[IAEP] [support-gang] Fwd: Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar future (was Re: Re: [DESIGN] Single instance activities)

Caryl Bigenho cbigenho at hotmail.com
Fri Apr 12 17:40:29 EDT 2013


Hi Folks...
Notes from Sunny SoCal... 
Another reason to "Androidize" Sugar... whenever someone asks me (as recently as last evening) about the XO Learning Tablet, they assume Sugar will run on it. I have to tell them, "no, it's an Android platform, but we hope to get Sugar running on Android devices soon" (as per the Sugar Labs goals from the start of the year). They are all pleased with that idea.
What is good/important about Sugar? Ability to collaborate. Integration of Activities so several can be combined creatively in PBL (Project Based Learning). The Activities I think are particularly good examples of this are Labyrinth and FotoToon where students can bring together all sorts of resources to create a wonderful project about any topic and level needed. They are great for history, language arts, science, etc. Some of us saw several excellent examples of Labyrinth used in this fashion when we visited schools in Uruguay.
Another Activity that fits in the same useful category as Labyrinth and FotoToon is Memorize. For that, adding a simple users guide would make it possible for anyone, children, teachers, or parents to create memorize games on any topic they liked. 
To go with these, students need Activities to create the content they will need... for example, Record, Paint, Write, and Wikis where they can look up the content they can't get on their own. 
Would it be possible to, instead of trying to port all of Sugar to Android, start with a few key Activities? If someone who is a whiz at this sort of thing could write something similar to James Simmons, "Make Your Own Sugar Activities," about how to convert a Sugar Activity to run on Android, then other programmers could get involved in working on them... both individually and in groups. 
I'll bet we could interest LUG (Linux Users Groups) members from all over the country and maybe the world to take on projects as a club endeavor where they would "Adopt" an Activity and Adapt it to Andorid. Call it the "4A Project" or the "A/AA4A" (Adopting/Adapting Activities For Android).  I personally have contacts with 2 such groups I think would enjoy participating.
Just some thoughts... FWIW
Caryl

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:56:05 -0400
From: holt at laptop.org
To: support-gang at laptop.org
Subject: [support-gang] Fwd: Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar future (was Re: Re: [DESIGN] Single instance activities)


  

    
  
  
    Stark choice facing us?  All worth considering-

    

      

      
        
          
            Subject:
            
            Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar future (was Re: Re: [DESIGN]
              Single instance activities)
          
          
            Date: 
            Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:52:39 +0200
          
          
            From: 
            Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com>
          
          
            To: 
            Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com>
          
          
            CC: 
            iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>, Tony Forster
              <forster at ozonline.com.au>,
              "sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org"
              <sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>, Manuel Qui�ones
              <manuq at laptop.org>
          
        
      
      

      
        Daniel - thanks for that
        

        
        cc'ing the IAEP list, since the topic of the future of Sugar is
        I believe of general interest to developer and non-developer
        contributors alike.
        

        
        Porting Sugar to Android was identified at the beginning of
          the year by the Oversight Board as a strategic goal for Sugar
          Labs. There are several good reasons for this. One is that
          sales of the classic PC platform - a computer with a keyboard
          and mouse, 98% of which run a version of Microsoft Windows,
          and most of which are theoretically capable of running a
          GNU/Linux distribution - are in freefall (IDC reported last
          week -14% PC shipments, the single worst quarterly decline
          since PC industry tracking began). Another reason is that
          sales of handheld touch devices, the majority of which run a
          version of Android, are booming. These situations are of
          course related. The education market is a reflection of the
          wider market. As for emerging markets, recent estimates from
          IDC predict emerging market tablet sales will rise +60% in
          2013, smartphones +35%, laptops +4% and desktops off -4%. The
          ITU currently estimates 934 million active mobile-broadband
          subscriptions for 2013 in developing countries; in Africa,
          there are 10 for every 100 inhabitants. The overwhelming
          majority of these are running Android (Apple iOS is marginal
          in emerging markets). It's not unreasonable to suppose that
          educational software for Android could easily be made
          available to 25 million children in developing countries.
        

        
        The initial work seems very encouraging, yet it seems Sugar
          Labs doesn't currently have the resources to make an Android
          offer available anytime soon. But: now is the time. I believe
          fundraising is vital to achieve this goal, at the very least
          to facilitate face to face Sugar Camps for the community. I
          have ideas how to go about this, but I agree the community
          needs to be clear about where we are going. An Android offer
          would of course be of great interest to OLPC.
        

        
        There are also initiatives we could take to multiply the
          size of the community. In particular, support for the
          Raspberry Pi (which has topped 1 million units in sales - half
          of these since September -, is shipped without an OS, and is
          arriving in junior high and high school computer science
          classes) could be an ideal "OEM" platform for Sugar.
        

        
        Sean
        Sugar Labs Marketing Coordinator
      
      

        

        On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 10:58 AM,
          Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com>
          wrote:

          
            On 12 April 2013 00:17, <forster at ozonline.com.au>
              wrote:

              
                
                  
                    Hi

                    

                    When the XO was first designed it was an open choice
                    for operating system, desktop and file manager. Some
                    innovative choices were made to optimise the
                    experience of new young users. Some I think were
                    good, some bad.

                    

                    I think Android is the likely educational future. It
                    is not an open choice like the XO. We do not control
                    the OS and are unlikely to be able to control the
                    desktop, file manager or Activity installation.

                    

                    I ask, what are the really important features of
                    Sugar in this situation? Is it just the suite of
                    Activities? Collaboration? What role do we see for
                    Sugarlabs looking forward?

                  
                  

                  
                  IMO taken alone the Sugar features are not worth
                    much. A suite of activities using a well designed,
                    consistent UI paradigm, have some more value. If
                    they all use a powerful collaboration framework,
                    even more. Etc.

                    

                  
                  I don't think Android is necessarily the future.
                    It's really hard to make such predictions. Though,
                    realistically, I don't see how we could get in a
                    situation where we can control hardware and OS again
                    in the foreseeable future. Perhaps the challenge is
                    to figure out how to make the most important Sugar
                    features possible in this new context. And while at
                    it reevaluating some of the original choices.

                    

                  
                  The HTML activities effort is going in that
                    direction. I don't know if it's the best possible
                    approach, but it's a try to address the problem you
                    are pointing out.

                    

                  
                  I wish I'd see the community

                    

                  
                  * Acknowledge that we have a major issue

                  
                  * Analyze it and try to figure out solutions

                  
                  * Work on them together

                    

                  
                  I'm not seeing any of those, if not in a few
                    individuals, and that worries me. Maybe people don't
                    care or maybe there is a lack of leadership... I
                    don't know.

                  
                
              
            
            

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