Hi Sandy and Andrea,<br><br>There are so many layers here I'm not sure who is working with the 4th/5th graders.... Do your 4th/5th graders have access to computers at home?<br><br>We maybe working on similar use cases and trying to solve them with a "Sugar on a Stick" solution.<br>
<br>You guys already have Sugar on a USB working. Probably the other thing you'll need is to send the kids home with a "boot helper" CD that allows the USB to effectively boot off of any machine that is setup to boot from a CD. This is most computers, whereas some older computers do not support USB Boot and parents may not be enthusiastic about kids playing with the BIOS of their home computers.<br>
<br>If this matches your use case You can follow and I hope contribute to the project here.<br><br><a href="http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/DeploymentTeam/School_Key">http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/DeploymentTeam/School_Key</a><br>
<br>Let me know how it goes. I'm interested in finding out how robust the cheap USBs are or if they get corrupted easily when subject to real world use.<br><br>Caroline<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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>><br>
>> To give you some background: I'm a faculty member in the Computer<br>
>> Sciences department and have been experimenting lately with teaching<br>
>> 4th/5th graders computer programming with Scratch from MIT. This<br>
>> semester, we've been running an afterschool club with 14 kids (6<br>
>> girls, 8 boys) at Shorewood Elementary. There are a few details<br>
>> here: <a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/%7Edusseau/catapult.html" target="_blank">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dusseau/catapult.html</a><br>
>><br>
>> So far, we've been running Scratch on $500 Dell laptops that I've been<br>
>> carting around (the kids do not get to take them home).<br>
>><br>
>> Given that Scratch also runs on the XO, I thought this might set up an<br>
>> opportunity for a good comparison study between using traditional<br>
>> laptops (our control group) and the XO.<br>
>><br>
>> I haven't played around with the XO much yet, but it seems to me that<br>
>> it is disappointingly slow for running Scratch. I am curious as to<br>
>> whether the slowness would bother the kids or not.<br>
>><br>
>> One idea for this semester (the club is about half-way done for this<br>
>> semester) is to have some (or all) of the kids switch to using an XO<br>
>> for the remaining weeks and we could compare the experiences.<br>
>> Certainly, the draw of being able to take the XO home (if that is<br>
>> allowed) and work on their Scratch projects outside of the club (which<br>
>> very few are currently doing), might make up for the XO's slowness.<br>
>><br>
>> If the XO results from this semester are promising, we could then be<br>
>> more methodical next semester and give 1/2 the kids XOs and 1/2 my<br>
>> $500 laptops and compare their experiences (and final projects).<br>
>><br>
>> Thoughts?<br>
>><br>
>> Thanks,<br>
>> Andrea<br>
>><br>
>> ---<br>
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>><br>
><br>
> --<br>
> Sandra Shaw Courter, PhD<br>
> Director, Engineering Learning Center<br>
> Professor, Engineering Professional Development<br>
> University of Wisconsin - Madison<br>
> Engineering Centers Building, room M1012<br>
> 1550 Engineering Drive<br>
> Madison, WI 53706<br>
> 608-265-9767 phone<br>
> 608-265-9768 fax<br>
><br>
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<br>_______________________________________________<br>
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)<br>
<a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Caroline Meeks<br>Solution Grove<br>Caroline@SolutionGrove.com<br>
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