[SoaS] SoaS Fedora Spin webpage

Sean DALY sdaly.be at gmail.com
Tue May 25 10:51:46 EDT 2010


Mel ?


On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 12:07 PM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> By the way, we always talk about the XS School Server in our public
> communications for several reasons:
>
> * We've identified filtering online access as a key concern of
> teachers and parents; education buyers and education IT staff need to
> know that a software solution is available which can be configured
> with a filter
>
> * Sugar on a Stick in any deployment needs tech support, the kind that
> also configures access to wifi, worries about how to replace lost or
> damaged sticks, etc.
>
> * The Intel Learning Series teacher tools are stiff competition for
> any non-XO Sugar deployment, in particular the new Education Appliance
> classroom server box by Critical Links:
> http://www.intellearningseries.com/product-info/
> http://education.critical-links.com/education/export/sites/default/docs/education-datasheet.pdf
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/the-intel-educational-appliance-where-do-i-get-one/3771
>
> * Teachers are adopting Moodle, to the point where Microsoft supports
> it with GPL'd software
> (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=128648 ,
> http://www.educationlabs.com/projects/moodleproduct/Pages/default.aspx)
>
> * There is an upper limit to effective collaboration using ad-hoc
> networking; I'm not sure what the limit is, but I believe it's a small
> enough number of machines to concern teachers
>
> * Martin has consistently worked to support Sugar on non-OLPC hardware.
>
> Always keep in mind that our two main barriers to adoption are Sugar's
> unfamiliarity and installation difficulty. Knowing that a school
> server exists will motivate teachers to overcome these barriers.
>
> Here's a suggestion to address your concern about testing: add a
> qualifying "your mileage may vary" phrase: "Installation and
> configuration of an XS School Server requires an IT administrator. For
> more information, please visit
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/School_Server and
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server"
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 9:08 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Mel - our marketing policy has been to say "K-6" or "ages 5 to 12"
>> (http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press&article=20090316&language=english#20090316)
>> or "children" or "young learners" because the Microsoft / CMPC offer
>> is so poor in that range. Of course, that doesn't exclude any age
>> group (including seniors and computer beginners of all ages), but it
>> needs to be clear that the focus is on grade-school children. Part of
>> the planned media campaign for the XO-1.5 involves promoting the dual
>> desktop with Gnome, better suited to teenagers.
>>
>> Martin - any comment on the XS School Server text?
>>
>> thanks
>>
>> Sean
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 6:15 AM, Mel Chua <mel at melchua.com> wrote:
>>> Since SoaS is now a Fedora Spin, we also get a shiny Fedora Spin
>>> webpage, courtesy of the Fedora Marketing, Design, and Websites teams:
>>> http://spins.fedoraproject.org/soas/
>>>
>>> Not all the wiki/other links pointed-to from this spin page are fully
>>> built up (for instance, our openhatch link needs more work), but there's
>>> time to do that before the release date of 5/18, and we needed to get
>>> this specific website itself up today (Fedora's freeze date).
>>>
>>> Thanks to Sean Daly for graciously stepping in with last-minute patches
>>> to the content on very short notice! You can see Sean's changes here:
>>> http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=fedora-web.git;a=commitdiff;h=5812da649b6c132b43b51b72f09c56dff236076b
>>>
>>> There were two changes requested that I did /not/ make, and wanted to
>>> note here for transparency (and also pushback, so that people can tell
>>> me if they think I'm wrong in doing so. :)
>>>
>>> * I left the age range from grades K-8 (requested: K-6) because of
>>> positive feedback from middle school teachers, and also because of the
>>> project's history of targeting a broader range
>>> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Our_market#Child_is_a_nebulous_term.3B_what_is_the_exact_age_range_you_are_targeting.3F).
>>>
>>> * I love this paragraph, but I haven't seen tests run with Sugar on a
>>> Stick and the XS - and until we have that, I'm hesitant to put that in:
>>> "In a classroom setting, this automatic saving to each pupil's stick can
>>> also be backed up to a school server, solving any lost stick problems.
>>> The XS School Server (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server), also
>>> based on Fedora, can provide content distribution, homework collection,
>>> Moodle integration (http://docs.moodle.org/en/OLPC_XS_installation), and
>>> filtered access to the Internet."
>>>
>>> You may also notice that the webpage does not contain the SL logo,
>>> because we generally do not use trademarks in our Fedora Spin webpages,
>>> since everything we put out needs to be freely redistributable and we
>>> don't want to dilute anyone's mark. Instead, it features a banner
>>> created by Melanie Kim, adapted from a banner by Mo Duffy made with
>>> artwork by Maria Leandro, all contributors from Fedora Design.
>>>
>>> In general, enjoy the shiny and please shoot comments and feedback and
>>> such this-a-way. ;)
>>>
>>> --Mel (wearing my Fedora Marketing hat in this email as well as my Sugar
>>> Labs one)
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SoaS mailing list
>>> SoaS at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
>>>
>>
>


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