[IAEP] Sugar Labs - Directions of Growth

[Caroline Meeks]

I'd like to build on this from the 100 ft level and Sugar on a Stick.

I've been with kids this summer and when Sugar is working on the computer in
front of them the experience is great. Lots of learning, great engagement,
kids are willing to take on challenges.

This fall I'd like to see lots of other people working with Sugar and small
groups of students.

Based on my experiences this summer there are some technical/logistical
barriers I'd like to break down before I recruit teachers/parents/day care
workers to try Sugar on a Stick in group settings.

Here are what I think the barriers are:

   - Very hard to customize your spin and then copy it for a hundred kids.
   - Sticks are dieing a lot! Like 1 or 2 every class.
   - Backup and recovery
   - What is a reasonable expectation for the role of the XS in Sugar on a
   Stick deployments in the next 6 months?
   - Collaboration is unreliable and thus frustrating.  Its working fairly
   well in the wired network at the GPA lab, but no other use case seems to
   work reliably.
   - Using a CD helper take a lot of prep time before and after class. A
   floppy helper would reduce it.  A VM solution might also reduce it.

I'll try to expand on these in the next week and come up with a plan of
action for each.

What are the other critical things we need to do in the next month or two
that will allow teachers/parents/daycare workers to try Sugar on a Sick?


On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:17 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>wrote:

> Over the last couple of weeks we have been talking about how to grow Sugar
> Labs.
>
> Without looking at specific solutions, I would like to think about
> framing Sugar Labs growth in three directions:
> 1. Improve and stabilize the learning platform.
> 2. Grow towards the student.
> 3. Increase reach and impact.
>
> Growing in these directions will help Sugar Labs accomplish its
> mission.  But, hand in hand with growth we must think about how our
> structure as a community based projects affects that growth.
>
> The two most important factors driving growth in a community project are:
> 1.  A _product_ that is valuable enough for others to test, use, and
> improve.
> 2.  A _project_ that encourages users to test, use, improve, and
> participate in the project by sharing their improvements with the
> project.
>
> 'Users' is a wide term.  In the case of Sugar Labs, it can range from
> individuals, to companies, to national governments.  Anyone who takes
> a Sugar deliverable and builds on it to help someone learn is a user.
>
> To take a step back, we can think of adding value to Sugar Labs.  But,
> what is value? There are many definitions of value in a project such
> as Sugar Labs:
> Quality of code.
> Number of users.
> Number of headlines.
> Compliance to specific teaching pedagogies.
> ....
>
> The notion of  value that I tend to looks at, from a 50,000 feet, is
> 'How does Sugar Labs create a large pool of users -- who benefit
> enough from using Sugar -- that they, and others, are willing to
> invest in improving Sugar'?
>
> As a rough model we can think of value as Educational Excellence(X),
> Technical Excellence(Y) and Reach and Impact(Z).
>
> Growth towards educational excellence represents extending the core
> product towards the learner.  Possible steps include:
>
> Stable learning platform.
> Easy distribution mechanism -- the shift from ./configure; make; make
> to [rpm|apt-get] install .... was huge.
> Easy deployment process.
> Creation of base learning activities/content.
> Creation of specific learning curriculum to meet specific teaching needs.
>
> Going down this list, the groups involved involved tend to shift from
> developers to practicing educators.  We need to think of growing to
> include educators rather than crowding out developers.  As we move
> towards the right along the x-asis, each prior stage grows and
> improves along the y-axis
>
> In the larger context of adding value to the project, we can
> think of project visibility and desirability along the z-axis .  As
> the product grows towards the user and the quality of the product
> increases, the
> marketing team is able to increase the visibility and desirability
> (z-axis) of the product and project to more and more people.
>
> Another way to look at this, is to examine how a tree grows:)
>
> Tree growth is most easily measured in how much taller or wider the
> tree become as a result of linear grow of the trunk or branches. In
> addition to growing in length, new branches grow off of the trunk or
> existing branches.  As the length and number of the branches increase,
> the trunk and branches increase in width to provide both physical
> support and enough pores to transport water from the root to the
> leaves and transport energy from the leave to the roots.
>
> In this analogy, the length of the branches can represent market
> penetration.  Sugar must become useful enough to penetrate deeply into
> the learning occurring at individual schools.  As Sugar penetrates in
> to individual schools, those efforts can be "branched" to migrate
> sugar into additional schools.
>
> Finally, the education, deployment, development, and support teams
> must grow proportionally to support the deployments while pulling the
> ideas and
> improvements from the schools back up stream.
>
> david
> --
> David Farning
> Sugar Labs
> www.sugarlabs.org
> _______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

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