Sugar Labs - User contributions [en]

Education Team

2013-02-15T10:10:03Z

Docdtv: point to education team meeting loci

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Meeting venues ==

'''Walter Bender reports on Feb 1, 2013 that:

''The "education team" meets weekly here [1], [2], [3].

[1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Charlas_aprendizaje_2012

[2] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Chat_Espanol_2011

[3] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Spanish_Chat (2010)''
'''

== Status ==
{{Iframe|collapsed=|See this '''2011 September report:''' |http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg12365.html
|900|400|1}}

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Mailing Lists==

'''Most people interested in the stated mission of the Education Team should take part in the ''IAEP ("It's An Education Project") Mailing List''[http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep], whose archives[http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/] date from May 2008 and continue at least to the time of this writing, February 2013.'''
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 19:42, 1 February 2013 (EST)

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/2009-03-06 Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]

==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gahchs/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

I recently came back to look at SL after a long hiatus to check on progress. Almost
the first thing I did was add [[Marketing_Team#Video_channels]] to proposed marketing
projects, which reiterates your call for videos, especially anxiety-stilling demos.
(I was told there is a "religious" objection to using YouTube, despite its marvelous
SYNDICATION potential, since it does not use an open codec, as does Daily motion. I
answered that SL should be THANKFUL if someone downloads any Daily motion videos SL
creates and transcodes them for reposting on YouTube as well!) It really starts to
sound like you should work on the Marketing Team. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

What is it with flash-based thumb drives? In the previous decade, I went through
several of them as they successively died off in turn. This led to the practice
of using a PAIR, so that when one dies, the "RAIDed twin" provides a fail-safe.
Some people recommend periodic reformatting as a means to obviate failures. Has
the problem finally been solved? I have not had a disaster for a long time now.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.

===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]
* [[Education Team/Curriculum|Curriculum]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Internet Relay Chat

2013-02-08T00:28:39Z

Docdtv: /* IRC channel discussion archives */

<noinclude>[[Category:Contact]][[Category:Resource]]
</noinclude>== IRC, [[Internet Relay Chat]] ==
Most Sugar Labs chat takes place on IRC (see [[wikipedia:IRC|Internet Relay Chat]]).
* The [[Activities/IRC|'''IRC activity''']] allows access to IRC from within the Sugar environment.
* You can use a computer-based client to log in to IRC, such as [http://www.pidgin.im/ Pidgin] or [[wikipedia:X-Chat|X-Chat]]. This link should work for such clients: irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar
* Or, use a browser add-on (like [http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16 ChatZilla] for the FireFox web browser, where the above link will also work).
* Easiest, might be this web browser-based service provided by freenode through qwebirc to [http://chat.sugarlabs.org chat on #sugar now].

IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion 'channels', but allows for personal chat and data transfer as well.

The Sugar Labs Community uses a series of ''channels'' in the '''<tt>irc.freenode.net</tt>''' network.

==== IRC channel discussion archives ====

'''The archives of all Sugar-related IRC channels are generated automatically by an IRC bot and are indexed [[http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/ here]].'''

----

==== irc.freenode.net channels ====


{|
| colspan=2 style="background:lightyellow; border:1px solid black;" | '''General:'''
|- valign="top"
|<tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=olpc-help&prompt=1 #olpc-help] or irc://irc.freenode.net#olpc-help</tt> || Community help. If you need help using an XO or with Sugar, and you haven't asked anywhere else: try here first.
|- valign="top"
|<tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=sugar-newbies&prompt=1 #sugar-newbies] or irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar-newbies</tt> || New developer help. If you're starting to develop in Sugar, you can ask here and help contribute to the new developers manual and FAQ. The [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-newbies channel is logged] and its history searchable.
|-
|- valign="top"
|<tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=sugar&prompt=1 #sugar]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar</tt> || For day-to-day [[What is Sugar? | Sugar]] development—a casual, friendly place where Sugar developers collaborate.
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=sugar-meeting&prompt=1 #sugar-meeting]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar-meeting</tt>|| A channel for scheduled Sugar Labs meetings. See the [[Sugar Labs/Events | Sugar Labs event calendar]].
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=fedora-olpc&prompt=1 #fedora-olpc]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.freenode.net#fedora-olpc</tt> || A channel for the Fedora development project for OLPC XOs and a Sugar distribution. See the [http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC project page].

|}

==== irc.oftc.net channels ====
{|
|-
| colspan=2 style="background:lightyellow; border:1px solid black;" | '''General:'''
|- valign="top"
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://embed.mibbit.com/?server=irc.oftc.net&channel=%23schoolserver&noServerTab=false #schoolserver]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.oftc.net#schoolserver</tt> || The meeting channel for the XS, the '''X'''O school '''S'''erver. (Not active in September 2009.)
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://embed.mibbit.com/?server=irc.oftc.net&channel=%23treehouse&noServerTab=false #treehouse]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.oftc.net#treehouse</tt> || The meeting channel for the [http://monitoring.treehouse.su/munin/DOMs/comparison-day.html#virtual%20machines Treehouse] - Hosting
|}

* See also [[OLPC:Communication channels]].

=== How to use IRC channels ===
* A web-based chat for freenode.net channels is [http://webchat.freenode.net qwebirc], with nickname: (whatever you like), and channel: #sugar (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into).
* A web-based chat for other channels is [http://www.mibbit.com Mibbit], with nickname: (whatever you like), server: irc.oftc.net, and channel: #schoolserver (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into). It also includes an in-line '''translation''' service that is helpful when other languages are used. (Connections via mibbit are no longer supported on freenode. You may wish to consider using http://webchat.freenode.net instead. Further information over at http://bit.ly/19JILF.)
* Some helpful resources are [http://www.mirc.com/irc.html here], and [http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html this tutorial], which also includes basic commands.
* Learn about IRC etiquette. Try [http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/etiquette.html here], [http://www.livinginternet.com/r/ru_chatq.htm here], or [http://www.wxwidgets.org/wiki/index.php/IRC_Etiquette here].
* For IRC under sugar, install the latest '''[[Activities/IRC|Sugar IRC activity]]'''.
* In Pidgin you can configure IRC and then Add a Chat to your Buddy list. Select the IRC channel from the drop-down menu, and enter the name of the channel. You can set Pidgin to open channels automatically whenever it starts up.
* In a traditional IRC client, you join a channel with the /join command, for example, enter <code>/join #sugar</code> in the input box.
* Connect to one of the above channels, and say hello. You will see a list of the handles (on-line names) of the people in the channel, and the conversation will appear in a scrolling window. Type your message in the command entry area, and press return.
* Instructions for using the meeting log robot are [[OLPC:User:Dogi/meeting | here]].

Internet Relay Chat

2013-02-08T00:27:25Z

Docdtv: Link to IRC archive at http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/

<noinclude>[[Category:Contact]][[Category:Resource]]
</noinclude>== IRC, [[Internet Relay Chat]] ==
Most Sugar Labs chat takes place on IRC (see [[wikipedia:IRC|Internet Relay Chat]]).
* The [[Activities/IRC|'''IRC activity''']] allows access to IRC from within the Sugar environment.
* You can use a computer-based client to log in to IRC, such as [http://www.pidgin.im/ Pidgin] or [[wikipedia:X-Chat|X-Chat]]. This link should work for such clients: irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar
* Or, use a browser add-on (like [http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16 ChatZilla] for the FireFox web browser, where the above link will also work).
* Easiest, might be this web browser-based service provided by freenode through qwebirc to [http://chat.sugarlabs.org chat on #sugar now].

IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion 'channels', but allows for personal chat and data transfer as well.

The Sugar Labs Community uses a series of ''channels'' in the '''<tt>irc.freenode.net</tt>''' network.

==== IRC channel discussion archives ====

'''The archives of all Sugar-related IRC channels are generated automatically by a IRC bot and are indexed [[http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/ here]].'''

==== irc.freenode.net channels ====


{|
| colspan=2 style="background:lightyellow; border:1px solid black;" | '''General:'''
|- valign="top"
|<tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=olpc-help&prompt=1 #olpc-help] or irc://irc.freenode.net#olpc-help</tt> || Community help. If you need help using an XO or with Sugar, and you haven't asked anywhere else: try here first.
|- valign="top"
|<tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=sugar-newbies&prompt=1 #sugar-newbies] or irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar-newbies</tt> || New developer help. If you're starting to develop in Sugar, you can ask here and help contribute to the new developers manual and FAQ. The [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-newbies channel is logged] and its history searchable.
|-
|- valign="top"
|<tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=sugar&prompt=1 #sugar]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar</tt> || For day-to-day [[What is Sugar? | Sugar]] development—a casual, friendly place where Sugar developers collaborate.
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=sugar-meeting&prompt=1 #sugar-meeting]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar-meeting</tt>|| A channel for scheduled Sugar Labs meetings. See the [[Sugar Labs/Events | Sugar Labs event calendar]].
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=fedora-olpc&prompt=1 #fedora-olpc]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.freenode.net#fedora-olpc</tt> || A channel for the Fedora development project for OLPC XOs and a Sugar distribution. See the [http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC project page].

|}

==== irc.oftc.net channels ====
{|
|-
| colspan=2 style="background:lightyellow; border:1px solid black;" | '''General:'''
|- valign="top"
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://embed.mibbit.com/?server=irc.oftc.net&channel=%23schoolserver&noServerTab=false #schoolserver]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.oftc.net#schoolserver</tt> || The meeting channel for the XS, the '''X'''O school '''S'''erver. (Not active in September 2009.)
|- valign="top"
| <tt>[http://embed.mibbit.com/?server=irc.oftc.net&channel=%23treehouse&noServerTab=false #treehouse]</tt> or <tt>irc://irc.oftc.net#treehouse</tt> || The meeting channel for the [http://monitoring.treehouse.su/munin/DOMs/comparison-day.html#virtual%20machines Treehouse] - Hosting
|}

* See also [[OLPC:Communication channels]].

=== How to use IRC channels ===
* A web-based chat for freenode.net channels is [http://webchat.freenode.net qwebirc], with nickname: (whatever you like), and channel: #sugar (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into).
* A web-based chat for other channels is [http://www.mibbit.com Mibbit], with nickname: (whatever you like), server: irc.oftc.net, and channel: #schoolserver (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into). It also includes an in-line '''translation''' service that is helpful when other languages are used. (Connections via mibbit are no longer supported on freenode. You may wish to consider using http://webchat.freenode.net instead. Further information over at http://bit.ly/19JILF.)
* Some helpful resources are [http://www.mirc.com/irc.html here], and [http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html this tutorial], which also includes basic commands.
* Learn about IRC etiquette. Try [http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/etiquette.html here], [http://www.livinginternet.com/r/ru_chatq.htm here], or [http://www.wxwidgets.org/wiki/index.php/IRC_Etiquette here].
* For IRC under sugar, install the latest '''[[Activities/IRC|Sugar IRC activity]]'''.
* In Pidgin you can configure IRC and then Add a Chat to your Buddy list. Select the IRC channel from the drop-down menu, and enter the name of the channel. You can set Pidgin to open channels automatically whenever it starts up.
* In a traditional IRC client, you join a channel with the /join command, for example, enter <code>/join #sugar</code> in the input box.
* Connect to one of the above channels, and say hello. You will see a list of the handles (on-line names) of the people in the channel, and the conversation will appear in a scrolling window. Type your message in the command entry area, and press return.
* Instructions for using the meeting log robot are [[OLPC:User:Dogi/meeting | here]].

User talk:FGrose

2013-02-03T01:47:55Z

Docdtv: /* Wiki education and team coordinator identification */

<noinclude>{{TOCleft}}</noinclude>

== Wiki education and team coordinator identification ==

As you discovered, I had thought it best to identify the Wiki team coordinator on BOTH the main Wiki page and the Wiki Team page. I respect your decision to void the former. In your place, I might be tempted to follow your example if I wanted to reduce contacts from new visitors who might solve whatever problem they had simply by doing more work. If they fail, now they finally DO have the ultimate ability to discover the identity of the coordinator - from the Wiki Team page.

But please consider linking from http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Welcome_to_the_Sugar_Labs_wiki to both a gentle introduction to the concept of a Wiki (e.g. the Commoncraft tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY ) and the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Thanks for your diligence and kindly civility.

- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 20:46, 2 February 2013 (EST)

== thx for cleaning up my post ==
as i saw that your are editing the discussion page of "get sugar", i wanted to thank you for your help!

at the moment im just reading in the sugarlabs wiki, what do you think of a single page dedicated to "install sugar (fedora 11 with gnome) on olpc"?
i think i will be able to rewrite the version on the discussion page plus adding a few aspects.

thx again for your help,
canin [[User:Canin|Canin]] 10:54, 30 May 2010 (EDT)

== great job ==

I noticed you're doing an enormous amount of work on the wiki. Thanks! [[User:Bernie|bernie]] 12:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

== table of contents ==

I wonder if we could configure mediawiki to always display the content table on the right instead of littering all the pages with the same directive? [[User:Bernie|bernie]]
:I haven't found anything like that yet. It's better as the template call than the full instruction:
<code><nowiki>{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="clear:right; margin-bottom: .5em; float: right; padding: .5em 0 .8em 1.4em; background: none; width: {{{1|auto}}};"
| __TOC__
|}<noinclude>
[[Category:TOC templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]
</noinclude></nowiki></code> --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 23:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
::Add in Mediawiki:common.css
:: #toc { float: right } --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 19:33, 8 June 2010 (EDT)

== Adobe Flash Player (AFP) ==

Many thanks for your help. I think this information about AFP should be available through a link somewhere on this wiki. If you let me know where it should go, I'll take a stab at putting it in. [[User:David Kergyl|David Kergyl]] 19:55, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
*:Done! At least it's a start. [[User:David Kergyl|David Kergyl]] 19:28, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

== Custom cursors in vector.css ==

Would you be willing to remove the custom cursors you added in [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]]? They look cute, but harm the usability of the site; they show up as large and clunky on many desktop browsers, and make it hard to select text and click precisely (particularly on Google Chrome). Thanks, [[User:Fran Rogers|Fran Rogers]] 13:49, 20 July 2010 (EDT)
: See [[Wiki Team/Resources/Remove Sugar Cursors]] for a workaround.

User talk:FGrose

2013-02-03T01:46:53Z

Docdtv: /* Wiki education and team coordinator identification */

<noinclude>{{TOCleft}}</noinclude>

== Wiki education and team coordinator identification ==

As you discovered, I had thought it best to identify the Wiki team coordinator on BOTH the main Wiki page and the Wiki Team page. I respect your decision to void the former. In your place, I might be tempted to follow your example if I wanted to reduce contacts from new visitors who might solve whatever problem they had simply by doing more work. If they fail, now they finally DO have the ultimate ability to discover the identity of the coordinator - from the Wiki Team page.

But please consider linking from http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Welcome_to_the_Sugar_Labs_wiki to both a gentle conceptual introduction to the concept of a Wiki (e.g. the Commoncraft tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY ) and the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Thanks for your diligence and kindly civility.

- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 20:46, 2 February 2013 (EST)

== thx for cleaning up my post ==
as i saw that your are editing the discussion page of "get sugar", i wanted to thank you for your help!

at the moment im just reading in the sugarlabs wiki, what do you think of a single page dedicated to "install sugar (fedora 11 with gnome) on olpc"?
i think i will be able to rewrite the version on the discussion page plus adding a few aspects.

thx again for your help,
canin [[User:Canin|Canin]] 10:54, 30 May 2010 (EDT)

== great job ==

I noticed you're doing an enormous amount of work on the wiki. Thanks! [[User:Bernie|bernie]] 12:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

== table of contents ==

I wonder if we could configure mediawiki to always display the content table on the right instead of littering all the pages with the same directive? [[User:Bernie|bernie]]
:I haven't found anything like that yet. It's better as the template call than the full instruction:
<code><nowiki>{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="clear:right; margin-bottom: .5em; float: right; padding: .5em 0 .8em 1.4em; background: none; width: {{{1|auto}}};"
| __TOC__
|}<noinclude>
[[Category:TOC templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]
</noinclude></nowiki></code> --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 23:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
::Add in Mediawiki:common.css
:: #toc { float: right } --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 19:33, 8 June 2010 (EDT)

== Adobe Flash Player (AFP) ==

Many thanks for your help. I think this information about AFP should be available through a link somewhere on this wiki. If you let me know where it should go, I'll take a stab at putting it in. [[User:David Kergyl|David Kergyl]] 19:55, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
*:Done! At least it's a start. [[User:David Kergyl|David Kergyl]] 19:28, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

== Custom cursors in vector.css ==

Would you be willing to remove the custom cursors you added in [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]]? They look cute, but harm the usability of the site; they show up as large and clunky on many desktop browsers, and make it hard to select text and click precisely (particularly on Google Chrome). Thanks, [[User:Fran Rogers|Fran Rogers]] 13:49, 20 July 2010 (EDT)
: See [[Wiki Team/Resources/Remove Sugar Cursors]] for a workaround.

User talk:FGrose

2013-02-03T01:46:17Z

Docdtv: Create section: Wiki education and team coordinator identification

<noinclude>{{TOCleft}}</noinclude>

== Wiki education and team coordinator identification ==

As you discovered, I had thought it best to identify the Wiki team coordinator on BOTH the main Wiki page and the Wiki Team page. I respect your decision to void the former. In your place, I might be tempted to follow your example if I wanted to reduce contacts from new visitors who might solve whatever problem they had simply by doing more work. If they fail, now they finally DO have the ultimate ability to discover the identity of the coordinator - from the Wiki Team page.

But please consider linking from http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Welcome_to_the_Sugar_Labs_wiki to both a gentle conceptual introduction to the concept of a Wiki (e.g. the Commoncraft tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY ) and the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Thanks for your diligence and kindly civility.

== thx for cleaning up my post ==
as i saw that your are editing the discussion page of "get sugar", i wanted to thank you for your help!

at the moment im just reading in the sugarlabs wiki, what do you think of a single page dedicated to "install sugar (fedora 11 with gnome) on olpc"?
i think i will be able to rewrite the version on the discussion page plus adding a few aspects.

thx again for your help,
canin [[User:Canin|Canin]] 10:54, 30 May 2010 (EDT)

== great job ==

I noticed you're doing an enormous amount of work on the wiki. Thanks! [[User:Bernie|bernie]] 12:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

== table of contents ==

I wonder if we could configure mediawiki to always display the content table on the right instead of littering all the pages with the same directive? [[User:Bernie|bernie]]
:I haven't found anything like that yet. It's better as the template call than the full instruction:
<code><nowiki>{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="clear:right; margin-bottom: .5em; float: right; padding: .5em 0 .8em 1.4em; background: none; width: {{{1|auto}}};"
| __TOC__
|}<noinclude>
[[Category:TOC templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]
</noinclude></nowiki></code> --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 23:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
::Add in Mediawiki:common.css
:: #toc { float: right } --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 19:33, 8 June 2010 (EDT)

== Adobe Flash Player (AFP) ==

Many thanks for your help. I think this information about AFP should be available through a link somewhere on this wiki. If you let me know where it should go, I'll take a stab at putting it in. [[User:David Kergyl|David Kergyl]] 19:55, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
*:Done! At least it's a start. [[User:David Kergyl|David Kergyl]] 19:28, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

== Custom cursors in vector.css ==

Would you be willing to remove the custom cursors you added in [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]]? They look cute, but harm the usability of the site; they show up as large and clunky on many desktop browsers, and make it hard to select text and click precisely (particularly on Google Chrome). Thanks, [[User:Fran Rogers|Fran Rogers]] 13:49, 20 July 2010 (EDT)
: See [[Wiki Team/Resources/Remove Sugar Cursors]] for a workaround.

Welcome to the Sugar Labs wiki

2013-02-03T01:13:49Z

Docdtv: Name Frederick Grose as Wiki Team coordinator

<div style="background:#c8edff;border:1px solid #cdf; word-spacing:15px; padding: 0px 5px; font-size:100%" class="linkgroup">
'''[[Sugar Labs/Current Events | News]] [[Sugar Labs/Getting Involved | Join]] [[Downloads]] [[Sugar Labs/Contacts | Contact]] [[Sugar Labs | About Us]]'''
</div>
__NOEDITSECTION__
__NOTOC__

The Sugar Labs wiki is where our community comes together to develop and support the [[What is Sugar? | Sugar Learning Platform]]. As of February 2013, the Wiki Team coordinator is Frederick Grose ( fgrose at gmail.com ).

{| border="0" 
|- row1
|[[File:Download_Mirabell.png|center|link=Downloads/Landing_page]] [[Image:Sugarlabs_mainpage_01.png|link=Sugar Labs/Getting Involved]]
| 
== New Learners, Parents, Teachers, and Students ==
Sugar users are Learners. If you are visiting for the first time, please see [http://www.sugarlabs.org www.sugarlabs.org] for an introduction to Sugar.

Want to help? We're always looking for people who want to join the Sugar Labs community. We are a group of contributors of all types - teachers, writers, coders, designers, testers, and more - who work together to further the development and deployment of the Sugar Learning Platform around the world. Visit the '''[[Sugar Labs/Getting Involved | Getting Involved]]''' page, and find out how you can join in the fun of learning. We have some [[Vacancies]] and are always looking for maintainers and testers.

== Current Learners ==
If you have Sugar and are looking for new Activities, please see the [http://activities.sugarlabs.org Sugar Activity Library].

== New and Current Community Members ==
Please take a look around the wiki. Explore the menus along the left side of the page. If you ever get lost, just click on the ''Wiki'' link at the top of every page and you will return to this page. Please also visit the [[Local Labs]].
|- row2

|}
==Community News==

{{:News}}

For more news about Sugar Labs, please see the [[Sugar Labs/Current Events|Current Events page]] and the [[Archive/Current Events|Sugar Digest archive]]. Press releases are on our [http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press Press page]. There is also an [[News|archive of news links]], which were on this front page.

<div style="background-color:#b0dd93; border:1px solid #ac8; padding:5px; padding-left: 1.0em; font-size:100%">[[Sugar_Labs/Governance/Trademark|Sugar Labs®]] is a member project of the [http://www.sfconservancy.org/ Software Freedom Conservancy], a not-for-profit organization, and is supported by our generous [[Sugar Labs/Getting Involved|contributors]] and [[Sugar Labs/Thank You|sponsors]].
</div>

<noinclude>
{{Translations | [[Welcome to the Sugar Labs wiki|english]] | [[Welcome to the Sugar Labs wiki/lang-es|español]] | [[Welcome to the Sugar Labs wiki/lang-pt_BR|português brasil]] | [[Welcome to the Sugar Labs wiki/lang-ps|پښتو]] | [[Welcome to the Sugar Labs wiki/lang-ru_RU|русский]]}}
</noinclude>

Wiki Team

2013-02-03T01:10:44Z

Docdtv: cite Frederick Grose as Wiki Team coordinator

<noinclude>{{TeamHeader|Wiki Team}}</noinclude>

==Mission==
{{:Wiki Team/Mission}}

==Welcome to the Wiki Team==
The Wiki Team helps the community keep the Sugar Labs wiki organized and up to date. Individual teams create and maintain their content on the wiki. The wiki team will help edit that content and structure it in the wiki. As of February 2013, the Wiki Team coordinator is Frederick Grose ( fgrose at gmail.com )

===requests===
* collaborative graphical mind mapping tool of some kind
** support for uploading Labyrinth code for live use on Wiki?
* install toolbar plugin for editing tips as found on wikipedia
* enable plugin for video playback in wiki - Done, see [[:Category:Video Widget]].
* tighten control on spammers
* install plugin for creating FAQ layout easily
====questions====
What constraints on uploading video (ogv) files are there? Easy way to get around the various problems of this vid site vs that vid site? How much does B/W and storage cost... (ouch. $?, I know... so why ask? Because it's still a valid question.)

:The project is ALREADY handling videos via outsourcing to Dailymotion, and other venues are under discussion. See [[Marketing_Team]]

==Projects==
The main projects of the Wiki Team include:

* Cleaning up older, out-of-date articles
* Updating existing articles
* Organizing, categorizing, & restructuring the Wiki content
* Editing existing articles
* Developing ideas to improve the organization of the content on the Wiki
* Reverting the occasional wiki vandalism

For more details about getting started, please read the [[Wiki Team/Resources|Wiki Guide]] and check out [[Wiki Team/Roadmap]] and [[Wiki Team/TODO]].

==Development and Testing Wikis==

See [[Wiki Team/Resources#Test wikis]].

== Subpages ==
{{Special:PrefixIndex/Wiki_Team/}}

[[Category:Wiki]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2013-02-02T00:44:25Z

Docdtv: change Level 2 to Bold

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Status ==
{{Iframe|collapsed=|See this '''2011 September report:''' |http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg12365.html
|900|400|1}}

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Mailing Lists==

'''Most people interested in the stated mission of the Education Team should take part in the ''IAEP ("It's An Education Project") Mailing List''[http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep], whose archives[http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/] date from May 2008 and continue at least to the time of this writing, February 2013.'''
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 19:42, 1 February 2013 (EST)

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/2009-03-06 Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]

==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gahchs/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

I recently came back to look at SL after a long hiatus to check on progress. Almost
the first thing I did was add [[Marketing_Team#Video_channels]] to proposed marketing
projects, which reiterates your call for videos, especially anxiety-stilling demos.
(I was told there is a "religious" objection to using YouTube, despite its marvelous
SYNDICATION potential, since it does not use an open codec, as does Daily motion. I
answered that SL should be THANKFUL if someone downloads any Daily motion videos SL
creates and transcodes them for reposting on YouTube as well!) It really starts to
sound like you should work on the Marketing Team. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

What is it with flash-based thumb drives? In the previous decade, I went through
several of them as they successively died off in turn. This led to the practice
of using a PAIR, so that when one dies, the "RAIDed twin" provides a fail-safe.
Some people recommend periodic reformatting as a means to obviate failures. Has
the problem finally been solved? I have not had a disaster for a long time now.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.

===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]
* [[Education Team/Curriculum|Curriculum]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2013-02-02T00:42:46Z

Docdtv: mention and link to IAEP Mailing List profile and archives

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Status ==
{{Iframe|collapsed=|See this '''2011 September report:''' |http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg12365.html
|900|400|1}}

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Mailing Lists==

== Most people interested in the stated mission of the Education Team should take part in the ''IAEP ("It's An Education Project") Mailing List''[http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep], whose archives[http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/] date from May 2008 and continue at least to the time of this writing, February 2013. ==
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 19:42, 1 February 2013 (EST)

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/2009-03-06 Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]

==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gahchs/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

I recently came back to look at SL after a long hiatus to check on progress. Almost
the first thing I did was add [[Marketing_Team#Video_channels]] to proposed marketing
projects, which reiterates your call for videos, especially anxiety-stilling demos.
(I was told there is a "religious" objection to using YouTube, despite its marvelous
SYNDICATION potential, since it does not use an open codec, as does Daily motion. I
answered that SL should be THANKFUL if someone downloads any Daily motion videos SL
creates and transcodes them for reposting on YouTube as well!) It really starts to
sound like you should work on the Marketing Team. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

What is it with flash-based thumb drives? In the previous decade, I went through
several of them as they successively died off in turn. This led to the practice
of using a PAIR, so that when one dies, the "RAIDed twin" provides a fail-safe.
Some people recommend periodic reformatting as a means to obviate failures. Has
the problem finally been solved? I have not had a disaster for a long time now.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.

===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]
* [[Education Team/Curriculum|Curriculum]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2013-02-01T21:59:51Z

Docdtv: mend link-rot

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Status ==
{{Iframe|collapsed=|See this '''2011 September report:''' |http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg12365.html
|900|400|1}}

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/2009-03-06 Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]

==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gahchs/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

I recently came back to look at SL after a long hiatus to check on progress. Almost
the first thing I did was add [[Marketing_Team#Video_channels]] to proposed marketing
projects, which reiterates your call for videos, especially anxiety-stilling demos.
(I was told there is a "religious" objection to using YouTube, despite its marvelous
SYNDICATION potential, since it does not use an open codec, as does Daily motion. I
answered that SL should be THANKFUL if someone downloads any Daily motion videos SL
creates and transcodes them for reposting on YouTube as well!) It really starts to
sound like you should work on the Marketing Team. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

What is it with flash-based thumb drives? In the previous decade, I went through
several of them as they successively died off in turn. This led to the practice
of using a PAIR, so that when one dies, the "RAIDed twin" provides a fail-safe.
Some people recommend periodic reformatting as a means to obviate failures. Has
the problem finally been solved? I have not had a disaster for a long time now.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.

===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]
* [[Education Team/Curriculum|Curriculum]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Open Education Resources

2011-08-04T03:12:45Z

Docdtv: add Curriki

Open Education Resources (OERs) are digital replacements for textbooks available under some form of Free license, such as Creative Commons. There are many projects to create OERs, including the Sugar Labs [[Replacing Textbooks]] project, and projects of state and national governments, NGOs, professional associations, and individual contributors.

Most OERs are PDFs of existing content, including printed textbooks, but there are also innovative projects to produce interactive OERs using a variety of software, including Sugar, Logo, and Smalltalk, and to rethink educational content based on research into child development and computers in education. Much more research and development will be needed in this direction.

Globally, there is a need for OERs in several hundred subjects. Each country needs about 100 for 12 grades, usually divided into semesters, with five subjects taught at a time. Local content is needed for topics such as health, history, geography, literature, civics, and agriculture in more than 190 countries, some of which can share large portions. Materials for learning to speak, read, and write numerous languages are needed.

==External Links==

===Countries===

* Bangladesh is the first country we know of to digitize a complete set of textbooks for grades 1-12. Resources listed below.

* Uruguay is seeking up to 1,000 digital learning resources in a Request For Proposals (RFP). The Sugar Labs [[Replacing Textbooks]] program is planning to offer some to them.

* South Korea [http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/07/117_89881.html has announced] a plan to digitize all of its textbooks and to provide all students with computers.

===Sources and Directories===

In no particular order. Please add more if you find them. How do these
facilities compare with one another?

* [http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Browse Curriki] free and open K-12 resources

* The [http://www.librarianchick.com/ Librarian Chick catalog] of free digital education resources

* The [http://www.clrn.org/fdti/ California Free Digital Textbook Initiative] at high school level

* The [http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/projects/free-high-school-science-texts/ Shuttleworth Foundation's Free high school science texts]

* [http://collegeopentextbooks.org/ College Open Textbooks]

* [http://www.merlot.org/ MERLOT] (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)

* [http://wiki.waveplace.org/display/wp/Courseware Waveplace OERs for Haiti]

* [http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/ College Open Textbooks Community]

* [http://www.col.org/ Commonwealth of Learning]

* [http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home Open Education Resource Foundation]

* [http://lemill.net/ LeMill] Web community for finding, authoring and sharing open educational resources in multiple languages

* [http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/index.cfm Peace Corps World Wise Schools]

* [http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/aboutus/whatisocw OpenCourseWare Consortium] at university level

* [http://groups.diigo.com/group/math-links Math Links] - educators sharing interesting resources around the teaching and learning of mathematics

* [http://www.folksemantic.com/ OER Recommender] 110,000 listings

* [http://www.infokosh.bangladesh.gov.bd/ Bangladesh National e-Content Repository] in Bangla. Story: [http://www.priyo.com/tech/2011/02/28/pm-opens-e-content-repository-20905.html PM opens e-content repository]. 30,000 teachers, 148 government organisations and 50 local and foreign non-government organisations. 50,000 pages, planned to increase to 5,000,000.

* [http://www.ebook.gov.bd/ e-Book ::. ই-বুক জগতে স্বাগতম] in Bangla. Story: [http://www.priyo.com/tech/2011/04/24/pm-opens-online-version-textbo-24355.html PM opens online version of textbooks] Access to Information (A2I) Project of the PM’s Office and the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) jointly transformed 33 primary level and 73 secondary level textbooks into e-books in collaboration with the UNDP.

* [http://www.floridastandards.org/resources/ResourceHomepage.aspx Florida Standards - resources] - collection of links to reviewed OERs - some are commercially created, some are open

* [http://laptop.moodle.com.au/ OLPC Australia Moodle server]

* [http://www.tele-task.de/de/archive/lecture/overview/5819/ Alan Kay videos on computers in education]

===Commercial Publishers of OERs===

It's true. Free OERs plus paid services.

* [http://www.ck12.org CK-12]] Primary and Secondary
* [http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/ Flatworld Knowledge] College

===Discussions===

* [http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/groups/14358/open-educational-resources-oer/ UNESCO WSIS Platform of Communities Open Educational Resources (OER)]

* [http://openeducation.zunia.org/post/open-educational-resources-oers/ World Bank Zunia OER discussion]

Marketing Team/Web site statistics

2010-02-12T23:00:18Z

Docdtv: Add search hit study

<noinclude>{{GoogleTrans-en}}</noinclude>

==What is Sugar Labs Web traffic like?==
As of 2010 February 12:

<center>
<big><big>Alexa:</big></big> 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-DailyReach_2008,2009-snapped20100212.jpg
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-NationalOrigins-snapped20100212.jpg

<big><big>Quantcast:</big></big> 
"This site reaches approximately 2,470 U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, fairly wealthy audience."
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Quantcast-sugarlabs_org-Demographics-snapped20100212.jpg
</center>

==How many links are made to the Sugar Labs Web site?==

As of 2010 January 23, link analysis using Google Search:
 
about 90,200 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/*
 
about 42,600 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/* -site:sugarlabs.org
 
i.e. a strong majority of links to Web pages within the
Sugar Labs Web site subdomain originate from within itself.

==Web search traffic for "OLPC", "Sugar Labs" and other terms==

See [http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology//Popularity/20100119.htm 2010.01.19 hit counts] for many search terms.

See [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/History_of_OLPC#Public_awareness_of_OLPC Google Trends] for the variation of Web search traffic over time.

[[Category:Marketing Team]]
[[Category:wiki]]

Marketing Team/Web site statistics

2010-02-12T22:43:50Z

Docdtv: Add search traffic history link & categories

<noinclude>{{GoogleTrans-en}}</noinclude>

==How many links are made to the Sugar Labs Web site?==

As of 2010 January 23, link analysis using Google Search:
 
about 90,200 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/*
 
about 42,600 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/* -site:sugarlabs.org
 
i.e. a strong majority of links to Web pages within the
Sugar Labs Web site subdomain originate from within itself.

==What is Sugar Labs Web traffic like?==
As of 2010 February 12:

<center>
<big><big>Alexa:</big></big> 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-DailyReach_2008,2009-snapped20100212.jpg
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-NationalOrigins-snapped20100212.jpg

<big><big>Quantcast:</big></big> 
"This site reaches approximately 2,470 U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, fairly wealthy audience."
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Quantcast-sugarlabs_org-Demographics-snapped20100212.jpg
</center>

==How has the Web search traffic for OLPC and Sugar Labs varied over time?==

See [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/History_of_OLPC#Public_awareness_of_OLPC Google Trends based study].

