[IAEP] Planning for the future

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi…
I agree with Sean that the browser based distro like Lionel's Sugarizer is a good way to go.  Having Android and IOS versions too is good since many students already have access to devices that will be able to use it. 
Don't discount the SmartPhone as a viable device! At SCaLE last week I attended a student presentation of "new technology in education." They used the smartphone to do a survey of the audience.  Carol Ruth Silver (OLPC-SF) has a great demo of using old phones for a women's literacy program (I think it is in Pakistan). With the price of these dropping and lots of older "used" models available very inexpensively they are accessable to almost everyone, worldwide. I think the literacy program one has the lessons installed on it… they maay not need to access wifi to use it.
One of my concerns is that there are so many Activities (over 400!) that it would take a very long time to port them to Sugarizer. There needs to be a priority listing so that those things like Fototoon and maybe a couple of parts of TamTam and Labrynth can be in the first big release. … (Well, those are among my favorites so maybe I am biased.)
Another concern is that the Activities that lend themselves to integrating… a draw or paint and a camera (obvious thing is to use the one already in the individual device) with Fototoon, and things like that. 
The proposed survey of the educators who have been using Sugar long term is a key to making this work. Teachers are very busy. Maybe just a few simple questions like:
What subjects and grades do you teach?List the 5 Activities you use the most with your students:Which one is the most useful for teaching concepts?Which ones do you need to have to integrate for students to complete projects?
Maybe we should make a Google Doc for a Survey and invite folks to "tweak" it a bit and refine it. Then we could do translations and, finally distribute it to educators to see what the best focus might be.
Caryl
P.S. Do I dare say that Google Docs is a nice model of online apps working together?
From: sdaly.be at gmail.com
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2015 22:57:57 +0100
To: samuel at greenfeld.org
CC: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: Re: [IAEP] Planning for the future

Hi Samuel,

thanks for this

I believe Sugar has had a clear pedagogical vision from day one, but has not had a strategy for some time.

Outside the XO, Sugar's historical technical architecture has unfortunately kept it out of reach from all but the most determined and tech-savvy teachers (and journalists). Without a pancake button download and one-click installer, the installation barrier is too high. OLPC's historical focus on the hardware was never helpful either, and the main reason OLPC got mauled by incorrect memes was they didn't want to accompany journalists past the unfamiliarity barrier of the XO (hardware+software).

In my view there are only a few ways to overcome this issue:

* Develop 1-click installers for Windows / MacOS / GNU/Linux. I had suggested maintaining a matrix of preconfigured (i.e. languages/keyboards, prepopulated Journal, selection of Activities) VMs over Oracle VirtualBox, whose license allows free distribution for nonprofit and educational purposes. Upsides were immediate fullscreen Sugar experience without touching the configuration of the host computer. The downsides were huge VM images and the effort required to build and maintain the matrix. At the time I suggested we approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship, but some community members voiced objections.

* Arrange for Sugar to be preinstalled on low-cost, reliable machines other than XOs. This is complex and would require a sales force (or working with a partner's) since no OEM will make that investment without a prospect of selling many thousands of units. As an alternative I had suggested we ride the wave of Raspberry Pi units (five million sold in three years) by developing an SD card for it based on Sugar on a Stick, but there was no interest in that effort. I still believe a Sugar-branded version (case + teacher starters kit -documentation) could have an impact.

* Migrate to a web-based Sugar compatible with browsers on any platform. Lionel's Sugarizer is I think a fabulous solution.


I've heard it suggested that marketing could do fund-raising, but donors large and small won't want to contribute unless there is a plan. I've been bewildered what the plan is for some time.

Sean

 
On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 12:36 AM, Samuel Greenfeld <samuel at greenfeld.org> wrote:
Disclaimer: The following are my views, and not the views of my current or past employers.

About a year ago, I privately expressed concern that Sugar needed to ensure it had long-term sponsorship and a long-term user base.

Since then, both the historical US-based OLPC organization and Sugar Labs have not publicly said much about their long-term plans, with OLPC also being rather closemouthed about the present.

Meanwhile contributors silently leave.  It is hard to justify volunteering when you don't know who will benefit besides mysterious "customers."

Everyone seems happy to cite their past successes.  No one corrects the press when they report stale information in their favor.


There is no shame in being a smaller project.  But we need to ask the hard questions.  With Sugar, getting users and developers for a niche platform is a problem.  With OLPC, everyone seems to love repeating the 2 or 2.5 million number for laptops historically shipped.  Rarely is it asked how many XOs been shipped in the past year or are in active use & where.

Sugar & OLPC need to come up with long-term strategies.  While there is nothing public I have seen stopping One Education's XO Infinity from running Sugar, I haven't seen anything stopping it from running anything else.  It is also unclear how much One Education is willing to engage with the historical Sugar & OLPC communities (or how much they can tell us at this time).


Historically there have been many philosophical questions like "Does there need to be a physical machine?" and "Have we succeeded if every child has a computer, but from someone else?"

I do not believe Sugar or OLPC is down for the count.  But in order to engage One Education, governments, and other educational groups, both Sugar and the historical OLPC structure need to have plans to transition to the future.  Otherwise these plans will be written for us.

I suspect I know how things will end; but I wish it was not happening though silence.

---
SJG


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