[IAEP] Sugar Labs 2010 Goals Review

[Bernie Innocenti]

I thought it would make sense to review our goals half-way through 2010
to check if we're really achieving them and possibly take corrective
actions where we're not doing well. See:

  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/Meeting_Minutes-2010-01-22#Goals_for_2010_2


Quoting from the above page, with my reflections inline:

>  * Release Sucrose 0.88 and 0.90 in order to provide a more useful and
> stable learning platform for deployments and developers
>    * Release Sucrose 0.88 in March

Done

>    * Release Sucrose 0.90 in November

After a lot of uncertainty, it seems to be happening.


>    * Deliver a product that has been well tested for usability and
> accessibility needs
> 
The first part has been done, thanks to Paraguay Educa and SoaS pilots.

Some work on accessibility has been done by Uruguay, but would require
more involvement on our side to integrate it. Gonzalo would like to work
on keyboard navigability of the Sugar UI.

> 
>    * Make successful launches with great marketing campaigns

There has been a lot of friction between the marketing team and the SoaS
team. Perhaps the ombudsman could talk to the people involved to help
resolve the conflict?


>    * Promote corresponding SoaS releases with Fedora
> 
This is done, and it was a great success in terms of Fedora <-> Sugar
Labs collaboration. There's an open quality issue: without interim
bugfix releases, we'll hardly ever reach the level of polish we need for
classroom usage.


>    * Define Sugar 1.0 so that we can begin partnering with long-term
> stable distros, such as RHEL

I think pbrobinson is working on this. If the dot-releases of RHEL could
become SoaS spins, the above-mentioned quality issue would be solved.


>  * Make Sugar the learning platform of choice for 2010
>    * Support existing local user groups (e.g., local Sugar Labs) and
> work to create new ones
> 
We seem to have done well.

> 
>    * Have SL representation at major free software and education
> events
> 
We seem to have done well here too, but we could do better. I have no
idea who within our community could take care of this.


>    * Establish relationship with third-party solution providers to
> help them understand the benefits of Sugar

Examples of such solution providers could be Activity Central, Solution
Grove and Waveplace. Without these entities, Sugar has no value for
teachers.


>    * Work with other learning programs that complement our efforts

Does anyone have any idea of specific learning programs we could work
with?


>  * Explore Sugar in the context of mobile devices and web-based
> services

I'm not aware of any work in this direction. I can understand the need
to integrate with web-based services (aka online communities).

If "mobile devices" in this context means devices smaller than netbooks,
such as smart phones, I'm not sure what their use would be in an
education context.

> 
> * Make Sugar Labs the place for working on learning-related
> technologies
> 
Not sure we did much progress here. We say that our platform is agnostic
with respect to education paradigms, but our community may not be
particularly welcoming for those interested in traditional content and
tools supporting traditional learning.

I think we should embrace Karma and eXe as complementary to our current
array of activities. I've already invited the leaders of both projects
to work closely with us, but perhaps Sugar Labs should make an official
proposal for collaboration.


>    * Provide forums for teachers and developers to collaborate
> 
AFAIK, we did no progress in this direction. I think that the Realness
Alliance could fulfill this role.

> 
>    * Provide a forum (similar to ASLO) for learners to share their
> work

No progress here either. We could easily extend ASLO to let children
publish contents created with Turtle Art and other activities. Scratch
and Etoys already provide their own online communities, we should
probably not duplicate them.
> 
>    * Demonstrate leadership by providing great tools for the
> appropriation and application of knowledge

We have plenty of new activities, most of which are very creative and
engaging. I particularly like Photo


>    * Always ask: how does this impact the learning
> 
...and also "think of the children" :-)


>    * Let downstreams such as deployers and vendors lead development by
> providing human resources

I think we did great progress with Paraguay and some progress with
Uruguay. Peru, the second largest OLPC deployment, is mysteriously
absent from our mailing lists. If someone has contacts, we should
attempt to reach out.


>  * Eat our own dogfood
>    * Promote free software

I think we're doing well here.

> 
>    * Be transparent and open to critique
> 
In the past, we've been criticized for insufficient transparency. Does
anyone still have a problem with this?


>    * Encourage new people to join our project

We have a welcoming join page ( http://join.sugarlabs.org ). Most
members of our community are also nice to newcomers, as long as they are
sufficiently technical to understand our jargon.

We're definitely intimidating to non-technical people. At least, this is
what I sensed at the Realness Summit. OLE also seems to be doing a
better job at connecting with educators. I'm not completely sure what
corrective actions should be. We might need to do some work on the wiki,
maybe add web forums, which non-geeks tend to prefer...

-- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://sugarlabs.org/