[[Category:Marketing Team]]
[[Category:wiki]]

Marketing Team/Web site statistics

2010-02-12T22:31:16Z

Docdtv:

==Who links to the Sugar Labs Web site?==

As of 2010 January 23, link analysis using Google Search:
 
about 90,200 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/*
 
about 42,600 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/* -site:sugarlabs.org
 
i.e. a strong majority of links to Web pages within the
Sugar Labs Web site subdomain originate from within itself.

==What is Sugar Labs Web traffic like?==
As of 2010 February 12:

<center>
<big><big>Alexa:</big></big> 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-DailyReach_2008,2009-snapped20100212.jpg
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-NationalOrigins-snapped20100212.jpg

<big><big>Quantcast:</big></big> 
"This site reaches approximately 2,470 U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, fairly wealthy audience."
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Quantcast-sugarlabs_org-Demographics-snapped20100212.jpg
</center>

Marketing Team/Web site statistics

2010-02-12T22:28:44Z

Docdtv: Create page

==Who links to the Sugar Labs Web site?==

As of 2010 January 23, link analysis using Google Search:
 
about 90,200 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/*
 
about 42,600 for link:*.sugarlabs.org/* -site:sugarlabs.org
 
i.e. a strong majority of links to Web pages within the
Sugar Labs Web site subdomain originate from within itself.

==What is Sugar Labs Web traffic like?==

<center>
<big><big>Alexa:</big></big> 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-DailyReach_2008,2009-snapped20100212.jpg
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Alexa-sugarlabs_org-NationalOrigins-snapped20100212.jpg

<big><big>Quantcast:</big></big> 
"This site reaches approximately 2,470 U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, fairly wealthy audience."
 
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/OLPC/Quantcast-sugarlabs_org-Demographics-snapped20100212.jpg
</center>

Development Team/Project Ideas

2010-02-03T09:36:38Z

Docdtv: oops on screen grabbing

<noinclude>{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}</noinclude>
==Introduction==
This page contains a list of project ideas. For now, the focus is on giving [[GSoC]] students an idea of the kind of thing we're looking for. Summer of Code applicants should also visit '''[[Summer of Code/Resources]]'''.

At the bottom of this page is a section for less-explicitly-explained & wild ideas.

==[[Summer of Code]]==

'''Priorities''': see the [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-March/004592.html ongoing discussion of priorities] on our mailing list. To summarize that thread: the highest priority is for you to have a successful GSoC, which should bias you towards easier projects such as [[#Stand-alone activities]]. But, if we had to rank this list in terms of priorities for Sugar, the [[#AJAX Sugar aka Karma]] and [[#Versioned Datastore]] ideas are probably our highest priorities, followed by the rest of the [[#Toolkits / Frameworks for developers]]. These are generally hard, though, so we would need you to give us evidence that you are capable, in order for us to accept you for these ideas.

* There is a similar, project-ideas page on the [[OLPC:Summer_of_Code/Ideas | OLPC wiki]] (and a related [[OLPC:Category:GSoC_proposals | category]]). OLPC-specific projects, including hardware- <s>and schoolserver-</s>related projects, should go there. ''Update: since OLPC did not get into GSoC this year, we would consider mentoring school-server related projects.'' Feel free to add below relevant projects from that list - perhaps <s>80%</s> 95% of these could be appropriate Sugar Labs applications.

===See something that interests you? (steps to apply)===
To get in, you will need to design your project and find a mentor. On irc (#sugar on freenode) or the sugar-devel mailing list, you can briefly introduce yourself, state your interest, and ask relevant and specific questions about the state of the existing code. You should also do your own research for other open-source code that might help you. Get a [[Development Team#Development_systems|development environment]] installed. We definitely appreciate it if you can show your readiness to help out - either joining [[BugSquad|bug squad]] and [[BugSquad/Meetings|helping]] to [[BugSquad/Triage Guide|triage]], or actually helping fix some small [http://tinyurl.com/ctfkjl bug] (we've categorized [http://tinyurl.com/sugar-love some bugs as "sugar-love"], which means, not that they are easy to fix, but that they are good for beginners because they don't require much expert knowledge).

When you're ready, figure out a very basic, preliminary design (where does your new UI fit in? what about the code - what talks to what?) and post that to the [[Sugar_Labs/Contacts#Developer_Lists|mailing list]], asking if anybody would be willing to mentor you. You will almost certainly get some response, but you may not find a prospective mentor right away. That's OK. If your idea is really not a good fit for us, we will let you know; otherwise, remember that several mentors are holding back for now to see which projects show the most feasibility, clarity, and creativity in their design ideas. Persistence should pay off.

'''Want to apply with an idea not on this list?''' That's fine. Read the thread linked above about priorities - and remember, our highest priority is for you to have a successful GSoC, and we hope that you will want to continue to contribute afterwards. Do the steps above, paying particular attention to getting some community members' opinions on whether your idea would be valuable. The [[Sugar_Labs/Contacts#General_List|"iaep" mailing list]] may be the best venue for this. We will not all agree with each other about how important your idea is - that's normal - but our feedback will almost certainly help you refine your idea.

<div style="float:right;">
__TOC__
</div>

===Template for well-explained ideas===

If a project that interests you lacks a "potential mentor" here, or you want to know more about the current status of the related code, we would be happy to help guide you on irc (#sugar on freenode) or mailing lists (technical questions to sugar-devel@lists.laptop.org, educational/general ones to iaep@lists.laptop.org).

:<tt> '''==== Project title ====''' </tt>
:
:A quick explanation of the project idea
:
: * Priority for Sugar: Low/Medium/High
:
: * Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Easy/Medium/Advanced
:
: * Skills needed: Experience with WikiCode and copy-paste.

==Project Ideas==
=== Core Software ===
==== Versioned Datastore ====

* To add [[Development Team/Datastore Rewrite#Versioned_entries_.28not_fulfilled_yet.29|Version support]] for [[Journal]] / [[Development Team/Almanac/sugar.datastore.datastore|DataStore]]: Start with (old) [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Olpcfs Olpcfs] and (newer; less-documented; based on an RCS backend and a relatively small amount of fuse magic) [http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/olpcfs2/ olpcfs2]. Get Sugar to mount OLPCFS2, a working virtual versioned filesystem, and keep its datastore there. Get datastore to create a new version for each save (automatic or manual). Modify journal UI to use these versions, fork from old versions, etc. Keep with the same name / tags, create a branch if metadata was changed. Allow the user to access "older" versions (Keeping and "old" version will create a branch) and view ancestry (tree of branches).

We would not expect a GSoC project to be necessarily ready to check into our trunk. For instance, you could avoid facing the issue of automated pruning of old versions for disk space, or not have a converter for existing datastores. However, it should work as a proof-of-concept with a variety of activities.

Note: the work for this idea is ''more than halfway done''. The olpcfs2 virtual file system linked above is ''working'', supporting versions and metadata; all you need to do is a UI and an index/searching mechanism on top of that. And even if your indexing mechanism is just brute-force-search each-time, sure, it will be too slow for real use, but we can take it from there, as long you have a working proof-of-concept UI.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Coolness factor:++

*Difficulty: Hard

*Skills needed: primarily Python UI (pygtk); also FUSE/file systems (this part is mostly done); and Packaging and building.

====Implement existing UI design proposal====
Look at [[Design_Team/Designs]] and [[Design_Team/Proposals]], choose a proposal in one of those, and implement it. Obviously, you need to investigate existing work on these by testing/playing with a current jhbuild and by talking on #sugar.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty: easy-medium

*Skills needed: Python, PyGTK

==== Registry for people ====
Extend the interaction model to include real people beyond the user–laptop couple. This would extend the virtual network to include some very significant entities, such as family members, who may not have a physical computing device. See the [[Request_New_Features#Support for family interaction | suggestion]] submitted by [[User:Skua]]. The [[olpc:Record]] Activity could be used as a fun, instance-of-person creator and embellisher, by capturing an image or video of the person, and linking it to a new registry.
* Integration of a person object into the Sugar architecture
* Extension of the User/Group model to realistically capture the actual Person entity
* Modification of at least one activity (Record ?) to support the new API
* Extension of School Server registration model
* Extension of an Internet person model to support a Person entity (e.g., to support a missing-person registry in the [http://sahana.rit.edu/ Sahana] Disaster Management System)
Lots of extensions are possible, following a good, fundamental design
* Difficulty: Medium - Hard (depending on scope chosen)
* Skills needed: Data modeling, Core system programming
* Potential mentor: [[User:FGrose]] for data modeling, collaborators needed for Core systems and Internet architectures

==== Toolkit for dissimilar activity collaboration ====
Extend the collaboration model to include interconnection between different activity types. People are trying to share data collected with Measure with spreadsheets or Write or TamTam or Colors! Allow one user's activity to feed a community of collaborators performing different processes on the broadcast output. Allow different activities to run simultaneously in a distributed multi-tasking model, on one or more computers. See [[OLPC:Activity sharing]] and [[OLPC:Low-level Activity API]] for some essentials.

The toolkit would encapsulate the low-level interface to allow activity developers to easily deploy distributed task collaboration.

Extra extra credit for extending the model to general web browsers and web-enabled cell phones. Sugar web collaboration—a '''Honeycomb'''.

* Value to Sugar: High
* Difficulty: Hard
* Skills: low-level API mastery
* Potential mentors:
See this thread for a discussion of the need and some issues, http://www.mail-archive.com/sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg02870.html

==== Speech Synthesis for Sugar ====
Integrate speech synthesis with all activities, not just [[olpc:Speak| Speak]], and provide for karaoke coloring. See [[User:Mokurai|Mokurai]]'s [http://www.olpcnews.com/content/ebooks/effective_adult_literacy_program.html article] on adapting [[olpc:Same Language Subtitling]] for literacy to the XO.

Desirable Features for Sugar Speech Synthesis Plugin:

* Provide Sugar Speech Synthesis Configuration Management Tool
* Karaoke Style Coloring in Sugar Environment
* UI for configuration Control
* Accent gets set on the basis of locale

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced

*Skills needed: Experience with GTK, decent Python ability, ability to integrate with existing code.

*Existing Technical Documentation & Work that can be leveraged: Interested developers can refer to [http://google-summer-of-code-2008-olpc.googlecode.com/files/Hemant_Goyal.tar.gz GSOC 08 Project Status Report].

==== Print Support ====
Print support in Sugar would be useful in many scenarios. The ideal project deliverables would include
* Integration of a printing infrastructure (CUPS ??) into the XO-1 software images
* Modification of Sugar Control Panel to set up the printer (add/select default printer?)
* Modification of at least one activity (Write ?) to support printing
* Making a printing activity, that follows sugar GUI guidelines?
* Extra credit: integrating a server, including permissions and quota management, into the XS image.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-high

*Skills needed: Python programming, API design, some communications

:comments

:Suggestion: See [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Printing_Culture Printing_Culture]. Oops, note screen-grabbing already exists -

::There is already screen-grab support built into Sugar. Alt-1 puts a copy of the current screen into the Journal as a PNG file. --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 13:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

==== Sugar Toolbar submenu support ====

The Sugar Human Interface Guidelines have a toolbar design that includes submenus (See [[Design Team/Designs/Toolbars|Toolbar designs]]). The project would be to extend the existing Toolbar widget to include this new feature and then to work with a few Activity developer to incorporate the new design into their Activities. Possible candidate activities include Paint and [[Activities/Turtle Art|Turtle Art]].

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Easy-Medium

*Skills needed: intermediate GTK and python skillz

==== Port of Sugar to Pyjamas-Desktop ====

A platform-independent reimplementation of PyGTK and PyGObject which utilises Pyjamas-Desktop to implement (near-)identical PyGTK widgets. A proof-of-concept which can be used as the basis has already been completed - the [http://code.google.com/p/pyjamas/wiki/GsocLlpamies Llpamies branch of pyjamas] and merged into the current pyjamas infrastructure. A transparent split of the SUGAR Activity infrastructure from the GUI front-end display code (along MVC lines) by using overrides of the python "__import__" method, adding in an RPC mechanism (JSONRPC recommended). Again, the Llpamies branch has already achieved this and provides the basis and inspiration. For example, any pyjamas applications which had "import md5": in the llpamies branch actually resulted in JSONRPC calls of any "md5" module methods, which were actually executed SERVER-SIDE.

The consequences of providing this level of abstraction are quite startling: not only would it be conveniently and easily possible to install Sugar onto Win32 platforms (thanks to the MSHTML Pyjamas-Desktop port) but also it would be possible to have all the benefits of a client-server architecture. Thanks to the nature of the Pyjamas API, that would be an extremely _rich_ "client", including being a web browser client. Also, you get "remote desktop" functionality "for free". i.e. thanks to the client-server architecture, a student can publish their work via the server (running on their

The work involves:

* writing alternative infrastructure, replacing the c code gtk widgets with pyjamas widgets (e.g. the sugar menu gtk widget can go, and can subclass the pyjamas MenuBar widget. Icon can subclass pyjamas Image class. etc. etc.)
* the Llpamies GTK browser port, containing the reimplementation of gtk and gobject, needs to be extended and improved
* some serious discussion needs to take place on how SVG Canvas support is to be done. Pyjamas now has a port of GWTCanvas (which uses VML on MSHTML and IE6,7 and 8, but uses 2D SVG on all other browsers and all other brower engines) so there is an abstracted API which could be used to create vector graphics in a platform-independent fashion.
* writing a special importers.py (similar to setuptools zip-archives) which notices module imports such as activity and profile imports, and seamlessly creates a JSONRPC service to farm the function call out to a server (even if it's running on 127.0.0.1). pyjamas-desktop already has example code that performs module import overrides, and the llpamies branch already has example code that performs JSONRPC function call farming.

* Priority for Sugar: TBD
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced
* Skills needed: JSONRPC, Web Framework(s), PyGTK, PyGobject, Python, HTML, CSS, [http://pyjs.org Pyjamas].

=== Toolkits / Frameworks for developers ===

==== AJAX Sugar aka [[Karma]] ====

Create a proof-of-concept learning multimedia Sugar activity using javascript and html5 (for instance, Titanium-made apps). This activity should have animation, audio, persistent storage of user progress, and at least basic integration with the Sugar environment. For more information see the [[Karma]] wiki page.

JavaScript/Sugar Communication through the following strategies: PyXPCom, hulahop, xulrunner or [http://www.titaniumapp.com/ Titanium]. see also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012829.html the mailing list discussion]. The preferred solution should use a minimalist rendering engine like Webkit and a toolset for local file access like Google Gears. Such a solution would have much less overhead than embedding all of mozilla. For the moment we are focusing on Titanium.

* Ideally, develop a demo activity which could be used as a template for sugarizing AJAX activities. The GSoC participant doesn't have to create her own activity but could simply recreate an existing activity such as one of [http://www.pustakalaya.org/external-content/static/epaath/E-Paath-2.activity/activity/Activity/MenuStage.html OLE Nepal's flash activities].
* This demo should have the following features:
** Simple interactive animation and audio using html5 tags like <canvas> and <audio>
** An assessment section that stores results of student's progress and gives them suggestions on improvement. Assessment info should be persistent.
** Has embedded pdf for lesson plan that can be viewed w/in the activity
** Integrates with datastore
** Navigation and Help elements, ideally reusing widgets from popular javascript libraries like Jquery, Prototype, Mootools
** Some element of collaboration using telepathy (This could be really hard, depending on the state of javascript bindings to dbus)

There is some discussion of the prior work on this question at [[User:Wade/Web_Activity_Spec]].

*Priority for Sugar: Very High ("never bet against the browser")

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium/hard Note: integrating w/ the datastore likely won't be too hard but utilizing Sugar's collaboration features could be very hard

*Skills needed: Javascript/Python integration (PyXPCom, hulahop), CSS, knowlege of SQL

*potential mentors: Wade Brainerd (wadetb at gmail dot com), Bryan Berry (bryan at olenepal dot org) can serve as project manager, define requirements and project deliverables

==== SWF Sugar ====

* Integrate SWF (Flash/Gnash) applications into Sugar.
* Ideally, develop a demo activity which could be used as a template for sugarizing Flash/Gnash activities.

*Priority for Sugar: Very High ("never bet against the browser")

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): hard

*Skills needed: SWF/Python integration

==== Improve Develop activity ====

There are several improvements that would make the Develop activity a more attractive IDE. Any ONE of these would be a good GSoC project.

* Make a WYSIWIG GUI editor, like Glade. Note that GTK natively supports loading Glade-format interface definitions, although there would be some work involved making the Sugar interface elements available through this method.
* Integrate Sugarbot and auto-testing facilities.
* Integrate a debugger, based on pdb or other.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium-High

*Difficulty: Medium - Hard

*Skills needed: Good python skills.

*Potential mentor; Jameson Quinn (firstname dot lastname at gmail dot com)

==== "Translate Activity" activity ====

We will never finish localizing all our activities and base software for all our deployments - especially for places with high linguistic diversity like Afghanistan, Peru, Guatemala. So it would be great if there were an easy, discoverable way to translate any string on your machine; have the translation appear on your own machine immediately; and, assuming the activity has a link to a Pootle project, upload that translation to a Pootle server later. (For real-world use, these uploads would probably have to be cached at the school server level, but that is more complexity than we'd expect from a GSoC project.) [http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/virtaal/index Virtaal] might be a good starting point for the UI.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium-High

*Difficulty: Medium to Hard

*Skills needed: at least some experience localizing, to know what's involved; ability to do minor hacks on gettext in C and Python; work with localization formats (.po, etc.); Python for activity UI; some simple communications, to upload proposed translations to pootle.

