[IAEP] GPA notes Thursday 7-9-09

[Walter Bender]

I think the only activities that cannot be updated are the Fructose ones,
which are installed in /usr/share/sugar/activities. If you remove them and
restart Sugar, you can then install updates. I believe this is discussed in
depth in one of the RPM-related threads and probably has a ticket associated
with it already.

-walter

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 03:29, Caroline Meeks<solutiongrove at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > We will be reburning the sticks on Monday to get a new version of Turtle
> Art
> > on.  Some of the core activities can't be updated via
> > Activities.sugarlabs.org.  This is a bug we should fix.
>
> Do we have a ticket? It should mention which/some activities cannot be
> updated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tomeu
>
> > Please let us know if there are any other things you think we should do
> or
> > add to the stick.  I know there is talk about Jabber_IDs all being the
> same
> > being part of our collaboration issue so we'll probably get rid of those
> > too.
> >
> > Did we have one stick failure or did everyone's sticks eventually work?
> >
> > For the first day we had everyones computer all set up and booted and we
> > used extension cables.  This time we had the kids plug the USBs directly
> > into the front of the machines then turn the machines on.  Some needed
> help
> > with this as the USB ports are very annoying on these computers.  Once
> the
> > boot started we had them goto the rug and Walter talked while the
> machines
> > booted.  Next time we should try to time the amount of time it takes from
> > walking into the room to everyone's computer is booted.  This is critical
> > number for use in schools.
> >
> > This project, using Turtle Art to label maps with the activities they are
> > doing this summer is going to be very interesting. For instance, the kids
> > have not been exposed to coordinate systems before.  They are definitely
> > being challenged and having to develop new ways of thinking which is what
> we
> > want.  They are defintiely engaged and motivated so I think they will be
> > able to do it.  The teachers had a clear theme for the summer (community)
> > and themes for each week. I think that helped us find a good project.
> >
> > The projector works well for teaching.  I wonder if the XO deployments
> would
> > be well served by a "Projector Activity" where one person could share
> their
> > screen with the rest of the class.  It could be used by the teacher or
> for
> > students to do the equivlent of going up to the board to work a problem
> for
> > the class.  At the GPA, with the setup we have, having the kids come to
> the
> > center rug and using the actual projector and a laptop is probably better
> > for us.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> One addendum:
> >>
> >> By default, Turtle Art stores numbers as real (floating point) and so
> the
> >> labels on the number line were printing with a decimal point and one
> >> trailing zero. This really confused the students, who don't know about
> >> decimal notation. I've made a change to the print and show functions to
> only
> >> show decimal places for real numbers that are not equal to integers.
> This
> >> will be part of the next release, some time over the weekend.
> >>
> >> -walter
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Anurag Goel <agoel23 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Here are some notes I took from today's session at GPA:
> >>>
> >>> We got there around 10 a.m to set up all the computers, the projector,
> >>> and debug collaboration (still isn't working properly).
> >>>
> >>> The kids came in around 11:30 and as usual sat on the rug in the middle
> >>> of the room. Walter told the kids the today we will be using Turtle Art
> to
> >>> work with number lines. Walter then showed some of the basic functions
> of
> >>> Turtle Art. Walter showed the kids how to change colors by inputting
> >>> different numbers into the Set Color box. Surprisingly none of the kids
> >>> questioned why we couldn't see what color we were selecting before we
> >>> actually select it. Perhaps we should allow kids to see what color they
> are
> >>> selecting, similar to how they select a color in Paint?
> >>>
> >>> One kid asked, "how about the number 92?" Walter inputted the number 92
> >>> into the set color box and the kids were surprised as the turtle starts
> >>> drawing in a purple color.
> >>>
> >>> Next Walter showed how to set pensize.
> >>> Kid: can you do 1000?
> >>> Kids scream in excitement as the entire screen turns into an orange
> color
> >>> Walter plays around with other numerical values ranging from from 16
> all
> >>> the way to 2009
> >>>
> >>> Walter created a number line in Turtle Art in increments of 100.
> >>> Turtle starts at 0, goes to 100, 200, 300.
> >>> Next walter uses the back button to make the turtle go backwards in
> >>> increments of 100 until the turtle is back at 0.
> >>>
> >>> Walter showed the kids how to print the value of the current
> >>> x-coordinate.
> >>> Kid asked how can we make the number smaller. Walter changed the text
> >>> size using set text size.  He changed it to something really small.
> Kids
> >>> says, “now it’s tiny” same kids asks Walter to type her name on the
> screen.
> >>>
> >>> Walter asked the kids to play around with text, forward, backward, line
> >>> thickness, and colors. Kids then leave the carpet to go to the
> computers.
> >>> One of the kids changed his XO color but after doing changing it the
> >>> computer would reboot and go to the Fedora login screen, instead of
> >>> rebooting directly to sugar. After pressing Enter, Sugar booted.
> >>>
> >>> Kids seemed to be getting a better understanding of how Turtle Art
> works
> >>> in comparison to Tuesday. I noticed that kids were easily able to get
> rid of
> >>> blocks they did not want and move the Turtle back to the center of the
> >>> screen when they wanted to start over. I think the introduction at the
> >>> beginning of today's session was really beneficial for the students
> because
> >>> it gave them some kind of direction.
> >>>
> >>> Walter brought students back to the carpet to get their attention.
> Walter
> >>> asked, "Does everyone know what a map is?"
> >>> Kids: “YEAAA”
> >>> Walter showed kids a map of the Charles River on Turtle art.
> >>> Kid: How did you make that map appear?
> >>>
> >>> Walter: I will explain that to you a little later.
> >>> Walter used the print-ycor and print-xcor buttons to show the kids how
> to
> >>> determine the x and y coordinates of the turtles current location.
> Walter
> >>> then used the Show block to write Gardner School where it was located
> on the
> >>> map. He then placed a Cartesian coordinate system on the map and used
> the
> >>> setyx block to show the students how the turtle can be placed on
> different
> >>> parts of the map such as the Gardner School and the Charles River
> >>> Reservation. Previously the kids assumed the setyx block was only to
> bring
> >>> the turtle back to the center of the screen.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Walter then showed the kids how to load a picture/map into Turtle Art.
> >>> Walter put a satellite map of the Gardner School and surrounding area
> into
> >>> Turtle Art.
> >>> Kids: “whoa”
> >>> Walter: "Now we will play with the map and label different things on
> the
> >>> map"
> >>>
> >>> However, by this time it was time for the kids to leave the computer
> lab
> >>> so they never actually got a chance to use Turtle Art to move around in
> the
> >>> map and label different sections. Perhaps we will continue with this
> >>> activity next week. The kids are supposed to go to the Charles River
> >>> tomorrow for a field trip. We are hoping the teachers will upload
> pictures
> >>> of the field trip online so we can use them next week in the Memorize
> >>> activity.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Anurag Goel
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> >>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> >>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> 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
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Caroline Meeks
> > Solution Grove
> > Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >
> > 617-500-3488 - Office
> > 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> > IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> >
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
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