My readings in the class I am taking this semester deal with what sort of beliefs cause people to go into helpless mode, where they give up when they encounter a challenge and what sort of beliefs, and teaching, cause the same people to embrace challenge and believe that continued effort will result in continued progress. I think every time we communicate with teachers we want to frame Sugar in a way that encourages the belief that incremental effort will result in progress and discourage helpless behavior in the face of challenge, like trying it, saying it doesn't work and never trying again. So today for educators here is a thought: "Worldwide people are testing and improving Sugar on a Stick. With the help of people like you, trying it and telling us what problems and suggestions you have, we plan to having this in the first classrooms this fall and in the first schools schoolwide in the Spring. This is an all volunteer effort and your help, even now when we still have a lot of bugs, is really important." -Caroline <div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 5:21 AM, David Farning <<a href="mailto:dfarning@sugarlabs.org">dfarning@sugarlabs.org</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 class="im">On 3/7/09, Caroline Meeks <<a href="mailto:solutiongrove@gmail.com">solutiongrove@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > Thanks Caryl! > > When you talk to the tech savvy ones please ask them to help us test it so > we can get the bugs out and get it "Grannie ready!" There has been amazing > progress in the last few weeks but I want to keep people excited not angry > that it doesn't work, so please manage expectations. ;) We need those tech > savvy people but I don't want educators to try this in their classes > tomorrow, get frustrated, and never try it again. We aren't quite there > yet. </div>I would like to echo Caroline's thoughts. This release is about re-framing the the Sugar brand and Sugar Labs image. Education has a revolution every couple of months... and technology nearly as frequently. Sugar Lab's challenge is to make it past the headlines and into the classroom. Teachers are jaded. Every grad student worth his degree has written a paper about how to improve education by turning current practices on their heads. Every teacher has a closet full of revolutionary teaching materials that is getting dusty. Our first release was about the organization. The creation of Sugar Labs, the teams, and the processes necessary to develop and release great software. Our second release, coming up in a few days, has been about outreach and partnering. The Sugar 'community' has been reaching out to other communities to develop relationships. The most visible is the strong partnership between Fedora and Sugar. Below the radar, Walter is working with SkoleLinux. Tomue and alsroot are working with Mandriva, gdium, and Calix magic. Bernie is sharing much of Sugar Lab's infrastructure with the FSF and OSL..... As hard as it is to admit, a lot of partnerships have not worked out. People have not returned phone calls. Organization have expected, or wanted, more then we are able to deliver--at this time. Sometimes, there have been organizational or philosophical barriers which have inhibited our collaboration. All in all, the rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated:) As Caryl pointed out, there is great interest in the Sugar product. .84 is looking very, very good. Fedora in particular is stabilizing around a good release. Let's be-careful about overselling Sugar. Let's find those early adopters, open source advocates, and 1 to 1 computing advocates. Let's get Sugar in their hands. Let's get their feedback in the Sugar Lab bugtracker and onto the mailing lists. If we continue on our current trajectory, I have no doubts that by our fall release Sugar will be deployed in School and homes around and the world. By next spring, Sugar Labs, and the ecosystem, will be ready to support large scale deployments across the globe. david </blockquote></div> -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove Caroline@SolutionGrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax