[IAEP] Reflections on giving a Sugar Demo

[Laura Johns]

I wanted to thank Caroline and Walter for doing the presentation at  
FOSSed.

Caroline was very generous with her time and we had many questions!   
The level of remote support was very impressive. Despite some of the  
roadblocks encountered during the presentation, I left the conference  
with enough understanding and software to get a classroom using Sugar.

The demo done as we were trying to boot up was helpful. An orientation  
prior to that would also have been helpful.

Laura Johns
Middle School Math&Science
Penobscot ME
laura at penobscotschool.org

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Caroline Meeks <caroline at solutiongrove.com>
> Date: June 26, 2009 8:19:11 PM EDT
> To: iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Subject: [IAEP] Reflections on giving a Sugar Demo
>
> First off it went well. The teacher's loved Sugar, saw a lot of  
> possibilities and are motivated to help us go forward. People talked  
> with me about it the entire conference.
>
> That said, I learned a lot of lessons and there are things I would  
> do differently.
>
> Always bring an AP. Don't use existing wireless.
> When I tested before class the wireless seemed great. We packed the  
> room. The wireless network got very flacky.  Next time I'm going to  
> bring an AP and just try to collaborate locally.  I'm thinking of  
> getting one of the open-mesh $29.00 units and seeing how that works.
>
> Either get USB sticks to boot OR teach about Sugar, don't try to do  
> both at once.
> The class was packed and although most of the computers finally  
> booted to sugar it took a lot of time.  Until we really get things  
> down I think I'm going to hand out LiveCDs then after wards tell  
> people I'll work with them one-on-one to get it to boot from USB.
>
> We need to create a list of Sugar Basics that we cover before we  
> turn people loose to explore.
>
> This is the Home Screen.
> This icon represents you and its your colors
> Here is how you get to the frame.
> This is the Neighborhood view.  You can get there from the frame or  
> from F1.
> Here is how you connect to the AP. More color in the circle means  
> stronger signal (Someone told me that he thought he should go for  
> the empty ones cause it meant they had more room)
> This the your group view. Your friends will show up here.
> This is the Journal where your work is saved.
> To do something go to your Home screen and click on any of these  
> icons. They are the activities.
> We didn't do this and people got frustrated needlessly. We want them  
> to explore but I think we need to figure out what people need to  
> oriented too before they explore.   I wonder if showing the demo  
> movie would have been a good way to cover this.
>
> We didn't get to the lesson plan I created because we had so many  
> people and so many problems booting.  Luckily Walter can do a Sugar  
> and Turtle Art presentation in his sleep.
>
> One thing we should have done, and would have gotten to if we had  
> been able to follow our plan, is to demo Write and peer editing.   
> This is a big deal for teachers.  We need to remember to do it early  
> in the presentation, before we get sucked into playing with the cute  
> turtle.
>
> -- 
> 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

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