*potential mentor: Sayamindu Dasgupta (sayamindu at gmail)

==== SugarGames Pygame wrapper ====
The [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPCGames OLPCGames] wrapper allows [http://pygame.org Pygame] to run inside of GTK in Sugar, making Pygame based Activities possible. However, the wrapper is geared specifically for use on the XO-1, and does not necessarily reflect the modern reality of running Sugar on diverse hardware. It also does not allow for the use of other GTK Widgets in the Activity, restricting developers from adding UI features like pop up query boxes. This project would involve porting OLPCGames or writing a Pygame wrapper from scratch that would allow Pygame to run in GTK while still enabling the use of GTK UI elements. It would also involve making GTK events and other relevant parts of the Sugar API available to Pygame Activities.

* Priority for Sugar: Medium-High (Activity development is limited between the graphics limitations of PyGTK and the UI limitations of Pygame)
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-Advanced
* Skills needed: Requires a fair amount of knowledge of both Pygame and PyGTK.
* Potential Mentor: Nirav Patel (nrpatel at gmail, nrp on freenode)

==== Generic linux application wrapper ====
Improve the ability to launch legacy Linux applications (or Windows applications in WINE) from inside Sugar. The issues are our window manager, our datastore/file system, and our security model (Rainbow). Basically, you'd have to fake all of these from one side or the other so that an average legacy app could live with Sugar.

This is a priority for sugar, and there is significant prior art and design thought. The first part of your job would be to search this wiki, the laptop.org wiki, and old mailing list archives for OLPC and Sugarlabs, and talk on IRC, to settle on a good design. Because of this, we'd consider accepting a strong application even if it left some design questions open; but it would have to at least suggest some basic shortcuts you'd take to make the task feasible, and argue why these shortcuts would leave acceptable usability.

* Priority for Sugar: High-Very High
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced
* Skills needed: Creative ability to use and quickly learn various tools, ability to focus on critical path (ie, build something quick-and-dirty that accomplishes the main goals rather than getting distracted by ideal solutions), experience with window manager and windowing systems (Gnome, KDE, etc.).

=== Stand-alone activities ===

==== Improved Read activity ====
Use Gecko to implement a reader for [http://www.openebook.org/ epub] format ebooks. This is superior to PDF because such books can be reflowed to better fit the screen and user preferences. Also, (although it would break the standard) it would make it very simple to include AJAX-style active features to books.

Extra credit if you support textual and graphical annotation. Deployments have also asked for a page-turn animation. See also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012821.html ml].

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium (w/o annotation); very hard (w/annotation)

*Skills needed: Strong Javascript/DOM skills, some interlanguage integration (Python/Javascript), ability to adapt Read activity's communications code (Python).

*Potential mentor: Sayamindu Dasgupta (sayamindu at gmail) (already has some code to start with)

==== [[Activities/Listen Spell|Listen Spell]] activity ====

This activity has been last year GSoC project. Its code can be found [http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2008-olpc/downloads/detail?name=Assim_Deodia.tar.gz here]. Extending it activity wrt to following points

* Supporting Speech Synthesis model of sugar (speech synthesis model of sugar is not designed yet and is again a gsoc project this year. This task would involve either using speech-dispatcher or [[Activity_Team/gst-plugins-espeak | GST-Plugin]] as of now and later adding the support for sugar model)
* Multi player game over mesh network
* User Defined word list. (Adding support to add new words to dictionary)
* Test Mode: A teacher can feed the pre-defined word list on the network and activity is being used to conduct test/exam
* Speaking sentences to make student learn grammar (this as a higher level)

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, Understanding of sugar mesh network
*Potential mentor: [[Summer_of_Code/Mentors#Assim_Deodia | Assim Deodia]] (assim.deodia at gmail dot com)

==== KDEEdu ====

Sugarize any [http://edu.kde.org/ KDEEdu] activity, especially the ones which have no corresponding Sugar activity. The issue is that Kdeedu uses qt, while sugar uses gtk; the student would propose a reasonable solution to this issue (see [[Talk:KDEEdu]] for one idea). It is doubtful that the whole sugarization process could be automated, so you'd probably just do one activity.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): easy-hard

*Skills needed: C/C++, GTK.

==== Educational Toolkit ====

Either based on the existing educational toolkit, or starting from scratch, enable XO use in classroom scenarios. Such scenarios could include

* Teacher shows slides, reproduced on child's screens
* Teacher asks questions - either pre-prepared or on-the-fly
* Students give answers via collaboration
* Teacher or student chooses - explicitly or randomly - an answer for further discussion
* Students split in groups and go from their individual answers to a collaborative answer
* Teacher can review all answers later
* Teacher gives individual or group feedback (offline) which will be shared with appropriate students when they come online
* Teacher checks what's on a child's screen - (experience on other platforms shows this "look over shoulder" ability reduces goofing off even though it is rarely used.)

The low-hanging fruit on [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_toolkit Educational Toolkit] is the following:

* Enable collaboration scenarios
* Work on the GUI to provide support for multiple types of questions.
* Add API to make it easy to add new question types.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium-hard

*Skills needed: intermediate ability with Python and communications

==== Improved Imageviewer ====

Implement missing bits in Imageviewer, some of which are

* Sharing support
* Basic image effects support (grayscale, sepia effects, colorize, etc)
* Exif support

There are more things that can be implemented, but the above are the basic minimum one should try to implement.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): easy-medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK. the Sugar collaboration framework

==== EduKT ====

Simple content - history creation tool that needs:
* Re-design drag and drop features
* Add audio support
* Simplify the interface for little people
* Better the saving projects process.

A lot of new features that simplifies to any level the building of interactive contents...

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium

*Skills needed: Python, Glade, GTK. the Sugar collaboration framework

==== Port [http://www.lopart.org LopArt] to Sugar ====

<pre>
Subject: humbly introducing... LopArt: a Visual Arts Software that would fit perfectly with the XO
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:39:34 -0500
From: ariel savion-lemieux <ariel@loplop.com>

Hello,

We have recently made the purchase of an XO Laptop. We believe in the
project and would like to contribute to it in our own way.

LopLop Inc. has worked in the software industry for more than a decade, and
has developed a couple of drawing applications geared toward children.

LopArt is a visual arts software that emulates real drawing strokes and
styles (it beats TuxPaint out of the water J). Those who work with children
are seduced by the simplicity of LopArt, as well as by the originality and
creativity it allows. Whether it is used during free-time or for structured
learning activities and projects, LopArt is a highly stimulating learning
tool. It is present in more the 500 schools in Quebec alone. Examples of
LopArt artworks can be seen on the LopArt Virtual Museum it contains more
than 40,000 artworks (www.lopart.org). LopArt was developed for all
platforms, and is in open-source on Linux.

For these reasons and plenty more, we would like a chance to present LopArt
to XO members, since we believe it would be a great fit in the XO software
family.

If possible, please direct our request to the appropriate party. If you have
questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

The LopLop Team

----------------------

Ariel Savion-Lemieux, LopLop
Project Manager / Chargé de projet
Telephone: 514.543.5849
</pre>

*Difficulty: easy

==== Bug report activity ====

[http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/340 activity for bug reports]

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty: Easy

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, maybe some simple web forms from both client and server side (ie, PHP or similar)

==== Etc., Etc. ====
It should not be hard at all to imagine educational activities or games which would be useful for primary or secondary school education. Let your imagination run wild!

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty: Medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, Sugar collaboration framework

== Brainstorm / unexplained ideas ==

==== Visual geometric (e.g. linear [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_code bar], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code QR](matrix)) code recognition ====
Robust, poor-man's alternative to OCR. These codes are used to track physical items, point at their use manuals, etc. Input devices: (for OLPC) integral camera; one-dimensional scanner like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat CueCat ]. Some software already exists: [http://qrcode.sourceforge.jp/ Open Source QR Code Library]. (All camera cellphones in Japan bundle this function.)

==== Sugar adaption for the Nasa ====
One of the 91 indigenous cultures that still exist in Colombia is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paez_people Paez people] (aka '''Nasa'''). They have their own traditions, customs, world view, mother tongue (Nasa Yuwe), i.e. their own culture. It could be possible to take cultural elements into the Sugar Interface, not only language, to provide Nasa children a suitable and familiar interface. [[User:Santiago|Santiago]] 18:01, 8 March 2008 (EST)

=== Core Software ===

* Accessibility Support: Sugar currently doesn't have anything available for the visually impaired.
* Improve automatic testing across the system. This would improve our check-in and build process immensely. Very high priority which nobody is addressing head-on.
==== Homework turn-in ====
* "Homework turn-in" support: Certain metadata on a file causes new versions to be pushed out over the net (via SMTP, rss, or other; note that Moodle already has [http://docs.moodle.org/en/Email_processing support] for routing from special email addresses to a "location"). No new UI in Sugar, and a trivial amount of changes to Moodle.

[10:18] <homunq> If you'd rather something with PHP in it, I'd recommend the homework turn-in one. That one's really poorly documented. Basically, the steps are:

[10:18] <homunq> 1. figure out a plan for including sugar metadata in the html download links from moodle

[10:19] <homunq> 2. when downloading an assignment, put metadata of "send this back to adress xxx in server"

[10:20] <homunq> 3. When saving new, worked-on versions of the assignment, mark them for upload to the server

[10:22] <homunq> 4. when you see the server, and the homework deadline is not past, the sugar core automatically uploads the latest version. You could decide to use SMTP upload (already somewhat implemented in moodle) or something else like rss or REST or whatever.

[10:22] <homunq> any questions, happy to clarify.

==== Research projects: unpolished code ====
* There is also [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Journal%2C_reloaded Journal, reloaded], another research project with real code behind it that is promising but languishing. In this case, the idea is to make the journal "tagging" view transparently compatible with a traditional hierarchical directory structure.
* bemasc's [http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/bemasc/groupthink/ groupthink], expanded: The idea is to have a data structure which keeps itself in sync across many laptops "behind the scenes", thus providing drop-in collaboration as long as the structure in question provides the needed functionality. The problem is that the existing code is unpolished, and only supports some pretty limited data structures. I have some ideas of [[how groupthink could be more general]]. [[User:Homunq|Homunq]] 00:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

==== Java ====
Package and integrate the IcedTea open source bootstrap of OpenJDK Java with browser plugin for the XO. Deliverables would include:
* Binary, source and rpm dependencies for icedtea and icedtea browser plugin
* Java enabled os image
* Integration of packages into autobuild branch

(This is just to get Java into the build. Creating an application framework would come later.)

==== Graphical toolkit ====
Important work left to do:
* Give focus feedback by showing a rounded rectangle in gtk buttons and HippoCanvas icons.
* Implement keyboard navigation in HippoCanvas.
* Implement accessibility hooks in HippoCanvas.
* Improve keyboard shortcuts - make them easier to create and implement a UI to make them more discoverable, such as transparent letters which appear when you hold <ctrl>

=== Frameworks/Toolkits ===
==== Mono/.NET ====
The use of Mono could really enhance the number of Sugar developers due to the huge existing .NET community.
Thanks to Torello Querci, developing a Sugar activity in Mono is already possible using the Mono/Sugar bindings Sugar.dll (more on Mono on Sugar [[Mono|here]]).

The idea for this GSOC project is to greatly enhance this binding:
* Better integration with the Sugar look & feel and HippoCanvas,
* Binding to telepathy API,
* WinForm compatibility,
* MonoDevelop integration.

More on this idea:
* Priority for Sugar: Low
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-Advanced
* Skills needed: C# programming, Linux programming
* Potential mentor: Lionel Laské and/or Torello Querci

=== Activities ===
* See also ideas at [[Activity Team/Project Ideas]].
* A better, more fun, Paint option for small children - One way - Use eToys - http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/etoys/2008-November/002770.html

==== VideoChat activity ====
telepathy-python has support for audio and video streaming and has recently gained support for using gstreamer, which means that we could easily do efficient videoconferencing using fully open source codecs.

So a really nice project would be to do a proper Sugar activity for video conferencing.

==== Language Trainer ====
A language trainer with text to speech support would be very nice. Something that could start with letters and then teach words.

==== Thesaurus ====
Working together with openthesaurus -- someone could create a thesaurus for kids to learn different words (synonyms and antonyms)

==== Logo Activity ====
:Logo is a computer programming language used for functional programming. It is an adaptation and dialect of the Lisp language; some have called it Lisp without the parentheses. Today, it is known mainly for its turtle graphics, but it also has significant facilities for handling lists, files, I/O, and recursion.

:Logo was created for educational use, more so for constructivist teaching, by Daniel G. Bobrow, Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert. It can be used to teach most computer science concepts, as UC Berkeley Lecturer Brian Harvey does in his Computer Science Logo Style trilogy. — [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) Wikipedia article on the Logo programming language]

There is a "[[Running_Linux_Applications_Under_Sugar|Sugarized]]" Logo—[http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/usermanual UCB Logo]—but it does not record data into the Journal or use the standard Sugar toolbar.

There are two possible approaches we could take: (1) digging deeper into UCB Logo and (2) working with another Logo, possibly [http://pylogo.org/ PyLogo].

* Priority: high as Logo is an important tool engaging children in programming
* Difficultly: moderate to high, depending upon the approach chosen
** Integrating Pylogo would be relatively easy, but it is a very limited implementation of Logo that would need enhancing
* Experience: some Python and C if the UCB Logo approach is taken

====twext====
Twext es un idea para ayudarnos a aprender lenguajes.
twext is an idea to help us to learn languages
El software Twexter ya tiene un demo que maneja
twexter software now has ¡alpha! that works with
el UniCode para que twexteamos en muchas idiomas.
global text so that we can twext in many languages
* [http://olpcnews.com/content/localization/learning_language.html kids teach kids]
* [http://test.twext.com alpha demo]
* [http://moodle.org moodle me]
* [http://more.read.fm/wiki_test mediawixi]
* [http://twext.com twext]
* [http://github.com/tudisco/twexter code]
this fixed font twext 'roughly' aligns when you CTL+ or CTL- to adjust font size :)

[[Category:Idea]]

== Other ideas for improving Sugar Activities ==

=== Broad project ideas ===
*See [[Marketing Team/Events/Sugarcamp_Boston_2008/Minutes#Items_from_the_roadmap_brainstorm|a list of project ideas]] from a brainstorming session at Sugar Camp.

=== Activities Site (addons) ===

* The activities http://activities.sugarlabs.org, is in need of a serious ''sugarization'', a GSOC project could be giving some love to the dressing and coding of the underlaying activities site (based on mozilla's addons).

=== Packaging for specific distros ===

'''Debian'''
* Help in maintaining and packaging sugar and activities in debian.
* Including/adapting debian-edu .debs to sugar

Hello there, I am quite interested in Debian and want to help with this and all other projects. Please contact me (bjoern AT xruby DOT net) if I can be of assistance to the XO project or other things. I will start my PhD studies in April and have previously studied Computer Science. I am highly interested in helping where I can and want to bring the necessary technology to kids around the world.
: from olpcwiki 2008

=== Preeti's list ===

Hi, I am Preeti, from New Delhi. I would like to get myself involved in this very interesting aspect of the OLPC software development. I have jotted some of my views on the same at:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:59.178.99.172

[[Category:Participate]]
[[Category:GSoC]]
[[Category:Idea]]

How to present Sugar

2010-01-29T14:12:57Z

Docdtv: note link rot

<noinclude>{{GoogleTrans-en}}{{TOCright}}</noinclude>
== How to Present Sugar ==

Sugar is meant to be explored, but orienting people before they start reduces initial frustration. Here is our current list of Sugar Basics to cover before you have people explore.

=== Presentations ===

* [http://wiki.laptop.org/images/d/d6/BozLUGTiny.pdf OLPC / Sugar Labs overview presentation]
* [http://docs.google.com/View?id=dddknwgs_439dmckm3dn Sample lesson plan]

=== Hands on guide ===

It's great to get people playing around with Sugar themselves. Be sure to cover the basics before you turn people loose, though, otherwise they will get frustrated:

'''wiki Read version:'''
# Show the Home View.
# Show the XO icon and draw attention to its colors and how they are used throughout the interface to represent "your work".
# Show how one gets to the Frame and its main features.
# Show the Neighborhood View. Show that one can get there from the Frame or from F1.
# Demonstrate connecting to an AP. Explain that more color in the circle means stronger signal (as opposed to how "full" it is).
# Show the Group View and that "friends" will show up there.
# Show the Journal where one's work is saved.
# Demonstrate that to do something, one goes to one's Home View and single clicks on any of the icons. They are the Activities. (There is no double clicking in Sugar. Double clicking can launch two instances of an Activity, which confuses the Learner and consumes precious memory.)
# Demonstrate Chat - "This balloon is the Chat Activity" - as it only has a simple toolbar, and it can be easily used to explain activity sharing essentials.
# Point out sharing in the Activity toolbar: "This, the "Share with:" combo box, makes your Activity appear in the Neighborhood View. Your friends can connect to it. Enjoy a little chat with your friends and see how important the Sugar colors are to identify you."
# Point out Write: "This pen and paper icon is a text editor. Yes, it has the same toolbar as Chat. No, you don't have to use it like a chat."

'''Copy & paste version:'''

:1. Show the Home View.
:2. Show the XO icon and draw attention to its colors and how they are used throughout the interface to represent "your work".
:3. Show how one gets to the Frame and its main features.
:4. Show the Neighborhood View. Show that one can get there from the Frame or from F1.
:5. Demonstrate connecting to an AP. Explain that more color in the circle means stronger signal (as opposed to how "full" it is).
:6. Show the Group View and that "friends" will show up there.
:7. Show the Journal where one's work is saved.
:8. Demonstrate that to do something, one goes to one's Home View and single clicks on any of the icons. They are the Activities. (There is no double clicking in Sugar. Double clicking often launches two instances of an Activity, which confuses the Learner and consumes precious memory.)
:9. Demonstrate Chat - "This balloon is the Chat Activity" - as it only has a simple toolbar, and it can be easily used to explain activity sharing essentials.
:10. Point out sharing in the Activity toolbar: "This, the "Share with:" combo box, makes your Activity appear in the Neighborhood View. Your friends can connect to it. Enjoy a little chat with your friends and see how important the Sugar colors are to identify you."
:11. Point out Write: "This pen and paper icon is a text editor. Yes, it has the same toolbar as Chat. No, you don't have to use it like a chat."

