[IAEP] Sad

[Bill Kerr]

As a teacher in an industrialised country I'd see Sugar combined with low
cost laptops as a vehicle for:

* immersion - computers are always available not limited exposure in labs -
this makes an incredible difference to learning with computers, as Papert
and others have argued
* wide variety and growing of educational software packages (10,000 visits
per day to Activities page from Uruguay)
* constructionist software such as etoys, scratch, turtle art, drgeo etc.
* python is a great first language, after the visual programming approaches
have been tried
* collaborative aspect is cutting edge, offers new ways of doing things (but
not yet working out of the box, unfortunately)
* linux experience - in the last year or so I am coming across a few
students who have taught themselves linux at home - this is a new and slowly
growing trend
* FOSS philosophy of collaborative development fits readily with what good
teachers do (cf. hiding your expertise in order to maximise your profit)

What other group, apart from Sugar Labs, offers this potential? Sugar Labs
also offers this list as a discussion forum about these issues. Who else
provides this?

These things are not obvious to most teachers (for various reasons) but at
least some of these things are obvious to a small but growing minority. If
Sugar works well out of the box I think there would be small but significant
and growing uptake.

Another view (less optimistic) is to look at the history of computing since
the 1960s and to realise that most of the important discoveries were made
then and since commercial interests got a hold on it the true potential has
been largely lost or very much obscured. eg. late binding provides a far
superior environment to teach about variables but the dominant systems don't
offer that option. More detail:
http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/alanKay+talk

MS has a long way to fall but strategically they have peaked are in decline.
No need to be too alarmed by the thrashing around of a smelly dinosaur in a
tarpit. Other commercial companies, such as Google, will eventually take
their place. How does that sit with the Sugar Labs vision? Not sure.

I'd see the issue as a practical one of getting the software to work
properly. In terms of vision, strategy and future potential we hold the good
cards.
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