[IAEP] Education Team Report

[Walter Bender]

Sugar Teams Update Report

Name of team: Education Team

Mission statement: The stated mission of the education team is to
explain why Sugar is an excellent platform for learning, and to
provide guidance and feedback to those who are working on how Sugar
enhances learning.

The Sugar Education team has largely been subsumed by the OLPC
education team led by Claudia Urrea. Melissa Henriquez, Pedro Cuellar,
Sandra Barragán, Sdenka Zobeida Salas, Pacita Pena, and Mariana Cortes
are among the regular participants. They participate in a weekly
discussion with educators using Sugar (irc.oftc.net
#olpc-aprendizaje). The discussions are archived here [1].

Within that context, the goals are broader than the original mission
statement: build capacity, make sure programs are design and
implemented well, create a self sustain community of educators among
OLPC programs world wide, promote research and evaluation within OLPC
programs and across programs, etc.

There is also a discussion forum [2] with participation from a broad
cross-section of our community of teachers, students, educators, and
engineers.

Ed Cherlin (Mokurai) has launched a "Replacing textbooks" program for
creating digital e-learning materials under Creative Commons licenses.
The program will also develop new curriculum materials integrating
Sugar and other software into every subject at every level.

Finally, OLPC Australia has created a portal for working directly with
teachers; the focus is mostly in regard to pragmatic issues [4].

Short Term Goals(three–six months):
1. Finish writing up the report and recommendations from the
Innovation in Evaluation meeting held in April, 2011 [5]
2. Finish writing an essay on Fundamental Ideas on Learning

Medium Term Goals(6 months–one year):
1. Design a portal for content sharing among teachers and Sugar users,
i.e., a space for people to share objects, artifacts, and reflections
2. Design a space for building connections between local curricula
guidelines and Sugar activities

Long Term Goals(one year–three years):
1. Digital textbooks incorporating Sugar activities


What does the team see as its constraints from being more successful
in its Mission?

Lack of a forum for teachers: irc and the wiki are not places where
teachers naturally congregate.

What are you doing to try to resolve the constraint?
What can Sugar Labs 'central' or the community do to help?

Help us find the place(s) where teachers would be willing to engage.

-walter


[1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Chat_Espanol_2011
[2] http://en.forum.laptop.org/viewforum.php?f=13
[3] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
[4] https://www.yammer.com/australianxoteachers
[5] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Innovation_in_Evaluation

-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org