=== Hints ===

* Always try to bring an AP. Don't use existing wireless. Collaboration will work on a AP that has no Internet / upstream connection.
:What's an AP?
::an AP is a Wi-Fi Access Point --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 19:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

* Either get USB sticks to boot OR teach about Sugar, don't try to do both at once.

* Demo Write and peer editing. This is a big deal for teachers. Do it early in the presentation, before you get (happily) distracted with anything else.

* I often demo Memorize as a quick way of showing the balance struck between consuming and creating. --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 19:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

* I give my talks using the presentation features in Turtle Art... nothing like eating your own dogfood. --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 19:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

== Colophon ==

This guide grew from Caroline Meeks' [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05286.html reflections on presenting Sugar]. You can view (NOPE - link rotten!) [http://a19.video2.blip.tv/3410001542671/Dowdle-olpcroadshow438.ogv her giving the presentation]. This is a work in progress, based on what we didn't do in past sessions. Please try it with a group of people and update with your experiences.

* Lessons 9 - 11 from Andrea Mangiatordi, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05301.html comments to above thread].

[[Category:HowTo]]

Development Team/Project Ideas

2010-01-26T18:07:34Z

Docdtv: Add visual geometric code reading

<noinclude>{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}</noinclude>
==Introduction==
This page contains a list of project ideas. For now, the focus is on giving [[GSoC]] students an idea of the kind of thing we're looking for. Summer of Code applicants should also visit '''[[Summer of Code/Resources]]'''.

At the bottom of this page is a section for less-explicitly-explained & wild ideas.

==[[Summer of Code]]==

'''Priorities''': see the [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-March/004592.html ongoing discussion of priorities] on our mailing list. To summarize that thread: the highest priority is for you to have a successful GSoC, which should bias you towards easier projects such as [[#Stand-alone activities]]. But, if we had to rank this list in terms of priorities for Sugar, the [[#AJAX Sugar aka Karma]] and [[#Versioned Datastore]] ideas are probably our highest priorities, followed by the rest of the [[#Toolkits / Frameworks for developers]]. These are generally hard, though, so we would need you to give us evidence that you are capable, in order for us to accept you for these ideas.

* There is a similar, project-ideas page on the [[OLPC:Summer_of_Code/Ideas | OLPC wiki]] (and a related [[OLPC:Category:GSoC_proposals | category]]). OLPC-specific projects, including hardware- <s>and schoolserver-</s>related projects, should go there. ''Update: since OLPC did not get into GSoC this year, we would consider mentoring school-server related projects.'' Feel free to add below relevant projects from that list - perhaps <s>80%</s> 95% of these could be appropriate Sugar Labs applications.

===See something that interests you? (steps to apply)===
To get in, you will need to design your project and find a mentor. On irc (#sugar on freenode) or the sugar-devel mailing list, you can briefly introduce yourself, state your interest, and ask relevant and specific questions about the state of the existing code. You should also do your own research for other open-source code that might help you. Get a [[Development Team#Development_systems|development environment]] installed. We definitely appreciate it if you can show your readiness to help out - either joining [[BugSquad|bug squad]] and [[BugSquad/Meetings|helping]] to [[BugSquad/Triage Guide|triage]], or actually helping fix some small [http://tinyurl.com/ctfkjl bug] (we've categorized [http://tinyurl.com/sugar-love some bugs as "sugar-love"], which means, not that they are easy to fix, but that they are good for beginners because they don't require much expert knowledge).

When you're ready, figure out a very basic, preliminary design (where does your new UI fit in? what about the code - what talks to what?) and post that to the [[Sugar_Labs/Contacts#Developer_Lists|mailing list]], asking if anybody would be willing to mentor you. You will almost certainly get some response, but you may not find a prospective mentor right away. That's OK. If your idea is really not a good fit for us, we will let you know; otherwise, remember that several mentors are holding back for now to see which projects show the most feasibility, clarity, and creativity in their design ideas. Persistence should pay off.

'''Want to apply with an idea not on this list?''' That's fine. Read the thread linked above about priorities - and remember, our highest priority is for you to have a successful GSoC, and we hope that you will want to continue to contribute afterwards. Do the steps above, paying particular attention to getting some community members' opinions on whether your idea would be valuable. The [[Sugar_Labs/Contacts#General_List|"iaep" mailing list]] may be the best venue for this. We will not all agree with each other about how important your idea is - that's normal - but our feedback will almost certainly help you refine your idea.

<div style="float:right;">
__TOC__
</div>

===Template for well-explained ideas===

If a project that interests you lacks a "potential mentor" here, or you want to know more about the current status of the related code, we would be happy to help guide you on irc (#sugar on freenode) or mailing lists (technical questions to sugar-devel@lists.laptop.org, educational/general ones to iaep@lists.laptop.org).

:<tt> '''==== Project title ====''' </tt>
:
:A quick explanation of the project idea
:
: * Priority for Sugar: Low/Medium/High
:
: * Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Easy/Medium/Advanced
:
: * Skills needed: Experience with WikiCode and copy-paste.

==Project Ideas==
=== Core Software ===
==== Versioned Datastore ====

* To add [[Development Team/Datastore Rewrite#Versioned_entries_.28not_fulfilled_yet.29|Version support]] for [[Journal]] / [[Development Team/Almanac/sugar.datastore.datastore|DataStore]]: Start with (old) [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Olpcfs Olpcfs] and (newer; less-documented; based on an RCS backend and a relatively small amount of fuse magic) [http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/olpcfs2/ olpcfs2]. Get Sugar to mount OLPCFS2, a working virtual versioned filesystem, and keep its datastore there. Get datastore to create a new version for each save (automatic or manual). Modify journal UI to use these versions, fork from old versions, etc. Keep with the same name / tags, create a branch if metadata was changed. Allow the user to access "older" versions (Keeping and "old" version will create a branch) and view ancestry (tree of branches).

We would not expect a GSoC project to be necessarily ready to check into our trunk. For instance, you could avoid facing the issue of automated pruning of old versions for disk space, or not have a converter for existing datastores. However, it should work as a proof-of-concept with a variety of activities.

Note: the work for this idea is ''more than halfway done''. The olpcfs2 virtual file system linked above is ''working'', supporting versions and metadata; all you need to do is a UI and an index/searching mechanism on top of that. And even if your indexing mechanism is just brute-force-search each-time, sure, it will be too slow for real use, but we can take it from there, as long you have a working proof-of-concept UI.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Coolness factor:++

*Difficulty: Hard

*Skills needed: primarily Python UI (pygtk); also FUSE/file systems (this part is mostly done); and Packaging and building.

====Implement existing UI design proposal====
Look at [[Design_Team/Designs]] and [[Design_Team/Proposals]], choose a proposal in one of those, and implement it. Obviously, you need to investigate existing work on these by testing/playing with a current jhbuild and by talking on #sugar.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty: easy-medium

*Skills needed: Python, PyGTK

==== Registry for people ====
Extend the interaction model to include real people beyond the user–laptop couple. This would extend the virtual network to include some very significant entities, such as family members, who may not have a physical computing device. See the [[Request_New_Features#Support for family interaction | suggestion]] submitted by [[User:Skua]]. The [[olpc:Record]] Activity could be used as a fun, instance-of-person creator and embellisher, by capturing an image or video of the person, and linking it to a new registry.
* Integration of a person object into the Sugar architecture
* Extension of the User/Group model to realistically capture the actual Person entity
* Modification of at least one activity (Record ?) to support the new API
* Extension of School Server registration model
* Extension of an Internet person model to support a Person entity (e.g., to support a missing-person registry in the [http://sahana.rit.edu/ Sahana] Disaster Management System)
Lots of extensions are possible, following a good, fundamental design
* Difficulty: Medium - Hard (depending on scope chosen)
* Skills needed: Data modeling, Core system programming
* Potential mentor: [[User:FGrose]] for data modeling, collaborators needed for Core systems and Internet architectures

==== Toolkit for dissimilar activity collaboration ====
Extend the collaboration model to include interconnection between different activity types. People are trying to share data collected with Measure with spreadsheets or Write or TamTam or Colors! Allow one user's activity to feed a community of collaborators performing different processes on the broadcast output. Allow different activities to run simultaneously in a distributed multi-tasking model, on one or more computers. See [[OLPC:Activity sharing]] and [[OLPC:Low-level Activity API]] for some essentials.

The toolkit would encapsulate the low-level interface to allow activity developers to easily deploy distributed task collaboration.

Extra extra credit for extending the model to general web browsers and web-enabled cell phones. Sugar web collaboration—a '''Honeycomb'''.

* Value to Sugar: High
* Difficulty: Hard
* Skills: low-level API mastery
* Potential mentors:
See this thread for a discussion of the need and some issues, http://www.mail-archive.com/sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg02870.html

==== Speech Synthesis for Sugar ====
Integrate speech synthesis with all activities, not just [[olpc:Speak| Speak]], and provide for karaoke coloring. See [[User:Mokurai|Mokurai]]'s [http://www.olpcnews.com/content/ebooks/effective_adult_literacy_program.html article] on adapting [[olpc:Same Language Subtitling]] for literacy to the XO.

Desirable Features for Sugar Speech Synthesis Plugin:

* Provide Sugar Speech Synthesis Configuration Management Tool
* Karaoke Style Coloring in Sugar Environment
* UI for configuration Control
* Accent gets set on the basis of locale

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced

*Skills needed: Experience with GTK, decent Python ability, ability to integrate with existing code.

*Existing Technical Documentation & Work that can be leveraged: Interested developers can refer to [http://google-summer-of-code-2008-olpc.googlecode.com/files/Hemant_Goyal.tar.gz GSOC 08 Project Status Report].

==== Print Support ====
Print support in Sugar would be useful in many scenarios. The ideal project deliverables would include
* Integration of a printing infrastructure (CUPS ??) into the XO-1 software images
* Modification of Sugar Control Panel to set up the printer (add/select default printer?)
* Modification of at least one activity (Write ?) to support printing
* Making a printing activity, that follows sugar GUI guidelines?
* Extra credit: integrating a server, including permissions and quota management, into the XS image.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-high

*Skills needed: Python programming, API design, some communications

comments

Suggestion: To start, perhaps it might be simplest just to create a
screen grab utility. The utility would not even support a printer,
just queue grabs and later simply hand them off to a school print
server. The grabs could be coded using any simple well-supported
image file format. (One might also read [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Printing_Culture Printing_Culture].)

==== Sugar Toolbar submenu support ====

The Sugar Human Interface Guidelines have a toolbar design that includes submenus (See [[Design Team/Designs/Toolbars|Toolbar designs]]). The project would be to extend the existing Toolbar widget to include this new feature and then to work with a few Activity developer to incorporate the new design into their Activities. Possible candidate activities include Paint and [[Activities/Turtle Art|Turtle Art]].

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Easy-Medium

*Skills needed: intermediate GTK and python skillz

==== Port of Sugar to Pyjamas-Desktop ====

A platform-independent reimplementation of PyGTK and PyGObject which utilises Pyjamas-Desktop to implement (near-)identical PyGTK widgets. A proof-of-concept which can be used as the basis has already been completed - the [http://code.google.com/p/pyjamas/wiki/GsocLlpamies Llpamies branch of pyjamas] and merged into the current pyjamas infrastructure. A transparent split of the SUGAR Activity infrastructure from the GUI front-end display code (along MVC lines) by using overrides of the python "__import__" method, adding in an RPC mechanism (JSONRPC recommended). Again, the Llpamies branch has already achieved this and provides the basis and inspiration. For example, any pyjamas applications which had "import md5": in the llpamies branch actually resulted in JSONRPC calls of any "md5" module methods, which were actually executed SERVER-SIDE.

The consequences of providing this level of abstraction are quite startling: not only would it be conveniently and easily possible to install Sugar onto Win32 platforms (thanks to the MSHTML Pyjamas-Desktop port) but also it would be possible to have all the benefits of a client-server architecture. Thanks to the nature of the Pyjamas API, that would be an extremely _rich_ "client", including being a web browser client. Also, you get "remote desktop" functionality "for free". i.e. thanks to the client-server architecture, a student can publish their work via the server (running on their

The work involves:

* writing alternative infrastructure, replacing the c code gtk widgets with pyjamas widgets (e.g. the sugar menu gtk widget can go, and can subclass the pyjamas MenuBar widget. Icon can subclass pyjamas Image class. etc. etc.)
* the Llpamies GTK browser port, containing the reimplementation of gtk and gobject, needs to be extended and improved
* some serious discussion needs to take place on how SVG Canvas support is to be done. Pyjamas now has a port of GWTCanvas (which uses VML on MSHTML and IE6,7 and 8, but uses 2D SVG on all other browsers and all other brower engines) so there is an abstracted API which could be used to create vector graphics in a platform-independent fashion.
* writing a special importers.py (similar to setuptools zip-archives) which notices module imports such as activity and profile imports, and seamlessly creates a JSONRPC service to farm the function call out to a server (even if it's running on 127.0.0.1). pyjamas-desktop already has example code that performs module import overrides, and the llpamies branch already has example code that performs JSONRPC function call farming.

* Priority for Sugar: TBD
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced
* Skills needed: JSONRPC, Web Framework(s), PyGTK, PyGobject, Python, HTML, CSS, [http://pyjs.org Pyjamas].

=== Toolkits / Frameworks for developers ===

==== AJAX Sugar aka [[Karma]] ====

Create a proof-of-concept learning multimedia Sugar activity using javascript and html5 (for instance, Titanium-made apps). This activity should have animation, audio, persistent storage of user progress, and at least basic integration with the Sugar environment. For more information see the [[Karma]] wiki page.

JavaScript/Sugar Communication through the following strategies: PyXPCom, hulahop, xulrunner or [http://www.titaniumapp.com/ Titanium]. see also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012829.html the mailing list discussion]. The preferred solution should use a minimalist rendering engine like Webkit and a toolset for local file access like Google Gears. Such a solution would have much less overhead than embedding all of mozilla. For the moment we are focusing on Titanium.

* Ideally, develop a demo activity which could be used as a template for sugarizing AJAX activities. The GSoC participant doesn't have to create her own activity but could simply recreate an existing activity such as one of [http://www.pustakalaya.org/external-content/static/epaath/E-Paath-2.activity/activity/Activity/MenuStage.html OLE Nepal's flash activities].
* This demo should have the following features:
** Simple interactive animation and audio using html5 tags like <canvas> and <audio>
** An assessment section that stores results of student's progress and gives them suggestions on improvement. Assessment info should be persistent.
** Has embedded pdf for lesson plan that can be viewed w/in the activity
** Integrates with datastore
** Navigation and Help elements, ideally reusing widgets from popular javascript libraries like Jquery, Prototype, Mootools
** Some element of collaboration using telepathy (This could be really hard, depending on the state of javascript bindings to dbus)

There is some discussion of the prior work on this question at [[User:Wade/Web_Activity_Spec]].

*Priority for Sugar: Very High ("never bet against the browser")

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium/hard Note: integrating w/ the datastore likely won't be too hard but utilizing Sugar's collaboration features could be very hard

*Skills needed: Javascript/Python integration (PyXPCom, hulahop), CSS, knowlege of SQL

*potential mentors: Wade Brainerd (wadetb at gmail dot com), Bryan Berry (bryan at olenepal dot org) can serve as project manager, define requirements and project deliverables

==== SWF Sugar ====

* Integrate SWF (Flash/Gnash) applications into Sugar.
* Ideally, develop a demo activity which could be used as a template for sugarizing Flash/Gnash activities.

*Priority for Sugar: Very High ("never bet against the browser")

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): hard

*Skills needed: SWF/Python integration

==== Improve Develop activity ====

There are several improvements that would make the Develop activity a more attractive IDE. Any ONE of these would be a good GSoC project.

* Make a WYSIWIG GUI editor, like Glade. Note that GTK natively supports loading Glade-format interface definitions, although there would be some work involved making the Sugar interface elements available through this method.
* Integrate Sugarbot and auto-testing facilities.
* Integrate a debugger, based on pdb or other.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium-High

*Difficulty: Medium - Hard

*Skills needed: Good python skills.

*Potential mentor; Jameson Quinn (firstname dot lastname at gmail dot com)

==== "Translate Activity" activity ====

We will never finish localizing all our activities and base software for all our deployments - especially for places with high linguistic diversity like Afghanistan, Peru, Guatemala. So it would be great if there were an easy, discoverable way to translate any string on your machine; have the translation appear on your own machine immediately; and, assuming the activity has a link to a Pootle project, upload that translation to a Pootle server later. (For real-world use, these uploads would probably have to be cached at the school server level, but that is more complexity than we'd expect from a GSoC project.) [http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/virtaal/index Virtaal] might be a good starting point for the UI.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium-High

*Difficulty: Medium to Hard

*Skills needed: at least some experience localizing, to know what's involved; ability to do minor hacks on gettext in C and Python; work with localization formats (.po, etc.); Python for activity UI; some simple communications, to upload proposed translations to pootle.

*potential mentor: Sayamindu Dasgupta (sayamindu at gmail)

==== SugarGames Pygame wrapper ====
The [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPCGames OLPCGames] wrapper allows [http://pygame.org Pygame] to run inside of GTK in Sugar, making Pygame based Activities possible. However, the wrapper is geared specifically for use on the XO-1, and does not necessarily reflect the modern reality of running Sugar on diverse hardware. It also does not allow for the use of other GTK Widgets in the Activity, restricting developers from adding UI features like pop up query boxes. This project would involve porting OLPCGames or writing a Pygame wrapper from scratch that would allow Pygame to run in GTK while still enabling the use of GTK UI elements. It would also involve making GTK events and other relevant parts of the Sugar API available to Pygame Activities.

