<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Hi James,</p>
<p>It's helpful, yes, thanks again for sharing!<br>
</p>
<p>As a next step, I added it to <a
href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jOVgY7PO0GzjkE2dsO2nfViC7DY5OVp_Qbe5zmZMBYE/edit"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jOVgY7PO0GzjkE2dsO2nfViC7DY5OVp_Qbe5zmZMBYE/edit</a>
so that it can go through a collaborative editorial process before
publishing.</p>
<p>Cheers!<br>
</p>
<p>Devin</p>
<p>P.S. I found
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://archive.org/details/MakeYourOwnSugarActivities">https://archive.org/details/MakeYourOwnSugarActivities</a> -- I'm
adding it to my list of stuff to share, plus linking it in your
draft.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">James Simmons:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAN6VRWyoQxeOQVGqq6J9kyKtgOhXM8fny70Yj6W1cf=mzWfOqA@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Devin,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing you're looking
for, but this is my story:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I started working with OLPC with the Give One Get One
program back in 2007. I was more interested in getting an XO
laptop for myself than in working for the project. I thought I
could use the laptop to read plain text books from Project
Gutenberg. Kindles were very expensive back then and this
looked like a good alternative, and it was, but I was
disappointed to find out that the Read Activity provided only
worked with PDFs. I taught myself to program in Python,
studied the code for the Read Activity, and created the Read
Etexts Activity which supported reading plain text files. I
next decided I wanted to have an Activity for reading comic
books in CBZ format and created two of them: View Slides and
Read SD Comics.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The best and maybe only way to learn how to create
Activities at that time was to study the code of existing
ones. I'm a Systems Analyst so that wasn't too bad for me but
for teachers and their students it wasn't great. Somehow or
other in 2009 or 2010 I convinced myself to write a proper
manual, called <i>Make Your Own Sugar Activities!</i> I did
this using the Floss Manuals website. I was fortunate enough
to have a very nice cover illustration done for me by Oceana
Rain Fields, a student participating in the Rural Design
Collective's summer mentorship program. The printed book was
given out as a door prize at one of the first OLPC
conferences. The book was later translated into Spanish by a
team of Sugar Labs volunteers as <i>Como Hacer Una Actividad
Sugar</i>. <br>
<br>
</div>
<div>I followed this up with a manual on obtaining, reading, and
donating free ebooks called <i>EBook Enlightenment</i>, with
cover and interior illustrations also provided by Oceana Rain
Fields. To research this book I donated books to <a
href="http://archive.org" moz-do-not-send="true">archive.org</a>
and Project Gutenberg and made a book scanning device of my
own design for photographing book pages. I also installed a
local instance of the Floss Manuals Booktype software and used
it and some Linux OCR software to finish a manuscript that I
had abandoned back in the nineteen eighties, about my
experiences in the Hare Krishna movement, which I renamed to <i>The
Life And Times of Bhakta Jim</i>.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I fell away from participating in Sugar Labs after that,
but I continued donating texts to <a
href="http://archive.org" moz-do-not-send="true">archive.org</a>
and Project Gutenberg and have been working on a Science
Fiction novel which I may one day finish.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My participation in Sugar Labs never involved any work with
actual children, but recently I had the opportunity to
introduce a nine year old boy to Linux. I had intended to give
his older brother (who was studying computer programming in
college) an old Linux desktop but his brother decided that it
should be his computer instead. I gave the computer a
functioning Sugar environment and rewrote some of my old
Activities in Python 3 to work on that, but for now he's
mostly interested in learning Flight Gear and playing games
like Tux Kart and Sopwith.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>James Simmons</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, May 22, 2024 at
9:16 AM Devin Ulibarri <<a
href="mailto:devin@sugarlabs.org" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">devin@sugarlabs.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Dear Sugar community members,</p>
<p>Sugar Labs is growing, and we need volunteer help with
various tasks.</p>
<p>To help keep track of the various roles and tasks where
help is needed, I created the following page on our wiki:
<a href="https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Help_Wanted"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Help_Wanted</a><br>
</p>
<div>Some of the roles that I'd like to highlight are:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Elections Officer: Help run elections for Sugar
Labs' board members; This role will receive support
from myself, as ED, and the board.</li>
<li>Website help: <a href="http://sugarlabs.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">sugarlabs.org</a>
is a static site, created with Jeckyll. We could use
some help updating it, improving it, and documenting a
workflow</li>
<li>New volunteers for our Marketing Team: Help us bring
Sugar Labs to the people!</li>
<li>Sugar Labs stories: Did participating in the Sugar
Labs community have a positive impact on your life? If
so, we'd like to help you tell that story. Simply send
an approx. three paragraph draft, and we'll help you
edit and publish it.</li>
<li>Don't have any time for the above? Well, the easiest
way to support with your time is to follow us on
social media and share/boost our posts. Help us spread
the word!<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Devin<br>
</p>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-- <br>
<p>Learn more: <a href="https://sugarlabs.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://sugarlabs.org</a></p>
<p>Help us grow: <a
href="https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Donate"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Donate</a></p>
</div>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
Sugar-devel mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
Sugar-devel mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org">Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p>Learn more: <a href="https://sugarlabs.org"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://sugarlabs.org</a></p>
<p>Help us grow: <a
href="https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Donate"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Donate</a></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>