[IAEP] Contemplating Your SLOBS Vote

[Carlos Rabassa]

John,

great message!  Congratulations!

You clearly address a problem that does exist and is of basic importance.

I don't think I know Dr. Gerald Ardito.  I would agree with you, if he is the only educator in the list of candidates,  voters should seriously consider him.

I am not very optimistic however about the inclusion of one educator in the SLOB,  correcting the serious problem you clearly explain.

With all due respect the proposed solution reminds me of the early days of anti-discrimination laws in the U.S.A.,  when the expression "front desk afro-american" was coined.  It reflected what large companies were actually doing.  They were offering the most visible positions to afro-americans,  typically one of the desks you see when you enter a bank,  just to show they were complying with the new laws.

In my modest opinion,  the problem with SugarLabs is rooted too deeply to be fixed this way.

I believe most of the top individuals active in SugarLabs do not have clear the very important concepts of suppliers,  clients and customers.  In the real world of the societies we live in today,  if we want to offer a product or service,  it has to be useful to those we intend it for.  Free/free software like Sugar is no exception.  Even if we are not talking of money,  even if we don't have to defend our intellectual property because we decided to share it for free,  what we offer still has to be useful to those we target as users of our product.  And we still have to be nice to our customers and clients and make a serious effort to understand and meet their needs,  like in any for-profit entity in the real world.

Then whether we like it or not,  if we are really generous and sincere and we really want to help teachers and students,  we need them to be the base on which our project is built.   Then add computer scientists as they are required to build what the educators and their students need.

Today,  the only thing that can be done is what you are already doing,  promoting the only educator among the candidates.

Unfortunately your message was sent only hours after the candidate's list was closed,  so it is too late for any more ambitious ideas such as having teachers in the most influential positions. 

I would be glad to post your message to other lists,  however most of the lists I have access to service the Spanish speaking countries where the largest OLPC deployments are located.

Thanks again for this interesting message,


Carlos Rabassa
Volunteer
Plan Ceibal Support Network
Montevideo, Uruguay
www.tiny.cc/AprendoILearn



> Hello All,
> 
> I write this email so all of our Sugar Labs community members may reflect a little on what their SLOBs
> vote this year will mean. I first want to say that all seven candidates are very qualified and all in their
> own ways have contributed in substantial way to try and make Sugar better.
> 
> As I engage in Educational Outreach work for Sugar Labs, I often find myself as a facilitator between the
> technical/developer portion of the community and the not so technical Teacher and Educators who are using 
> Sugar or who would like to. In this role I often see the gap between how these two different groups see things.
> The best way for me to describe this would be to say our developers/technical leaning portion of the community
> believe "It's an Education Project" as the mailing list states. In working with teachers and educators they tend to 
> see things as "It's a Technical Project". On the mailing lists, on IRC, and at community meet ups this theme of Sugar
> Labs needing to be more inclusive of teachers is a consistent theme.
> 
> To remedy this situation I believe it is very important for Sugar Labs to have representation from a Teacher as part of SLOBS
> for two key reasons. 
> 
> -The first is the direction of Sugar Labs and the Sugar Learning Platform can never be as close to our
> end users Teachers and Students without it. 
> 
> -Second is the loud and clear message it sends out to all the teachers and educators who use or hope to use Sugar that their 
> concerns and issues are truly cared about. Once again without a Teacher on SlLOBs this may be true in word, but for the best
>  outcome for Sugar and it's use in the classroom,this must be true in action.
> 
> In this years election there is only one candidate that fits that bill and that is Dr. Gerald Ardito, if there was additional teachers I would
> be lobbying for them as well. Understand this is not about the individual candidates, they are all great! This is about a decision about the 
> direction of Sugar. Those who already may have a favorite candidate because of personally working with them or they may have like minded
> technical views. I ask you to just take a moment to consider that decision and ask yourself if the SLOBs election results ends again 
> with no Teacher in place can we truly have Sugar become the "Learn How to Learn" Learning Platform we all desire.
> 
> All I hope is that when community members are making their selection they will contemplate these thoughts and then make what they believe is
> the best decision for the future of Sugar.
> 
> Thank You for Your Time!
> John Tierney
> 
> P.S. If anyone believes this should be posted to other lists because not everyone will see it here, I would appreciate if you would
> pass it along.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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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