What is Sugar? Sugar...

...is a learning platform designed for children

...was originally designed for the XO-1 laptop of the OLPC project

...runs on most netbooks and PCs

...is for example used by students in Peru, Uruguay and Nepal

...is Free Software

...is available in more than 25 languages

What is special about Sugar?

Collaborative learning is a main concept of the platform: Students can connect with each other and work on an exercise together. Sugar is task-based and provides each student with a Journal, ﻿where every action or activity is automatically recorded. The Journal ﻿engages children in the process of reflecting on their work.

Sugar includes a wide variety of subprograms, called Activities. There are Activities like Write, Read and a Browser, but as well more complex systems like Etoys. Etoys is a visual Authoring system to create simulations, write interactive stories or program little games. Etoys is a nice way to get the students interested into programming. A similar approach uses Turtleart, an activity to draw images. The students control a pen with the shape of a turtle using graphical programming blocks. New activities can be downloaded from activities.sugarlabs.org - and if a student does not find what he is looking for he is encouraged to modify an existing activity or write one himself. Sugar and most of the activities are written in the scripting language python. ﻿One goal of Sugar is to encourage users to appropriate the technology. The students should not be satisfied to be just consumers of Sugar; we would like them to understand how Sugar works and to feel empowered to make improvements.

What is Sugar Labs?

Sugar Labs is a volunteer-driven, nonprofit organization. Sugar Labs coordinates volunteers around the world passionate about providing educational opportunities to children through the Sugar Learning Platform. You can help to improve how computers are used in education - join.sugarlabs.org