* Priority for Sugar: Medium-High (Activity development is limited between the graphics limitations of PyGTK and the UI limitations of Pygame)
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-Advanced
* Skills needed: Requires a fair amount of knowledge of both Pygame and PyGTK.
* Potential Mentor: Nirav Patel (nrpatel at gmail, nrp on freenode)

==== Generic linux application wrapper ====
Improve the ability to launch legacy Linux applications (or Windows applications in WINE) from inside Sugar. The issues are our window manager, our datastore/file system, and our security model (Rainbow). Basically, you'd have to fake all of these from one side or the other so that an average legacy app could live with Sugar.

This is a priority for sugar, and there is significant prior art and design thought. The first part of your job would be to search this wiki, the laptop.org wiki, and old mailing list archives for OLPC and Sugarlabs, and talk on IRC, to settle on a good design. Because of this, we'd consider accepting a strong application even if it left some design questions open; but it would have to at least suggest some basic shortcuts you'd take to make the task feasible, and argue why these shortcuts would leave acceptable usability.

* Priority for Sugar: High-Very High
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced
* Skills needed: Creative ability to use and quickly learn various tools, ability to focus on critical path (ie, build something quick-and-dirty that accomplishes the main goals rather than getting distracted by ideal solutions), experience with window manager and windowing systems (Gnome, KDE, etc.).

=== Stand-alone activities ===

==== Improved Read activity ====
Use Gecko to implement a reader for [http://www.openebook.org/ epub] format ebooks. This is superior to PDF because such books can be reflowed to better fit the screen and user preferences. Also, (although it would break the standard) it would make it very simple to include AJAX-style active features to books.

Extra credit if you support textual and graphical annotation. Deployments have also asked for a page-turn animation. See also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012821.html ml].

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium (w/o annotation); very hard (w/annotation)

*Skills needed: Strong Javascript/DOM skills, some interlanguage integration (Python/Javascript), ability to adapt Read activity's communications code (Python).

*Potential mentor: Sayamindu Dasgupta (sayamindu at gmail) (already has some code to start with)

==== [[Activities/Listen Spell|Listen Spell]] activity ====

This activity has been last year GSoC project. Its code can be found [http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2008-olpc/downloads/detail?name=Assim_Deodia.tar.gz here]. Extending it activity wrt to following points

* Supporting Speech Synthesis model of sugar (speech synthesis model of sugar is not designed yet and is again a gsoc project this year. This task would involve either using speech-dispatcher or [[Activity_Team/gst-plugins-espeak | GST-Plugin]] as of now and later adding the support for sugar model)
* Multi player game over mesh network
* User Defined word list. (Adding support to add new words to dictionary)
* Test Mode: A teacher can feed the pre-defined word list on the network and activity is being used to conduct test/exam
* Speaking sentences to make student learn grammar (this as a higher level)

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, Understanding of sugar mesh network
*Potential mentor: [[Summer_of_Code/Mentors#Assim_Deodia | Assim Deodia]] (assim.deodia at gmail dot com)

==== KDEEdu ====

Sugarize any [http://edu.kde.org/ KDEEdu] activity, especially the ones which have no corresponding Sugar activity. The issue is that Kdeedu uses qt, while sugar uses gtk; the student would propose a reasonable solution to this issue (see [[Talk:KDEEdu]] for one idea). It is doubtful that the whole sugarization process could be automated, so you'd probably just do one activity.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): easy-hard

*Skills needed: C/C++, GTK.

==== Educational Toolkit ====

Either based on the existing educational toolkit, or starting from scratch, enable XO use in classroom scenarios. Such scenarios could include

* Teacher shows slides, reproduced on child's screens
* Teacher asks questions - either pre-prepared or on-the-fly
* Students give answers via collaboration
* Teacher or student chooses - explicitly or randomly - an answer for further discussion
* Students split in groups and go from their individual answers to a collaborative answer
* Teacher can review all answers later
* Teacher gives individual or group feedback (offline) which will be shared with appropriate students when they come online
* Teacher checks what's on a child's screen - (experience on other platforms shows this "look over shoulder" ability reduces goofing off even though it is rarely used.)

The low-hanging fruit on [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_toolkit Educational Toolkit] is the following:

* Enable collaboration scenarios
* Work on the GUI to provide support for multiple types of questions.
* Add API to make it easy to add new question types.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium-hard

*Skills needed: intermediate ability with Python and communications

==== Improved Imageviewer ====

Implement missing bits in Imageviewer, some of which are

* Sharing support
* Basic image effects support (grayscale, sepia effects, colorize, etc)
* Exif support

There are more things that can be implemented, but the above are the basic minimum one should try to implement.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): easy-medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK. the Sugar collaboration framework

==== EduKT ====

Simple content - history creation tool that needs:
* Re-design drag and drop features
* Add audio support
* Simplify the interface for little people
* Better the saving projects process.

A lot of new features that simplifies to any level the building of interactive contents...

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium

*Skills needed: Python, Glade, GTK. the Sugar collaboration framework

==== Port [http://www.lopart.org LopArt] to Sugar ====

<pre>
Subject: humbly introducing... LopArt: a Visual Arts Software that would fit perfectly with the XO
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:39:34 -0500
From: ariel savion-lemieux <ariel@loplop.com>

Hello,

We have recently made the purchase of an XO Laptop. We believe in the
project and would like to contribute to it in our own way.

LopLop Inc. has worked in the software industry for more than a decade, and
has developed a couple of drawing applications geared toward children.

LopArt is a visual arts software that emulates real drawing strokes and
styles (it beats TuxPaint out of the water J). Those who work with children
are seduced by the simplicity of LopArt, as well as by the originality and
creativity it allows. Whether it is used during free-time or for structured
learning activities and projects, LopArt is a highly stimulating learning
tool. It is present in more the 500 schools in Quebec alone. Examples of
LopArt artworks can be seen on the LopArt Virtual Museum it contains more
than 40,000 artworks (www.lopart.org). LopArt was developed for all
platforms, and is in open-source on Linux.

For these reasons and plenty more, we would like a chance to present LopArt
to XO members, since we believe it would be a great fit in the XO software
family.

If possible, please direct our request to the appropriate party. If you have
questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

The LopLop Team

----------------------

Ariel Savion-Lemieux, LopLop
Project Manager / Chargé de projet
Telephone: 514.543.5849
</pre>

*Difficulty: easy

==== Bug report activity ====

[http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/340 activity for bug reports]

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty: Easy

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, maybe some simple web forms from both client and server side (ie, PHP or similar)

==== Etc., Etc. ====
It should not be hard at all to imagine educational activities or games which would be useful for primary or secondary school education. Let your imagination run wild!

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty: Medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, Sugar collaboration framework

== Brainstorm / unexplained ideas ==

==== Visual geometric (e.g. linear [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_code bar], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code QR](matrix)) code recognition ====
Robust, poor-man's alternative to OCR. These codes are used to track physical items, point at their use manuals, etc. Input devices: (for OLPC) integral camera; one-dimensional scanner like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat CueCat ]. Some software already exists: [http://qrcode.sourceforge.jp/ Open Source QR Code Library]. (All camera cellphones in Japan bundle this function.)

==== Sugar adaption for the Nasa ====
One of the 91 indigenous cultures that still exist in Colombia is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paez_people Paez people] (aka '''Nasa'''). They have their own traditions, customs, world view, mother tongue (Nasa Yuwe), i.e. their own culture. It could be possible to take cultural elements into the Sugar Interface, not only language, to provide Nasa children a suitable and familiar interface. [[User:Santiago|Santiago]] 18:01, 8 March 2008 (EST)

=== Core Software ===

* Accessibility Support: Sugar currently doesn't have anything available for the visually impaired.
* Improve automatic testing across the system. This would improve our check-in and build process immensely. Very high priority which nobody is addressing head-on.
==== Homework turn-in ====
* "Homework turn-in" support: Certain metadata on a file causes new versions to be pushed out over the net (via SMTP, rss, or other; note that Moodle already has [http://docs.moodle.org/en/Email_processing support] for routing from special email addresses to a "location"). No new UI in Sugar, and a trivial amount of changes to Moodle.

[10:18] <homunq> If you'd rather something with PHP in it, I'd recommend the homework turn-in one. That one's really poorly documented. Basically, the steps are:

[10:18] <homunq> 1. figure out a plan for including sugar metadata in the html download links from moodle

[10:19] <homunq> 2. when downloading an assignment, put metadata of "send this back to adress xxx in server"

[10:20] <homunq> 3. When saving new, worked-on versions of the assignment, mark them for upload to the server

[10:22] <homunq> 4. when you see the server, and the homework deadline is not past, the sugar core automatically uploads the latest version. You could decide to use SMTP upload (already somewhat implemented in moodle) or something else like rss or REST or whatever.

[10:22] <homunq> any questions, happy to clarify.

==== Research projects: unpolished code ====
* There is also [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Journal%2C_reloaded Journal, reloaded], another research project with real code behind it that is promising but languishing. In this case, the idea is to make the journal "tagging" view transparently compatible with a traditional hierarchical directory structure.
* bemasc's [http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/bemasc/groupthink/ groupthink], expanded: The idea is to have a data structure which keeps itself in sync across many laptops "behind the scenes", thus providing drop-in collaboration as long as the structure in question provides the needed functionality. The problem is that the existing code is unpolished, and only supports some pretty limited data structures. I have some ideas of [[how groupthink could be more general]]. [[User:Homunq|Homunq]] 00:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

==== Java ====
Package and integrate the IcedTea open source bootstrap of OpenJDK Java with browser plugin for the XO. Deliverables would include:
* Binary, source and rpm dependencies for icedtea and icedtea browser plugin
* Java enabled os image
* Integration of packages into autobuild branch

(This is just to get Java into the build. Creating an application framework would come later.)

==== Graphical toolkit ====
Important work left to do:
* Give focus feedback by showing a rounded rectangle in gtk buttons and HippoCanvas icons.
* Implement keyboard navigation in HippoCanvas.
* Implement accessibility hooks in HippoCanvas.
* Improve keyboard shortcuts - make them easier to create and implement a UI to make them more discoverable, such as transparent letters which appear when you hold <ctrl>

=== Frameworks/Toolkits ===
==== Mono/.NET ====
The use of Mono could really enhance the number of Sugar developers due to the huge existing .NET community.
Thanks to Torello Querci, developing a Sugar activity in Mono is already possible using the Mono/Sugar bindings Sugar.dll (more on Mono on Sugar [[Mono|here]]).

The idea for this GSOC project is to greatly enhance this binding:
* Better integration with the Sugar look & feel and HippoCanvas,
* Binding to telepathy API,
* WinForm compatibility,
* MonoDevelop integration.

More on this idea:
* Priority for Sugar: Low
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-Advanced
* Skills needed: C# programming, Linux programming
* Potential mentor: Lionel Laské and/or Torello Querci

=== Activities ===
* See also ideas at [[Activity Team/Project Ideas]].
* A better, more fun, Paint option for small children - One way - Use eToys - http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/etoys/2008-November/002770.html

==== VideoChat activity ====
telepathy-python has support for audio and video streaming and has recently gained support for using gstreamer, which means that we could easily do efficient videoconferencing using fully open source codecs.

So a really nice project would be to do a proper Sugar activity for video conferencing.

==== Language Trainer ====
A language trainer with text to speech support would be very nice. Something that could start with letters and then teach words.

==== Thesaurus ====
Working together with openthesaurus -- someone could create a thesaurus for kids to learn different words (synonyms and antonyms)

==== Logo Activity ====
:Logo is a computer programming language used for functional programming. It is an adaptation and dialect of the Lisp language; some have called it Lisp without the parentheses. Today, it is known mainly for its turtle graphics, but it also has significant facilities for handling lists, files, I/O, and recursion.

:Logo was created for educational use, more so for constructivist teaching, by Daniel G. Bobrow, Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert. It can be used to teach most computer science concepts, as UC Berkeley Lecturer Brian Harvey does in his Computer Science Logo Style trilogy. — [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) Wikipedia article on the Logo programming language]

There is a "[[Running_Linux_Applications_Under_Sugar|Sugarized]]" Logo—[http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/usermanual UCB Logo]—but it does not record data into the Journal or use the standard Sugar toolbar.

There are two possible approaches we could take: (1) digging deeper into UCB Logo and (2) working with another Logo, possibly [http://pylogo.org/ PyLogo].

* Priority: high as Logo is an important tool engaging children in programming
* Difficultly: moderate to high, depending upon the approach chosen
** Integrating Pylogo would be relatively easy, but it is a very limited implementation of Logo that would need enhancing
* Experience: some Python and C if the UCB Logo approach is taken

====twext====
Twext es un idea para ayudarnos a aprender lenguajes.
twext is an idea to help us to learn languages
El software Twexter ya tiene un demo que maneja
twexter software now has ¡alpha! that works with
el UniCode para que twexteamos en muchas idiomas.
global text so that we can twext in many languages
* [http://olpcnews.com/content/localization/learning_language.html kids teach kids]
* [http://test.twext.com alpha demo]
* [http://moodle.org moodle me]
* [http://more.read.fm/wiki_test mediawixi]
* [http://twext.com twext]
* [http://github.com/tudisco/twexter code]
this fixed font twext 'roughly' aligns when you CTL+ or CTL- to adjust font size :)

[[Category:Idea]]

== Other ideas for improving Sugar Activities ==

=== Broad project ideas ===
*See [[Marketing Team/Events/Sugarcamp_Boston_2008/Minutes#Items_from_the_roadmap_brainstorm|a list of project ideas]] from a brainstorming session at Sugar Camp.

=== Activities Site (addons) ===

* The activities http://activities.sugarlabs.org, is in need of a serious ''sugarization'', a GSOC project could be giving some love to the dressing and coding of the underlaying activities site (based on mozilla's addons).

=== Packaging for specific distros ===

'''Debian'''
* Help in maintaining and packaging sugar and activities in debian.
* Including/adapting debian-edu .debs to sugar

Hello there, I am quite interested in Debian and want to help with this and all other projects. Please contact me (bjoern AT xruby DOT net) if I can be of assistance to the XO project or other things. I will start my PhD studies in April and have previously studied Computer Science. I am highly interested in helping where I can and want to bring the necessary technology to kids around the world.
: from olpcwiki 2008

=== Preeti's list ===

Hi, I am Preeti, from New Delhi. I would like to get myself involved in this very interesting aspect of the OLPC software development. I have jotted some of my views on the same at:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:59.178.99.172

[[Category:Participate]]
[[Category:GSoC]]
[[Category:Idea]]

Development Team/Project Ideas

2010-01-26T17:47:04Z

Docdtv: add comments

<noinclude>{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}</noinclude>
==Introduction==
This page contains a list of project ideas. For now, the focus is on giving [[GSoC]] students an idea of the kind of thing we're looking for. Summer of Code applicants should also visit '''[[Summer of Code/Resources]]'''.

At the bottom of this page is a section for less-explicitly-explained & wild ideas.

==[[Summer of Code]]==

'''Priorities''': see the [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-March/004592.html ongoing discussion of priorities] on our mailing list. To summarize that thread: the highest priority is for you to have a successful GSoC, which should bias you towards easier projects such as [[#Stand-alone activities]]. But, if we had to rank this list in terms of priorities for Sugar, the [[#AJAX Sugar aka Karma]] and [[#Versioned Datastore]] ideas are probably our highest priorities, followed by the rest of the [[#Toolkits / Frameworks for developers]]. These are generally hard, though, so we would need you to give us evidence that you are capable, in order for us to accept you for these ideas.

* There is a similar, project-ideas page on the [[OLPC:Summer_of_Code/Ideas | OLPC wiki]] (and a related [[OLPC:Category:GSoC_proposals | category]]). OLPC-specific projects, including hardware- <s>and schoolserver-</s>related projects, should go there. ''Update: since OLPC did not get into GSoC this year, we would consider mentoring school-server related projects.'' Feel free to add below relevant projects from that list - perhaps <s>80%</s> 95% of these could be appropriate Sugar Labs applications.

===See something that interests you? (steps to apply)===
To get in, you will need to design your project and find a mentor. On irc (#sugar on freenode) or the sugar-devel mailing list, you can briefly introduce yourself, state your interest, and ask relevant and specific questions about the state of the existing code. You should also do your own research for other open-source code that might help you. Get a [[Development Team#Development_systems|development environment]] installed. We definitely appreciate it if you can show your readiness to help out - either joining [[BugSquad|bug squad]] and [[BugSquad/Meetings|helping]] to [[BugSquad/Triage Guide|triage]], or actually helping fix some small [http://tinyurl.com/ctfkjl bug] (we've categorized [http://tinyurl.com/sugar-love some bugs as "sugar-love"], which means, not that they are easy to fix, but that they are good for beginners because they don't require much expert knowledge).

When you're ready, figure out a very basic, preliminary design (where does your new UI fit in? what about the code - what talks to what?) and post that to the [[Sugar_Labs/Contacts#Developer_Lists|mailing list]], asking if anybody would be willing to mentor you. You will almost certainly get some response, but you may not find a prospective mentor right away. That's OK. If your idea is really not a good fit for us, we will let you know; otherwise, remember that several mentors are holding back for now to see which projects show the most feasibility, clarity, and creativity in their design ideas. Persistence should pay off.

