<div dir="ltr">Wow, I'm really really glad to see this kind of conversation happening.  This kind of reflection is exactly what is going to make sugar the defacto education platform. I think that two things are needed for children to create narratives; tools as has already have been discussed (I suggest Audacity for audio editing, already packaged, need to be improved).  Secondly I would like to see the ability to upstream. Ideally I would like the school server to host blogs, edublog, or some other method of wysiwyg publishing of websites.  We have talked a lot about the XO allowing people to communicate up and out about the troubles they face in these countries[1], to make us aware of how we can help/teach (or not as the events warrent). There aren't academic formal education studies about how OLPC/Sugar is improving education.  If anecetdotal is all that exists, let's use it to engage our community, to encourage volunteerism.  Free software == awesome Free software that you can see helping people  >  awesome [1] <a href="http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/high-on-a-hill/post.htm?id=63006514&t=tag">http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/high-on-a-hill/post.htm?id=63006514&t=tag</a> --Seth <div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Walter Bender <<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 2:06 PM, David Farning <<a href="mailto:dfarning@sugarlabs.org">dfarning@sugarlabs.org</a>> wrote: > This takes us back to the collaboration server discussions from last week. > > Rather than attempting to organizing content it may be preferable to improve > the tools which help users self organize into communities. > > Last night I got into a discussion about the value of the Neighborhood view > with my 2nd grade niece:)  She was pretty befuddled as to why she had to > chose between belkin_019, linksys_1, meshview_11,....  From her perspective > it made more sense to click on 'Mrs. Kings class' if she wanted to do her > homework, or 'After school fun' if she wanted to talk with her friends. > > While the idea of APs and mesh networks is important to us as geeks and > developers.  From a user point of view the idea of virtual communities or > rooms seems clearer. > > Maybe it is my misunderstanding of the nature of a jabber sever.  A IRC > server is pretty useless until the users can self select into channels. > > Possibly, the idea of manipulating narratives could be best handled by > helping communities develop which can discover, share, and reflect on > _their_own_ stories. > > thanks > david > > On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Walter Bender <<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>> > wrote: >> >> We need to add an its.an.education.project alias to this list... >> >> -walter >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Walter Bender <<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>> >> Date: Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:29 PM >> Subject: Re: [sugar] Narrative >> To: Sameer Verma <<a href="mailto:sverma@sfsu.edu">sverma@sfsu.edu</a>> >> Cc: Bryan Berry <<a href="mailto:bryan.berry@gmail.com">bryan.berry@gmail.com</a>>, <a href="mailto:bens@alum.mit.edu">bens@alum.mit.edu</a>, sugar >> <<a href="mailto:sugar@lists.laptop.org">sugar@lists.laptop.org</a>>, "its. an. education. project" >> <<a href="mailto:its.an.education.project@lists.sugarlabs.org">its.an.education.project@lists.sugarlabs.org</a>> >> >> >> Each of us seems to have interpreted Michael's note differently, so >> perhaps some more clarity of definitions is in order. In any case, my >> focus was on the assertion that there are  "no excellent way to >> manipulate narratives" within Sugar. Excellence is the standard we >> should be striving for and I do agree we have a ways to go in terms of >> developing tools for "manipulating" "narratives" within Sugar. But it >> seems a funny dichotomy: manipulating narratives vs. modes for >> discovery. >> >> When I think about Sugar, I think about its providing a scaffolding >> for discovering, expressing, critiquing, and reflecting. Manipulating >> narrative seems to cut across all of these area (as does >> collaboration). We have a browser--the "discovery" platform du >> jour--but also an ebook reader and media player, and various tools for >> collecting and inspecting data (e.g, Measure and Distance). In terms >> of expression, we have a wide variety of tools, including word >> processing, rich media, programming, etc. Tools for critique and >> reflection seems the least developed thus far: we have chat and we >> have sharing and simple debugging tools, and we have the Journal, but >> we don't yet support (natively) much in the way of organizing data to >> make an analysis or argument. Is this the role Bryan expects Moodle to >> play? If so, I don't really see how.  There are beginnings of tools >> such as spreadsheets, mindmaps, etc. being "Sugarized". What else >> should we add to this list? There is also a powerful presentation >> toolkit built into Etoys--is it the lack of PowerPoint that Bryan is >> missing?--but it is not very easy to find. Perhaps something more >> wiki-like or HTML-based would be better. Having it available off-line >> is probably as important as accessing an on-line system, such as is >> already available in Moodle and in general on any GNU/Linux (or even >> Windows) server. In terms of organizing school itself, Moodle and its >> like certainly have an important role to play. Sugar is not intended >> to be all things, but part of a learning ecosystem. >> >> There is certainly a paucity of lesson plans developed around Sugar: >> how does one best leverage this collection of tools for learning. And >> undoubtedly, a dearth of content readily packaged and categorized. But >> I don't see these as fundamental design flaws in Sugar as much as a >> place where more effort needs to be invested. Sugar is reaching a >> point of maturity where such investments make sense. >> >> In any case, I'd love to hear Michael's "interesting ideas". >> >> -walter >> >> >> >> -- >> Walter Bender >> Sugar Labs >> <a href="http://www.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">http://www.sugarlabs.org</a> >> _______________________________________________ >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) >> <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> >> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a> > > </div></div>I like your niece's model of the neighborhood view--maybe we can have some way of generating aliases for the various APs based upon which Jabber server you are on; the Jabber servers themselves could have nicknames too, based on their intended constituency. But it skirts the question of what tools communities use to organize content and generate their narratives. <div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"> -walter -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs <a href="http://www.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">http://www.sugarlabs.org</a> _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a> </div></div></blockquote></div> </div>