[SoaS] [support-gang] [IAEP] SoaS Good News/Bad News

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi All,

Definitely!  This needs to be as easy as possible if we expect teachers to get involved. I think we are getting close, but the need to use the Terminal on Macs may be a "deal breaker."  

I am hoping it will be simple enough by the 24th of this month when I will have an opportunity to hand out some copies of a Sugar Creation Kit at the LAUSD InfoTech (maybe a slimmed down version) along with a "Grannies' Guide To Creating and Using SoaS."  If the instructions are very clear, easy to follow, and goof-proof, teachers can print them out and follow as they make their Sugar sticks and boot helper disks.  That is why I am asking all these very basic questions about the processes.

As far as evaluating it while running it on their machines, I like to quote my original computer educator mentor, my brother, "My other computer is a pencil." 

Maybe a testing check sheet would be useful? We made something like about that a year ago when Mel was involved in some of the testing.

Caryl


Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2010 20:44:29 -0500
From: yamaplos at bolinux.org
To: support-gang at lists.laptop.org
Subject: Re: [support-gang] [SoaS] [IAEP] SoaS Good News/Bad News






  


"Me too" postings are discouraged in good lists, but I myself feel so
in agreement by what Gregg is pointing out to that I cannot but say,
hear hear!  



What we have is too complicated, thus error prone and unfriendly, thus
not really *usable*



For Sugar or anything to revolutionize education it has to be really,
really easy to get going







On 04/08/2010 06:16 PM, Gregg Ambrosi wrote:
This is just my opinion, but if the process cannot be
performed reasonably simply by a large number of folks, including
teachers (we want their input into the product no?), then it is too
complicated. We need to offer simpler ways for user to run Sugar. Yes,
everyone will point to Sugar on a Stick, however:

  

1. the documented CD creation process for Macs is not simple (use the
Terminal?  Come now...)

2. if someone only has one computer, this means they have ONLY sugar or
ONLY their main OS. How do you evaluate/work with Sugar and make notes,
or document something (egads - don't say write it on paper).

  

Simple, easy to use VMs seem to me the way to go. However, those that
are referenced in the various places are certainly not just - copy and
play. I am running both VM player and Parallels and I have not found a
download yet that 'just works'. We have to remember that not everyone
that wants to help out (or would be great to have help out) are highly
technical. That is supposedly the point of Sugar no - you don't need
any technical ability?

  

Food for thought.

  

g

  

  

  

  On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:09 PM, James
Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:

  
    On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:55:34AM -0700, Caryl
Bigenho wrote:

> Thanks for the info. I'm glad I asked.  Now that leads to another

    
> question.  If I wanted to skip the redundant download and open the

    > image-writer-mac file in Terminal from the
larger download Tom G.

> posted (Sugar-Creation-Kit-ver05.iso) how would I do that?  I have

> copies of that download both on my desktop and burned on a DVD.

    

    
Skipping it might not be worth the effort, since it is only a few

kilobytes, and by downloading it again you'll get it placed in the

folder that the instructions expect ... the folder called Downloads.

    

However, to answer your question ... you would copy it to your Downloads

directory, either by dragging it across between two Finder windows (one

opened on the DVD, one opened on Downloads), or by figuring out the

filesystem paths for each and typing a Terminal command similar to this:

    

       cp /Volumes/SugarDVD/image-writer-mac.py ~/Downloads/

    

(Since I don't have a copy of this DVD, and the method used to create it

is manual and not automatically scripted, I can't determine what the

filesystem path after the "cp" would be.)  This command does the same as

dragging the file between two Finder windows, but is more exact and

reproducible.  The end result should be that file image-writer-mac.py is

in the Downloads folder.

    

--

    
    James Cameron

    http://quozl.linux.org.au/

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-- 

Cheers, Gregg

  
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