'''Want to apply with an idea not on this list?''' That's fine. Read the thread linked above about priorities - and remember, our highest priority is for you to have a successful GSoC, and we hope that you will want to continue to contribute afterwards. Do the steps above, paying particular attention to getting some community members' opinions on whether your idea would be valuable. The [[Sugar_Labs/Contacts#General_List|"iaep" mailing list]] may be the best venue for this. We will not all agree with each other about how important your idea is - that's normal - but our feedback will almost certainly help you refine your idea.

<div style="float:right;">
__TOC__
</div>

===Template for well-explained ideas===

If a project that interests you lacks a "potential mentor" here, or you want to know more about the current status of the related code, we would be happy to help guide you on irc (#sugar on freenode) or mailing lists (technical questions to sugar-devel@lists.laptop.org, educational/general ones to iaep@lists.laptop.org).

:<tt> '''==== Project title ====''' </tt>
:
:A quick explanation of the project idea
:
: * Priority for Sugar: Low/Medium/High
:
: * Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Easy/Medium/Advanced
:
: * Skills needed: Experience with WikiCode and copy-paste.

==Project Ideas==
=== Core Software ===
==== Versioned Datastore ====

* To add [[Development Team/Datastore Rewrite#Versioned_entries_.28not_fulfilled_yet.29|Version support]] for [[Journal]] / [[Development Team/Almanac/sugar.datastore.datastore|DataStore]]: Start with (old) [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Olpcfs Olpcfs] and (newer; less-documented; based on an RCS backend and a relatively small amount of fuse magic) [http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/olpcfs2/ olpcfs2]. Get Sugar to mount OLPCFS2, a working virtual versioned filesystem, and keep its datastore there. Get datastore to create a new version for each save (automatic or manual). Modify journal UI to use these versions, fork from old versions, etc. Keep with the same name / tags, create a branch if metadata was changed. Allow the user to access "older" versions (Keeping and "old" version will create a branch) and view ancestry (tree of branches).

We would not expect a GSoC project to be necessarily ready to check into our trunk. For instance, you could avoid facing the issue of automated pruning of old versions for disk space, or not have a converter for existing datastores. However, it should work as a proof-of-concept with a variety of activities.

Note: the work for this idea is ''more than halfway done''. The olpcfs2 virtual file system linked above is ''working'', supporting versions and metadata; all you need to do is a UI and an index/searching mechanism on top of that. And even if your indexing mechanism is just brute-force-search each-time, sure, it will be too slow for real use, but we can take it from there, as long you have a working proof-of-concept UI.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Coolness factor:++

*Difficulty: Hard

*Skills needed: primarily Python UI (pygtk); also FUSE/file systems (this part is mostly done); and Packaging and building.

====Implement existing UI design proposal====
Look at [[Design_Team/Designs]] and [[Design_Team/Proposals]], choose a proposal in one of those, and implement it. Obviously, you need to investigate existing work on these by testing/playing with a current jhbuild and by talking on #sugar.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty: easy-medium

*Skills needed: Python, PyGTK

==== Registry for people ====
Extend the interaction model to include real people beyond the user–laptop couple. This would extend the virtual network to include some very significant entities, such as family members, who may not have a physical computing device. See the [[Request_New_Features#Support for family interaction | suggestion]] submitted by [[User:Skua]]. The [[olpc:Record]] Activity could be used as a fun, instance-of-person creator and embellisher, by capturing an image or video of the person, and linking it to a new registry.
* Integration of a person object into the Sugar architecture
* Extension of the User/Group model to realistically capture the actual Person entity
* Modification of at least one activity (Record ?) to support the new API
* Extension of School Server registration model
* Extension of an Internet person model to support a Person entity (e.g., to support a missing-person registry in the [http://sahana.rit.edu/ Sahana] Disaster Management System)
Lots of extensions are possible, following a good, fundamental design
* Difficulty: Medium - Hard (depending on scope chosen)
* Skills needed: Data modeling, Core system programming
* Potential mentor: [[User:FGrose]] for data modeling, collaborators needed for Core systems and Internet architectures

==== Toolkit for dissimilar activity collaboration ====
Extend the collaboration model to include interconnection between different activity types. People are trying to share data collected with Measure with spreadsheets or Write or TamTam or Colors! Allow one user's activity to feed a community of collaborators performing different processes on the broadcast output. Allow different activities to run simultaneously in a distributed multi-tasking model, on one or more computers. See [[OLPC:Activity sharing]] and [[OLPC:Low-level Activity API]] for some essentials.

The toolkit would encapsulate the low-level interface to allow activity developers to easily deploy distributed task collaboration.

Extra extra credit for extending the model to general web browsers and web-enabled cell phones. Sugar web collaboration—a '''Honeycomb'''.

* Value to Sugar: High
* Difficulty: Hard
* Skills: low-level API mastery
* Potential mentors:
See this thread for a discussion of the need and some issues, http://www.mail-archive.com/sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg02870.html

==== Speech Synthesis for Sugar ====
Integrate speech synthesis with all activities, not just [[olpc:Speak| Speak]], and provide for karaoke coloring. See [[User:Mokurai|Mokurai]]'s [http://www.olpcnews.com/content/ebooks/effective_adult_literacy_program.html article] on adapting [[olpc:Same Language Subtitling]] for literacy to the XO.

Desirable Features for Sugar Speech Synthesis Plugin:

* Provide Sugar Speech Synthesis Configuration Management Tool
* Karaoke Style Coloring in Sugar Environment
* UI for configuration Control
* Accent gets set on the basis of locale

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced

*Skills needed: Experience with GTK, decent Python ability, ability to integrate with existing code.

*Existing Technical Documentation & Work that can be leveraged: Interested developers can refer to [http://google-summer-of-code-2008-olpc.googlecode.com/files/Hemant_Goyal.tar.gz GSOC 08 Project Status Report].

==== Print Support ====
Print support in Sugar would be useful in many scenarios. The ideal project deliverables would include
* Integration of a printing infrastructure (CUPS ??) into the XO-1 software images
* Modification of Sugar Control Panel to set up the printer (add/select default printer?)
* Modification of at least one activity (Write ?) to support printing
* Making a printing activity, that follows sugar GUI guidelines?
* Extra credit: integrating a server, including permissions and quota management, into the XS image.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-high

*Skills needed: Python programming, API design, some communications

comments

Suggestion: To start, perhaps it might be simplest just to create a
screen grab utility. The utility would not even support a printer,
just queue grabs and later simply hand them off to a school print
server. The grabs could be coded using any simple well-supported
image file format. (One might also read [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Printing_Culture Printing_Culture].)

==== Sugar Toolbar submenu support ====

The Sugar Human Interface Guidelines have a toolbar design that includes submenus (See [[Design Team/Designs/Toolbars|Toolbar designs]]). The project would be to extend the existing Toolbar widget to include this new feature and then to work with a few Activity developer to incorporate the new design into their Activities. Possible candidate activities include Paint and [[Activities/Turtle Art|Turtle Art]].

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Easy-Medium

*Skills needed: intermediate GTK and python skillz

==== Port of Sugar to Pyjamas-Desktop ====

A platform-independent reimplementation of PyGTK and PyGObject which utilises Pyjamas-Desktop to implement (near-)identical PyGTK widgets. A proof-of-concept which can be used as the basis has already been completed - the [http://code.google.com/p/pyjamas/wiki/GsocLlpamies Llpamies branch of pyjamas] and merged into the current pyjamas infrastructure. A transparent split of the SUGAR Activity infrastructure from the GUI front-end display code (along MVC lines) by using overrides of the python "__import__" method, adding in an RPC mechanism (JSONRPC recommended). Again, the Llpamies branch has already achieved this and provides the basis and inspiration. For example, any pyjamas applications which had "import md5": in the llpamies branch actually resulted in JSONRPC calls of any "md5" module methods, which were actually executed SERVER-SIDE.

The consequences of providing this level of abstraction are quite startling: not only would it be conveniently and easily possible to install Sugar onto Win32 platforms (thanks to the MSHTML Pyjamas-Desktop port) but also it would be possible to have all the benefits of a client-server architecture. Thanks to the nature of the Pyjamas API, that would be an extremely _rich_ "client", including being a web browser client. Also, you get "remote desktop" functionality "for free". i.e. thanks to the client-server architecture, a student can publish their work via the server (running on their

The work involves:

* writing alternative infrastructure, replacing the c code gtk widgets with pyjamas widgets (e.g. the sugar menu gtk widget can go, and can subclass the pyjamas MenuBar widget. Icon can subclass pyjamas Image class. etc. etc.)
* the Llpamies GTK browser port, containing the reimplementation of gtk and gobject, needs to be extended and improved
* some serious discussion needs to take place on how SVG Canvas support is to be done. Pyjamas now has a port of GWTCanvas (which uses VML on MSHTML and IE6,7 and 8, but uses 2D SVG on all other browsers and all other brower engines) so there is an abstracted API which could be used to create vector graphics in a platform-independent fashion.
* writing a special importers.py (similar to setuptools zip-archives) which notices module imports such as activity and profile imports, and seamlessly creates a JSONRPC service to farm the function call out to a server (even if it's running on 127.0.0.1). pyjamas-desktop already has example code that performs module import overrides, and the llpamies branch already has example code that performs JSONRPC function call farming.

* Priority for Sugar: TBD
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced
* Skills needed: JSONRPC, Web Framework(s), PyGTK, PyGobject, Python, HTML, CSS, [http://pyjs.org Pyjamas].

=== Toolkits / Frameworks for developers ===

==== AJAX Sugar aka [[Karma]] ====

Create a proof-of-concept learning multimedia Sugar activity using javascript and html5 (for instance, Titanium-made apps). This activity should have animation, audio, persistent storage of user progress, and at least basic integration with the Sugar environment. For more information see the [[Karma]] wiki page.

JavaScript/Sugar Communication through the following strategies: PyXPCom, hulahop, xulrunner or [http://www.titaniumapp.com/ Titanium]. see also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012829.html the mailing list discussion]. The preferred solution should use a minimalist rendering engine like Webkit and a toolset for local file access like Google Gears. Such a solution would have much less overhead than embedding all of mozilla. For the moment we are focusing on Titanium.

* Ideally, develop a demo activity which could be used as a template for sugarizing AJAX activities. The GSoC participant doesn't have to create her own activity but could simply recreate an existing activity such as one of [http://www.pustakalaya.org/external-content/static/epaath/E-Paath-2.activity/activity/Activity/MenuStage.html OLE Nepal's flash activities].
* This demo should have the following features:
** Simple interactive animation and audio using html5 tags like <canvas> and <audio>
** An assessment section that stores results of student's progress and gives them suggestions on improvement. Assessment info should be persistent.
** Has embedded pdf for lesson plan that can be viewed w/in the activity
** Integrates with datastore
** Navigation and Help elements, ideally reusing widgets from popular javascript libraries like Jquery, Prototype, Mootools
** Some element of collaboration using telepathy (This could be really hard, depending on the state of javascript bindings to dbus)

There is some discussion of the prior work on this question at [[User:Wade/Web_Activity_Spec]].

*Priority for Sugar: Very High ("never bet against the browser")

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium/hard Note: integrating w/ the datastore likely won't be too hard but utilizing Sugar's collaboration features could be very hard

*Skills needed: Javascript/Python integration (PyXPCom, hulahop), CSS, knowlege of SQL

*potential mentors: Wade Brainerd (wadetb at gmail dot com), Bryan Berry (bryan at olenepal dot org) can serve as project manager, define requirements and project deliverables

==== SWF Sugar ====

* Integrate SWF (Flash/Gnash) applications into Sugar.
* Ideally, develop a demo activity which could be used as a template for sugarizing Flash/Gnash activities.

*Priority for Sugar: Very High ("never bet against the browser")

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): hard

*Skills needed: SWF/Python integration

==== Improve Develop activity ====

There are several improvements that would make the Develop activity a more attractive IDE. Any ONE of these would be a good GSoC project.

* Make a WYSIWIG GUI editor, like Glade. Note that GTK natively supports loading Glade-format interface definitions, although there would be some work involved making the Sugar interface elements available through this method.
* Integrate Sugarbot and auto-testing facilities.
* Integrate a debugger, based on pdb or other.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium-High

*Difficulty: Medium - Hard

*Skills needed: Good python skills.

*Potential mentor; Jameson Quinn (firstname dot lastname at gmail dot com)

==== "Translate Activity" activity ====

We will never finish localizing all our activities and base software for all our deployments - especially for places with high linguistic diversity like Afghanistan, Peru, Guatemala. So it would be great if there were an easy, discoverable way to translate any string on your machine; have the translation appear on your own machine immediately; and, assuming the activity has a link to a Pootle project, upload that translation to a Pootle server later. (For real-world use, these uploads would probably have to be cached at the school server level, but that is more complexity than we'd expect from a GSoC project.) [http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/virtaal/index Virtaal] might be a good starting point for the UI.

*Priority for Sugar: Medium-High

*Difficulty: Medium to Hard

*Skills needed: at least some experience localizing, to know what's involved; ability to do minor hacks on gettext in C and Python; work with localization formats (.po, etc.); Python for activity UI; some simple communications, to upload proposed translations to pootle.

*potential mentor: Sayamindu Dasgupta (sayamindu at gmail)

==== SugarGames Pygame wrapper ====
The [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPCGames OLPCGames] wrapper allows [http://pygame.org Pygame] to run inside of GTK in Sugar, making Pygame based Activities possible. However, the wrapper is geared specifically for use on the XO-1, and does not necessarily reflect the modern reality of running Sugar on diverse hardware. It also does not allow for the use of other GTK Widgets in the Activity, restricting developers from adding UI features like pop up query boxes. This project would involve porting OLPCGames or writing a Pygame wrapper from scratch that would allow Pygame to run in GTK while still enabling the use of GTK UI elements. It would also involve making GTK events and other relevant parts of the Sugar API available to Pygame Activities.

* Priority for Sugar: Medium-High (Activity development is limited between the graphics limitations of PyGTK and the UI limitations of Pygame)
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-Advanced
* Skills needed: Requires a fair amount of knowledge of both Pygame and PyGTK.
* Potential Mentor: Nirav Patel (nrpatel at gmail, nrp on freenode)

==== Generic linux application wrapper ====
Improve the ability to launch legacy Linux applications (or Windows applications in WINE) from inside Sugar. The issues are our window manager, our datastore/file system, and our security model (Rainbow). Basically, you'd have to fake all of these from one side or the other so that an average legacy app could live with Sugar.

This is a priority for sugar, and there is significant prior art and design thought. The first part of your job would be to search this wiki, the laptop.org wiki, and old mailing list archives for OLPC and Sugarlabs, and talk on IRC, to settle on a good design. Because of this, we'd consider accepting a strong application even if it left some design questions open; but it would have to at least suggest some basic shortcuts you'd take to make the task feasible, and argue why these shortcuts would leave acceptable usability.

* Priority for Sugar: High-Very High
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Advanced
* Skills needed: Creative ability to use and quickly learn various tools, ability to focus on critical path (ie, build something quick-and-dirty that accomplishes the main goals rather than getting distracted by ideal solutions), experience with window manager and windowing systems (Gnome, KDE, etc.).

=== Stand-alone activities ===

==== Improved Read activity ====
Use Gecko to implement a reader for [http://www.openebook.org/ epub] format ebooks. This is superior to PDF because such books can be reflowed to better fit the screen and user preferences. Also, (although it would break the standard) it would make it very simple to include AJAX-style active features to books.

Extra credit if you support textual and graphical annotation. Deployments have also asked for a page-turn animation. See also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012821.html ml].

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium (w/o annotation); very hard (w/annotation)

*Skills needed: Strong Javascript/DOM skills, some interlanguage integration (Python/Javascript), ability to adapt Read activity's communications code (Python).

*Potential mentor: Sayamindu Dasgupta (sayamindu at gmail) (already has some code to start with)

==== [[Activities/Listen Spell|Listen Spell]] activity ====

This activity has been last year GSoC project. Its code can be found [http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2008-olpc/downloads/detail?name=Assim_Deodia.tar.gz here]. Extending it activity wrt to following points

* Supporting Speech Synthesis model of sugar (speech synthesis model of sugar is not designed yet and is again a gsoc project this year. This task would involve either using speech-dispatcher or [[Activity_Team/gst-plugins-espeak | GST-Plugin]] as of now and later adding the support for sugar model)
* Multi player game over mesh network
* User Defined word list. (Adding support to add new words to dictionary)
* Test Mode: A teacher can feed the pre-defined word list on the network and activity is being used to conduct test/exam
* Speaking sentences to make student learn grammar (this as a higher level)

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, Understanding of sugar mesh network
*Potential mentor: [[Summer_of_Code/Mentors#Assim_Deodia | Assim Deodia]] (assim.deodia at gmail dot com)

==== KDEEdu ====

Sugarize any [http://edu.kde.org/ KDEEdu] activity, especially the ones which have no corresponding Sugar activity. The issue is that Kdeedu uses qt, while sugar uses gtk; the student would propose a reasonable solution to this issue (see [[Talk:KDEEdu]] for one idea). It is doubtful that the whole sugarization process could be automated, so you'd probably just do one activity.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): easy-hard

*Skills needed: C/C++, GTK.

==== Educational Toolkit ====

Either based on the existing educational toolkit, or starting from scratch, enable XO use in classroom scenarios. Such scenarios could include

* Teacher shows slides, reproduced on child's screens
* Teacher asks questions - either pre-prepared or on-the-fly
* Students give answers via collaboration
* Teacher or student chooses - explicitly or randomly - an answer for further discussion
* Students split in groups and go from their individual answers to a collaborative answer
* Teacher can review all answers later
* Teacher gives individual or group feedback (offline) which will be shared with appropriate students when they come online
* Teacher checks what's on a child's screen - (experience on other platforms shows this "look over shoulder" ability reduces goofing off even though it is rarely used.)

