[IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-06-10

[Walter Bender]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hope you are recuperating from such fun :-)
>
> Question,
> are these teacher using XOs as *their* primary tool to access internet,
> Facebook, etc?

I don't know. I did not see any teacher use any other computer all
week. But that said, most of them said that they used Facebook
regularly, and since they hadn't used an XO or Sugar before, it would
seem that they used computers other than XO in the past as their
"primary* computer. Whether or not their *primary* computer was at an
Internet cafe is yet another question.

>
>
> That would be, IMNSHO, enormously meaningful in their "buy in".
> The XO is either a real tool, or else perceived as a "toy" vs. the real tool
> that is used by the teachers, obviously with real grown-up software, such as
> Windows.

We can continue to disagree about what is "real grown-up software." I
cannot think of the last time I used Windows, and yet I think I have
managed to get few things accomplished, both professionally and
socially. These "toys" come with GNOME as well as Sugar and, for
example, in response to a question about tools for creating images: We
wrote a paint program together in Turtle Art, and discussed the range
of possibilities from the Paint activity to using Inkscape. But I
digress, because while I agree, it is important that the teachers see
Sugar/XO as a real tool, a large part of what we achieved in
Chachapoyas is that they have a more clear idea of what is a real tool
*for learning* and that there is more to learning with technology than
learning how to keyboard or launch Internet Explorer. But you and I
have a long-standing disagreement on this point.

regards.

-walter

>
>
>
> On 06/10/2012 06:23 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
>>
>> regions from Amazonas. We began the week with a question: "how do you
>> use XO/Sugar for learning?" It was no surprise that most teachers
>> answer with, "No sé." Even the few that had had some minimal
>> experience with the XO answered with mundane themes, such as doing
>> research on the Internet. We asked the same question at the end of the
>> week, and although I haven't seen the survey results, I am certain
>> that the teachers expressed a wealth of ideas around communication and
>> expression, math, science, and the arts. We also asked the teachers if
>> and where they hung out on-line. Almost all of them were Facebook
>> users, so Raul set up a Facebook group,
>> [http://www.facebook.com/groups/370964266297045/ Amazonas XO], for
>> them to use as a forum for sharing experiences.
>>
>



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