[IAEP] [SLOBS] Action needed on two issues

[Adam Holt]

On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 1:01 AM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 10:33 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 9 April 2016 at 11:26, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I also agree that $500 does seem excessive, and even inappropriate
>>
>>
>> FWIW, I thought it was small; it is under minimum wage for some places.
>>
>
> Some teachers I work with in Haiti make less than this amount in an entire
> year :(  When the TripAdvisor grant's defining 2013 document said "Sugar
> Labs is a 100% volunteer project" that may have been the case, but it is
> evidently no longer the case today.  Mako's point about volunteer
> motivations (
> https://mako.cc/writing/funding_volunteers/funding_volunteers.html)
> becomes all the more critical if we go too far flaunting nebulous
> Trump-told-me salaries in the faces of our hardest working volunteers,
> across the poorest places on earth (many on these mailing lists) when that
> breaks our global solidarity rather more than Leading Us Forward.
>
> Walter and Devin Ulibarri chose to invest $3579.68 of Sugar Labs' money
> going to Thailand's Constructionism 2016 (Feb 1-5) for a very good reason
> -- to do exactly that, Lead Us Forward.
>

(Correction: that's of course $3977.42 of Sugar Labs' money prior to the
10% deduction payable to SFConservancy for
accounting/legal/administration.  My mistake.)

As that purpose does not yet appear at http://planet.sugarlabs.org, Sugar
> Labs' community should help Walter and Devin articulate this through
> community channels that bring this impact to life, easing all our work of
> honoring TripAdvisor's request/requirement for (1) "Board-Approved Annual
> Budget", (2) biennial assessment if it has not already been submitted for
> August 2015, and (3) final 3-year report to be submitted August 2016.
>
> A preview from Feb 9:
>
> '4. I [Walter Bender] just returned from Constructionism 2016 (See [3]), a
> "bi-annual
> gathering of researchers and practitioners of the constructionist learning
> philosophy is intended to be a place to showcase lessons learned,
> innovative learning tools, new case studies, and novel approaches that has
> been happening throughout the world." A number of Sugar Labs community
> members were there, including Cynthia Solomon, Claudia Urrea, and Devin
> Ulibarri. Devin and I spoke about Music Blocks and along with Cynthia and
> Claudia, we ran several workshops for children and teachers. Lots of great
> feedback and many new and renewed connections. (Our host, Khun Paron, has
> been an advocate for Sugar for almost a decade.) The entire conference was
> videotaped and will be posted online soon. Be sure to watch Cynthia's
> keynote address in which she reviewed the history of Constructionism, which
> has had a great influence on the design and development of Sugar.
>
> 5. Music Blocks is a fork the Turtle Blocks program that we began last year
> during GSoC. Our goal is for Music Blocks to be an open-ended, yet
> musically relevant tool—one that invites learners to explore fundamental
> musical concepts that are both intrinsic to music yet transcendent of a
> specific discipline.
>
> The structure of our workshops included the concept of a "Power Piece". A
> power piece is a melody or a song that is taught because it is powerful and
> becomes more powerful as it is taught. Children took phrases of some
> familiar music as a basis of exploring and manipulating the music through
> programming.
>
> As a result of feedback from the workshops, I have made a number of
> improvements to Music Blocks [4]. It is much more robust and internally
> consistent. Please do try it (there is a guide at [5]) and give me
> additional feedback.'
>
> [4] https://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks
> [5]
> https://github.com/walterbender/musicblocks/blob/master/guide/README.md
>
> A postscript from March 25:
>
> '3. Devin Ulibarri and I had the opportunity to speak at LibrePlanet [2].
> Our topic was "Education needs Free/Libre Software needs education." [3]
>
> <blockquote>ABSTRACT: The bad news is that educational technology has
> largely failed to deliver on its promise. Its focus on efficiency rather
> than on learning has resulted in a further reinforcement of education as a
> system of instruction to curricula rather than one of student-driven
> construction of knowledge.
>
> The good news is that Free/Libre Software is the starting point towards a
> solution&emdash;not just because it tends to focus on putting powerful
> tools into the hands of its end-users, but also because Free/Libre Software
> espouses a culture of doing and sharing in a context of critique,
> reflection, and personal responsibility.
>
> In this session, we will review some tangible ways in which Free/Libre
> Software is having and can have a positive impact on education and some
> things we can and should be doing better. We will then discuss strategies
> for advocating for Free/Libre Software in education systems both in the US
> and globally. The next generation of computer users are in school today. We
> need to ensure that the next generation is empowered to take advantage of
> the opportunities afforded by Free/Libre Software.</blockquote>
>
> Unlike the session on Free/Libre Software at EdFoo, which was sparsely
> attended, there was standing-room only for our session. The recording
> should be on line within a few weeks.
>
> It occured to me afterwards that one simple call to action would be for
> every member of the Free/Libre Software community to adopt a teacher (or be
> open to being adopted, e.g., Devin, a music teacher, has adopted me). We
> need to make our voices heard.'
>
> [2] https://libreplanet.org/2016/
> [3]
> https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/images/c/c7/Education-needs-free-software.pdf
>
> Who can help Walter/Devin turn the above into more colorful (better yet
> musical) blog post(s) that appear at http://planet.sugarlabs.org if not
> beyond, to Lead Us Forward?
>
> --
> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>
> --
> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>
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