Archive/Current Events/2015-07-15

Sugar Digest
1. Sugar 106 has been released. Some great new features, including the integration of social help and the ability to launch Activities from other Activities, and lots of work on bug fixing and stabilization. Many thanks to the developers, testers, and our release master, Martin Abente. For those of you who are so inclined, Sam Parkinson make a fun video about the new release.

2. A few weeks ago I was at the Google Code-in meet up in San Francisco where I had the opportunity to spend time with Ignacio Rodriguez and Sam Parkinson, our two finalists. They are not only productive members of our community in terms of coding, but also exemplars of a new generation of well-rounded, articulate, observant and caring human beings. I'm honored that they have chosen our community in which to develop their skills. Bonus: as I was hoping, we got some coding time in amidst all the activities that Google scheduled. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Raul at Twitter.

3. I ran a Turtle Blocks workshop in Bridgeport, Connecticut at a charter school that serves disadvantaged youths. The workshop was organized by Dennis Wong, an old friend from my Media Lab days and an active member of the local Rotary Club. The kids were enthusiastic despite the difficult circumstances under which we worked -- the computer lab is typically used for taking tests, so it was arranged to minimize the possibilities that the learners would interact with and help each other. I'm hoping as a follow up, the Rotary can help the school make the room into more of a maker space.

In the community
4. Call for papers for the special issue of RED (Journal of Distance Education):"Skills for coding and pre-coding": Publishing standards and guidelines for authors can be found at.
 * Deadline for submitting manuscripts: 31 July 2015
 * Estimated Publishing Date: 15 September 2015.

Llamada a contribuciones para el número especial de RED (Revista de Educación a Distancia): "Competencias para la codificación y la precodificación": Normas de publicación y pautas para los autores.
 * Fecha límite para enviar manuscritos: 31deJuliode 2015
 * Fecha estimada para la publicación: 15 de Septiembre de 2015.

5. For those of you who are interested, we hold our GSoC group meetings on Fridays, 11:00 EST (Boston), 13:00 UTC on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting.

6. We will be holding a new Sugar Oversight Board (SLOB) election this fall. The Membership Committee -- Samson Goddy, Caryl Bigenho, and Sebastian Silva -- are gearing up to make a major push to enroll community members onto our members list and we implore everyone to encourage both participation in the election and to consider running for one of the open seats on the board. Details forthcoming. As part of the push, Caryl is putting together a newsletter about recent Sugar activities. If you have stories to share, please contact Caryl (caryl AT laptop DOT org).

7. Dear colleagues,

Sugar Labs is organizing a survey of its youth contributors with the aim of publishing a report in the special issue of RED mentioned above. Towards this end, we invite you to answer the questions below. Please send your answers (written in your native language) to walter AT sugarlabs DOT org or francis AT sugarlabs DOT org.

How and why did you first get involved in programming?

How did you get involved with Sugar? What were your motivations for contributing to the Sugar project?

Did the fact that the project was FOSS (Software Libre) impact your decisions? your motivation? your habits?

What work or contribution that you have participated in has most motivated you? Why?

What work or contribution that you have participated in has least motivated you? Why?

When you program, how do you decide what to work on? Where to you get ideas? help? Do you help others?

How do you communicate your ideas? your questions? your doubts? Do you have any regrets?

What are your plans regarding programming in the future? Any other comments?

Estimados colaboradores,

Sugar Labs está organizando una encuesta a sus colaboradores jóvenes con el objetivo de generar un artículo y publicarlo a un medio de prensa en castellano.

Por este motivo la junta desde Sugar Labs los invitamos a responder la siguiente serie de preguntas que hemos armado.

Este mensaje va con copia a aquellos jóvenes que recuerdo involucrados en la comunidad y sé que han realizado aportes. Si consideran que alguien más es apropiado para responder esta encuesta pueden agregarlo al CC e invitarlo a responder la encuesta.

Las preguntas son:

¿Cómo, cuándo y por qué comenzaste a involucrarte en la programación?

¿Cómo te involucraste con Sugar? ¿Cuáles fueron tus motivaciones para contribuir al proyecto de Sugar?

El hecho de que el proyecto sea FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) ¿afectó tus decisiones? ¿Afectó tu motivación? ¿Afectó tus hábitos?

¿Cuál ha sido el trabajo o contribución en que has participado que más te ha motivado? ¿Por qué?

¿Cuál ha sido el trabajo o contribución en que has participado que menos te ha motivado? ¿Por qué?

Cuando tu programas, ¿cómo decides en qué trabajar? ¿De dónde sacas las ideas? ¿Dónde obtienes ayuda? ¿Ayudas a los demás?

¿Cómo compartes, comunicas o debates tus ideas? ¿Y tus preguntas? ¿Y tus dudas?

¿Hay algo que lamentas o que no te haya gustado de haberte involucrado con el proyecto Sugar?

¿Cuáles son tus planes con respecto a la programación para el futuro?

¿Quieres agregar algún otro comentario?

Esperamos sus respuestas.

Tech Talk
8. Please help Martin and the Developer Team test Sugar 106. Your feedback is important to us.

9. Progress continues on Turtle Blocks JS, which runs in a web browser (the Android version is still experimental). Some new features include the ability to pass arguments to action stacks and to return values. Thanks to GSoC intern Amit Kumar Jha for his contributions. The other GSoC projects are also progressing nicely.

Sugar Labs
10. Please visit our planet.