out interns to spend 6 to 8 weeks schools using 
the Sugar platform. One of these interns visited Senor Albarez in May 
and quickly noticed the many Post-Its stuck on children's laptops. "Once 
I understood what the issue was I quickly relayed that information back 
to my colleagues in Europe who immediately started working on a 
solution," commented John Doe, the visiting intern. Two weeks later a 
solution, consisting of briefly showing the button configuration when 
starting a game, was sent to him and he quickly tested it with the 
pupils in Albarez's class. After some finetuning and when Albarez and 
his students were happy with the solution it was integrated into a 
global Sugar update.

"It's great to know that teachers all around Uruguay and even other 
countries will be able to use this now," Albarez commented. "This is a 
text-book example of how closely the Sugar Labs community works with the 
people who use our Sugar platform on a daily basis," said The Joker, a 
member of Sugar Labs' Oversight Board. "By leveraging resources on the 
ground to understand how people use Sugar and then directly connecting 
them to the very people working on the software we can accurately 
improve our platform to fit the requirements of the many teachers and 
children around the world who use Sugar." The Joker closed by saying "I 
don't think any other company or organization in the world can offer 
this kind of service."

PRESS CONTACT

Christoph Derndorfer
oh-so-sweet propaganda for Sugar Labs
christoph at olpcnews.com


*** DISCLAIMER (ESPECIALLY FOR ALL YOU COPY-PASTE JOURNALISTS OUT 
THERE): THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL PRESS RELEASE BUT A MOCKUP OF WHAT SUCH A 
PRESS RELEASE BY SUGAR LABS COULD LOOK LIKE ***