[IAEP] Sugar Digest 2009-05-11

[Edward Cherlin]

For many people, the easiest starting point for reporting tests of
SoaS is on the Wiki, at the appropriate subpage of
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Getting_Involved, such
as
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Getting_Involved/Testing/Soas-beta_20090423

Instructions for download, installation, and testing are provided there.

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> You are welcome to email to the Sugar developers list or post a ticket
> in Trac (dev.sugarlabs.org) or post it on irc.freenode.net #sugar or
> send it to Sebastian, but the latter is probably the least scalable of
> the options.
>
> -walter
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 1:22 PM, Kathy Pusztavari
> <kathy at kathyandcalvin.com> wrote:
>> Walter, how does one report problems with Soas - directly to Sebastian
>> Dziallas or is there a place for that?  If to Sebastian, what is the email
>> address?
>>
>> -Kathy
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> [mailto:iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Walter Bender
>> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 8:40 AM
>> To: community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> Cc: iaep; sugar List
>> Subject: [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2009-05-11
>>
>> ===Sugar Digest ===
>>
>> The discussion about pedagogy on the IAEP list intensified this week.
>> My takeaway from the discussion is that while we won't (and don't need
>> to) reach consensus about "one right way" to teach, we must have consensus
>> around our goals as a community or our efforts will become too diffuse to be
>> of any practical use; we are not engaged in an academic exercise-we are
>> touching the lives of real children on a global scale. Indeed, the primary
>> reason we spun One Laptop per Child from MIT (and Sugar Labs from One Laptop
>> per Child) is because we intend to deliver "things to think with" to
>> learners everywhere.
>>
>> As a community, we have consensus that Sugar and Sugar activities should be
>> freely and readily available to learners everywhere. This would suggest that
>> the developer community continues to strive to make it "simple" to create
>> and share Sugar activities and its efforts to create versions of Sugar that
>> run on multiple operating systems and on multiple hardware platforms.
>>
>> But what is Sugar? At one level, Sugar is an API that provides a unified
>> framework for activity developers to support collaboration, reflection, and
>> sharing in their programs. But those features were chosen with a purpose: to
>> encourage learners to engage in authentic problem-solving and a critical
>> dialogue about whatever problem in which they are engaged. This engaged,
>> learners will develop skills that help them in all aspects of life.
>>
>> Sometimes that dialog is with your peers, sometimes it is with a teacher or
>> mentor. Sometimes it is open-ended and sometimes it is within the context of
>> structured instruction. In every case, it involves expressing, debugging,
>> critiquing, and reflecting. In every case, it is enhanced by "the hard
>> things to learn", Alan Kay's "non-universals", e.g., reading and writing;
>> deductive abstract mathematics; model-based science; etc.
>>
>> The culture of FLOSS, with its emphasis on ''en plein air'' debugging and
>> critique, is part of our pedagogy. Sugar embodies the message that everyone
>> has an opportunity and responsibility to contribute to our knowledge
>> commons. That contribution need not be Python code. Members of the Sugar
>> community must:
>>
>> * explore, share, evaluate, and debate best practices;
>> * provide technical and pedagogical support; and
>> * create new learning activities and pedagogical practice.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> Roland Gesthuizen has a concrete set of suggestions for teacher
>> participation in our community:
>>
>> * report back issues that make using the Sugar interface difficult when used
>> it in the classroom (collaborate)
>> * develop and share lessons built around applications that work on Sugar
>> (curriculum)
>> * share by word of mouth, blog and twitter with colleagues that we are using
>> Sugar (communication)
>> * ask deep and hard questions about the learning that goes on when students
>> use Sugar (pedagogy)
>> * work to answer these questions (research)
>> * and more...
>>
>> ===Help Wanted===
>>
>> In the run up to the June Beta release of Sugar on a Stick, Sebastian
>> Dziallas has asked for help with testing all of the activities being
>> considered for inclusion. We'd like to be more thorough in finding any
>> problems so that we can be sure to address them in time for the final
>> release in September/October.
>>
>> ===In the community===
>>
>> The OLPC France Sugar Camp meeting will be held in Paris on May 16 (See
>> http://sugarcamp.eventbrite.com/).
>>
>> There will also be a Sugar meeting on the 17th (See
>> Marketing_Team/Events/MiniCamp_Paris_2009).
>>
>> A team of Babson College management students will be working with Sugar Labs
>> beginning this fall as part of a Management Consulting Field Experience
>> (MCFE) Program.
>>
>> ===Tech Talk===
>>
>> Christian Schmidt led a Design Team meeting this weekend that covered topics
>> such as improvements to the Home View, a clock extension on the Frame;
>> support for printing within Sugar; a global strategy for keyboard shortcuts;
>> and a global dictionary (See
>> http://meeting.laptop.org/sugar-meeting.log.20090509_1013.html).
>>
>> The Food Force team has a new release and is looking for feedback (Download
>> the .xo bundle from http://code.google.com/p/foodforce/downloads/list).
>>
>> ===Sugar Labs ===
>>
>> Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP
>> mailing list (Please see [[Image:2009-May-2-8-som.jpg]]). It is worth a
>> close look this week.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>



-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin)