[Marketing] organizing an event

[Sean DALY]

I'm confused, is the idea that "Ambassadors" try to recruit
developers, and Sugar Labs contributors who talk to teachers be called
something else?

I vastly prefer "Facilitators", but that's because I don't share the
view that it's a higher priority for us to reach out to FOSS
developers than to reach out to teachers, and I daresay teachers need
much more explaining of what Sugar is designed to do than developers
will.

I think we agree that Sugar needs teacher buy-in for its success. We
need teachers challenging our concepts, offering their experience and
intuition, and identifying barriers (technical and otherwise) to Sugar
adoption.

Of course we should be present at FOSS conventions. Of course we
should communicate to developers our passion and ideals about
bettering educational opportunity for millions of children.

But, we're already good at that. What we're not good at yet is
confronting our ideas with classroom realities. There is a vast amount
of teacher savoir-faire out in the world about making learning happen
with Sugar, but we can't access any of it since there is no feedback
loop. I believe we should be better empowering teachers within Sugar
itself, but I have no data yet to support that position without
feedback.

Actually, what I'd like is for Sugar Facilitators not just to go to
conventions (although we certainly should). What I'd like is to start
a tradition of visiting schools. You know, like the sales forces of
publishers, service providers, systems integrators, computer
manufacturers, and proprietary software firms do. We have an
unbeatable sales pitch compared to the others: we have nothing to sell
except ideas; we do this to improve education; we are looking for
information, and here is Sugar on a Stick for you to try out.

In my view, fact-finding trips to schools could just be the best way
to quickly find technically adept teachers willing to share with us.
And, if we are organized about our visit reporting, we could become
much better at seeing what is going on in schools in a consolidated
way; shifts from computer labs to 1:1 computing for example, or
attitudes about the Internet, or things that work really well or not
at all.

thanks

Sean



On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Caroline
Meeks<caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> hmm, how about a link to the facilitation wiki that Gunner showed us.:
> http://facilitation.aspirationtech.org/index.php/Agenda:Index
>
> Also, is it to late to not use the word Ambassadors. Its a power, fear and
> hierarchical filled metaphor that I think will feed into teachers existing
> feelings of alienation in regards to technology.
>
> I know we didn't come up with anything better.
>
> So my suggestion is "Sugar Facilitators"  teachers and schools use the word
> facilitation frequently, I think it will be more comfortable for them..
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:03 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> We now have a draft wiki page on how to organize an event at
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Organizing_an_Event .
>>
>> I'll try to gather up the materials we have used in previous events so
>> we can find them again next time.  Please fell free to add and correct
>> as necessary.
>>
>> david
>> _______________________________________________
>> Marketing mailing list
>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>
>
>
> --
> Caroline Meeks
> Solution Grove
> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>
> 617-500-3488 - Office
> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>
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