[IAEP] [support-gang] An Opportunity to bring vital content to the Sugar/XO world - Needs technical help.

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi Caroline,

I agree that content is something we desperately need for Sugar and the XO. But, I don't quite understand your proposal.  Is Innovations For Learning offering us their software for free to adapt?  If so, what language is it in?  Is the source code available?

Or, is this something you think our volunteer programmers should try to reverse-engineer and create for Sugar and the XO?

Caryl

Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:27:28 -0400
From: caroline at solutiongrove.com
To: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org; server-devel at lists.laptop.org; support-gang at lists.laptop.org
Subject: [support-gang] An Opportunity to bring vital content to the	Sugar/XO world - Needs technical help.

We have an opportunity to bring a program of K-2 English Reading and Math content to our Sugar users for free.

http://www.innovationsforlearning.org/software_demo.php


Ignore the teachermate hardware and the $100 a machine price tag. The concept is we make this available for Sugar for free.  So if you have XOs or a machines you can use with Sugar on a Stick, you can use it for free.


If you watch the Classroom management video you'll see they have aligned it to major Basal Curriculum programs or it can be used without. It can differentiate instruction for groups and students.  This is vital functionality.  We need to port this to the Sugar world, probably by putting it on the XS, maybe as a module in Moodle.


Tomeu has done some work on making the activities work in Sugar, but I don't think anyone has looked at how we enable classroom management.

Why I think this is important:

When I listen to feedback from the deployments, they all talk about the need for content.
When I see for myself what its like to use Sugar in a school, I think we need an on-ramp for teachers.  This program would be an easy way to get the teachers to start using Sugar and computers without going very far outside of what they already know. Its aligned with the major curriculum programs they are already using.  My belief is if they take the first step, and use Sugar, they and their students will explore further.  Too much technology sits in the classroom closet. This seems like it would be used by lots of teachers, not just the most technological ones.
This could be a model for other nonprofits for how to use Sugar to distribute content they have created for our age level.It would be an excellent selling point for teachers trying to bring Sugar into their schools.
Please help us find someone (or a team) who has time and skills to tackle the technical challenge of porting/recreating the classroom management component.

Thanks!
Caroline


-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office

505-213-3268 - Fax
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20090718/105fbfbc/attachment-0001.htm