The low-hanging fruit on [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_toolkit Educational Toolkit] is the following:

* Enable collaboration scenarios
* Work on the GUI to provide support for multiple types of questions.
* Add API to make it easy to add new question types.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium-hard

*Skills needed: intermediate ability with Python and communications

==== Improved Imageviewer ====

Implement missing bits in Imageviewer, some of which are

* Sharing support
* Basic image effects support (grayscale, sepia effects, colorize, etc)
* Exif support

There are more things that can be implemented, but the above are the basic minimum one should try to implement.

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): easy-medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK. the Sugar collaboration framework

==== EduKT ====

Simple content - history creation tool that needs:
* Re-design drag and drop features
* Add audio support
* Simplify the interface for little people
* Better the saving projects process.

A lot of new features that simplifies to any level the building of interactive contents...

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty (as a GSoC project): medium

*Skills needed: Python, Glade, GTK. the Sugar collaboration framework

==== Port [http://www.lopart.org LopArt] to Sugar ====

<pre>
Subject: humbly introducing... LopArt: a Visual Arts Software that would fit perfectly with the XO
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:39:34 -0500
From: ariel savion-lemieux <ariel@loplop.com>

Hello,

We have recently made the purchase of an XO Laptop. We believe in the
project and would like to contribute to it in our own way.

LopLop Inc. has worked in the software industry for more than a decade, and
has developed a couple of drawing applications geared toward children.

LopArt is a visual arts software that emulates real drawing strokes and
styles (it beats TuxPaint out of the water J). Those who work with children
are seduced by the simplicity of LopArt, as well as by the originality and
creativity it allows. Whether it is used during free-time or for structured
learning activities and projects, LopArt is a highly stimulating learning
tool. It is present in more the 500 schools in Quebec alone. Examples of
LopArt artworks can be seen on the LopArt Virtual Museum it contains more
than 40,000 artworks (www.lopart.org). LopArt was developed for all
platforms, and is in open-source on Linux.

For these reasons and plenty more, we would like a chance to present LopArt
to XO members, since we believe it would be a great fit in the XO software
family.

If possible, please direct our request to the appropriate party. If you have
questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

The LopLop Team

----------------------

Ariel Savion-Lemieux, LopLop
Project Manager / Chargé de projet
Telephone: 514.543.5849
</pre>

*Difficulty: easy

==== Bug report activity ====

[http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/340 activity for bug reports]

*Priority for Sugar: High

*Difficulty: Easy

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, maybe some simple web forms from both client and server side (ie, PHP or similar)

==== Etc., Etc. ====
It should not be hard at all to imagine educational activities or games which would be useful for primary or secondary school education. Let your imagination run wild!

*Priority for Sugar: Medium

*Difficulty: Medium

*Skills needed: Python, GTK, Sugar collaboration framework

== Brainstorm / unexplained ideas ==

==== Sugar adaption for the Nasa ====
One of the 91 indigenous cultures that still exist in Colombia is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paez_people Paez people] (aka '''Nasa'''). They have their own traditions, customs, world view, mother tongue (Nasa Yuwe), i.e. their own culture. It could be possible to take cultural elements into the Sugar Interface, not only language, to provide Nasa children a suitable and familiar interface. [[User:Santiago|Santiago]] 18:01, 8 March 2008 (EST)

=== Core Software ===

* Accessibility Support: Sugar currently doesn't have anything available for the visually impaired.
* Improve automatic testing across the system. This would improve our check-in and build process immensely. Very high priority which nobody is addressing head-on.
==== Homework turn-in ====
* "Homework turn-in" support: Certain metadata on a file causes new versions to be pushed out over the net (via SMTP, rss, or other; note that Moodle already has [http://docs.moodle.org/en/Email_processing support] for routing from special email addresses to a "location"). No new UI in Sugar, and a trivial amount of changes to Moodle.

[10:18] <homunq> If you'd rather something with PHP in it, I'd recommend the homework turn-in one. That one's really poorly documented. Basically, the steps are:

[10:18] <homunq> 1. figure out a plan for including sugar metadata in the html download links from moodle

[10:19] <homunq> 2. when downloading an assignment, put metadata of "send this back to adress xxx in server"

[10:20] <homunq> 3. When saving new, worked-on versions of the assignment, mark them for upload to the server

[10:22] <homunq> 4. when you see the server, and the homework deadline is not past, the sugar core automatically uploads the latest version. You could decide to use SMTP upload (already somewhat implemented in moodle) or something else like rss or REST or whatever.

[10:22] <homunq> any questions, happy to clarify.

==== Research projects: unpolished code ====
* There is also [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Journal%2C_reloaded Journal, reloaded], another research project with real code behind it that is promising but languishing. In this case, the idea is to make the journal "tagging" view transparently compatible with a traditional hierarchical directory structure.
* bemasc's [http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/bemasc/groupthink/ groupthink], expanded: The idea is to have a data structure which keeps itself in sync across many laptops "behind the scenes", thus providing drop-in collaboration as long as the structure in question provides the needed functionality. The problem is that the existing code is unpolished, and only supports some pretty limited data structures. I have some ideas of [[how groupthink could be more general]]. [[User:Homunq|Homunq]] 00:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

==== Java ====
Package and integrate the IcedTea open source bootstrap of OpenJDK Java with browser plugin for the XO. Deliverables would include:
* Binary, source and rpm dependencies for icedtea and icedtea browser plugin
* Java enabled os image
* Integration of packages into autobuild branch

(This is just to get Java into the build. Creating an application framework would come later.)

==== Graphical toolkit ====
Important work left to do:
* Give focus feedback by showing a rounded rectangle in gtk buttons and HippoCanvas icons.
* Implement keyboard navigation in HippoCanvas.
* Implement accessibility hooks in HippoCanvas.
* Improve keyboard shortcuts - make them easier to create and implement a UI to make them more discoverable, such as transparent letters which appear when you hold <ctrl>

=== Frameworks/Toolkits ===
==== Mono/.NET ====
The use of Mono could really enhance the number of Sugar developers due to the huge existing .NET community.
Thanks to Torello Querci, developing a Sugar activity in Mono is already possible using the Mono/Sugar bindings Sugar.dll (more on Mono on Sugar [[Mono|here]]).

The idea for this GSOC project is to greatly enhance this binding:
* Better integration with the Sugar look & feel and HippoCanvas,
* Binding to telepathy API,
* WinForm compatibility,
* MonoDevelop integration.

More on this idea:
* Priority for Sugar: Low
* Difficulty (as a GSoC project): Medium-Advanced
* Skills needed: C# programming, Linux programming
* Potential mentor: Lionel Laské and/or Torello Querci

=== Activities ===
* See also ideas at [[Activity Team/Project Ideas]].
* A better, more fun, Paint option for small children - One way - Use eToys - http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/etoys/2008-November/002770.html

==== VideoChat activity ====
telepathy-python has support for audio and video streaming and has recently gained support for using gstreamer, which means that we could easily do efficient videoconferencing using fully open source codecs.

So a really nice project would be to do a proper Sugar activity for video conferencing.

==== Language Trainer ====
A language trainer with text to speech support would be very nice. Something that could start with letters and then teach words.

==== Thesaurus ====
Working together with openthesaurus -- someone could create a thesaurus for kids to learn different words (synonyms and antonyms)

==== Logo Activity ====
:Logo is a computer programming language used for functional programming. It is an adaptation and dialect of the Lisp language; some have called it Lisp without the parentheses. Today, it is known mainly for its turtle graphics, but it also has significant facilities for handling lists, files, I/O, and recursion.

:Logo was created for educational use, more so for constructivist teaching, by Daniel G. Bobrow, Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert. It can be used to teach most computer science concepts, as UC Berkeley Lecturer Brian Harvey does in his Computer Science Logo Style trilogy. — [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) Wikipedia article on the Logo programming language]

There is a "[[Running_Linux_Applications_Under_Sugar|Sugarized]]" Logo—[http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/usermanual UCB Logo]—but it does not record data into the Journal or use the standard Sugar toolbar.

There are two possible approaches we could take: (1) digging deeper into UCB Logo and (2) working with another Logo, possibly [http://pylogo.org/ PyLogo].

* Priority: high as Logo is an important tool engaging children in programming
* Difficultly: moderate to high, depending upon the approach chosen
** Integrating Pylogo would be relatively easy, but it is a very limited implementation of Logo that would need enhancing
* Experience: some Python and C if the UCB Logo approach is taken

====twext====
Twext es un idea para ayudarnos a aprender lenguajes.
twext is an idea to help us to learn languages
El software Twexter ya tiene un demo que maneja
twexter software now has ¡alpha! that works with
el UniCode para que twexteamos en muchas idiomas.
global text so that we can twext in many languages
* [http://olpcnews.com/content/localization/learning_language.html kids teach kids]
* [http://test.twext.com alpha demo]
* [http://moodle.org moodle me]
* [http://more.read.fm/wiki_test mediawixi]
* [http://twext.com twext]
* [http://github.com/tudisco/twexter code]
this fixed font twext 'roughly' aligns when you CTL+ or CTL- to adjust font size :)

[[Category:Idea]]

== Other ideas for improving Sugar Activities ==

=== Broad project ideas ===
*See [[Marketing Team/Events/Sugarcamp_Boston_2008/Minutes#Items_from_the_roadmap_brainstorm|a list of project ideas]] from a brainstorming session at Sugar Camp.

=== Activities Site (addons) ===

* The activities http://activities.sugarlabs.org, is in need of a serious ''sugarization'', a GSOC project could be giving some love to the dressing and coding of the underlaying activities site (based on mozilla's addons).

=== Packaging for specific distros ===

'''Debian'''
* Help in maintaining and packaging sugar and activities in debian.
* Including/adapting debian-edu .debs to sugar

Hello there, I am quite interested in Debian and want to help with this and all other projects. Please contact me (bjoern AT xruby DOT net) if I can be of assistance to the XO project or other things. I will start my PhD studies in April and have previously studied Computer Science. I am highly interested in helping where I can and want to bring the necessary technology to kids around the world.
: from olpcwiki 2008

=== Preeti's list ===

Hi, I am Preeti, from New Delhi. I would like to get myself involved in this very interesting aspect of the OLPC software development. I have jotted some of my views on the same at:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:59.178.99.172

[[Category:Participate]]
[[Category:GSoC]]
[[Category:Idea]]

Marketing Team

2010-01-25T09:53:00Z

Docdtv: oops - automated software updates recently introducd

<noinclude>{{ GoogleTrans-en}}{{TeamHeader|Marketing Team}}</noinclude>

<div style="font-size: 1.0em; background: #daffd5; padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #cde7a8" align=left>'''The Sugar Labs Marketing Team exists to spread the good word about Sugar.''' Sugar provides a simple yet powerful means of engaging young children in the world of learning that is opened up by computing and the Internet. It is the job of the Sugar Labs Marketing Team to promote the benefits of Sugar as widely as possible, and to recruit volunteers to help improve the Sugar experience.</div>

{{TOCright}}

== Mission ==
{{:Marketing Team/Mission}}

== Team Coordinator ==

{{:Marketing Team/Coordinator}} (sdaly at sugarlabs.org) is Marketing Coordinator and welcomes ideas and comments but most of all communicators interested in helping out!

== Projects ==

Deliverables and/or initiatives actively being worked on (with goals and deadlines).

===[[Marketing_Team/Events|Events]]===
See [[Marketing Team/Events]] for a table of events we are targeting.

=== Press page ===

Our Press page is here: http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press

Translator assistance welcomed!

=== Sugar Stories ===

How Sugar motivates us: a series of profiles on contributors. [[Marketing Team/Sugar stories]]

=== Press contacts list ===

We're working on a [[Marketing Team/Press contacts]] list with education-oriented publications. This list is maintained by the Marketing Coordinator.

=== PR phone line ===

+1.857.265.1100

[[Marketing Team/Phone]] is a number that journalists can call for quotes, interviews, clarifications, etc. about Sugar. This is a VoIP number which at this time forwards either to the Marketing Coordinator, an Oversight Board member, or voicemail which is forwarded as a timestamped soundfile to pr AT sugarlabs DOT org, an account monitored through forwarding by the Marketing Coordinator and two others.

=== Sugar Labs website ===

Our polished static website as a landing page for Sugar Labs is live and the new Activities section too. We are currently working on a common navigation bar for all the site sections to simplify navigation for first-time visitors. [[Marketing Team/Website]]

=== [[Marketing Team/Swag|Swag]] ===

To view, download, and contribute to swag designs (stickers, t-shirts, business cards, USB sticks, etc.) and coordinate purchasing swag from suppliers, see [[Marketing Team/Swag]].

== Discussions ==

Conversations that may one day turn into projects, or may have in the past been projects.

=== "Audited" Circulation ===

- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

While a small user community might discourage adoption of a tool,
a large user community can help encourage adoption. And of course,
small communities need always precede large ones! You know the old
expression: "Eat Sugar! 10**9 flies can't be wrong!" <G>

How do you measure the size of a community? A great way to do that
with automata connected to a global communication network is to
have them "phone home" now and then. Now, I hope what I am suggesting
does not break with any covenent, (implicit or explicit, moral or legal).
But would it be so harmful if, say once a day, a Sugar installation
would briefly tell Sugar Labs "Hey, I'm alive on a machine today!"

Some might agree to do this, but worry about a slippery slope.
Would the future of this humble audit parallel the course of the
United States decennial census, growing from a simple enumeration
into a ruthless and arrogant demographic strip-search?

Of course, audits could be of great benefit to end-users, especially
if they included Activity installation audits. For example, they could
evolve into a mechanism for warning the user about a terrible bug
that needs patching, or advertising a follow-on tool almost all users
adopt upon learning about the new existence of same. (I just now learn
that [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Automatic_software_updates automatic software updates]
are a new feature of the latest ([http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_Notes/8.2.0 8.2.0])
OLPC software release.) By "factoring" the audit mechanism into a
system-wide facility, Activity developers would be spared the need
to code such support on their own.

As a courtesy to Sugar users, cooperation in audits should be voluntary.
But every user should be told why such an audit can help him and others.

Naturally, all this is limited by the fact that not every last machine
on which Sugar will be run will be attached to the Internet.

=== Video channels ===

- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

1. Does a YouTube channel exist? If not, why not?
There already is a channel at Dailymotion with 19 videos as we write:
http://www.dailymotion.com/sugarlabs/1
YouTube may not use an open source codec, but it is an
incredibly popular search engine and affiliate-propagation tool, see:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/12/31/technology/internet/31tubeGrfx/articleInline.jpg

2. First video would be a 60-second TV-style ad explaining

... what Sugar is (leverage OLPC brand-awareness!)

... that it is free

... what you need to run it

... how you get a copy to install

3. Every time a pitch (q.v. below) is created, a YouTube video record of same is made.
The YouTube version can add stills or short video clips to a talking head.

=== Pitches ===

Short, 1-page elevator pitches to sell Sugar to various audiences. Not formalized, but the homepage (www.sugarlabs.org) is the best starting point. [[Marketing Team/Pitches]]

=== Logo ===

See [[Marketing Team/Logo]].

=== Name ===

Ongoing discussion. See [[Marketing Team/Name]]

=== Slogans ===

Several slogan options are available at [[Marketing Team/Slogan]].

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Marketing_Team/}}

[[Category:Marketing Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2010-01-21T02:49:22Z

Docdtv: Add $0.02 about flash thumb drives.

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}
{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

{{TOCright}}
== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.laptop.org/sugar-meeting.log.20090306_1002.html Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]
==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://hchistory.com/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

I recently came back to look at SL after a long hiatus to check on progress. Almost
the first thing I did was add [[Marketing_Team#Video_channels]] to proposed marketing
projects, which reiterates your call for videos, especially anxiety-stilling demos.
(I was told there is a "religious" objection to using YouTube, despite its marvelous
SYNDICATION potential, since it does not use an open codec, as does Daily motion. I
answered that SL should be THANKFUL if someone downloads any Daily motion videos SL
creates and transcodes them for reposting on YouTube as well!) It really starts to
sound like you should work on the Marketing Team. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

What is it with flash-based thumb drives? In the previous decade, I went through
several of them as they successively died off in turn. This led to the practice
of using a PAIR, so that when one dies, the "RAIDed twin" provides a fail-safe.
Some people recommend periodic reformatting as a means to obviate failures. Has
the problem finally been solved? I have not had a disaster for a long time now.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.

===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2010-01-21T02:40:45Z

Docdtv: Mention urging Marketing Team to do simple videos

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}
{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

{{TOCright}}
== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.laptop.org/sugar-meeting.log.20090306_1002.html Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]
==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://hchistory.com/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

I recently came back to look at SL after a long hiatus to check on progress. Almost
the first thing I did was add [[Marketing_Team#Video_channels]] to proposed marketing
projects, which reiterates your call for videos, especially anxiety-stilling demos.
(I was told there is a "religious" objection to using YouTube, despite its marvelous
SYNDICATION potential, since it does not use an open codec, as does Daily motion. I
answered that SL should be THANKFUL if someone downloads any Daily motion videos SL
creates and transcodes them for reposting on YouTube as well!) It really starts to
sound like you should work on the Marketing Team. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]] 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.
===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2010-01-21T02:25:10Z

Docdtv: Point at offsite K-6 computing & status pessay

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}
{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

{{TOCright}}
== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.laptop.org/sugar-meeting.log.20090306_1002.html Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]
==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

I try to document your claims with an essay on K-6 computing created early 2009 [http://hchistory.com/schools/SandersMA/K-6computing.htm here].
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.
===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Education Team

2010-01-21T02:09:50Z

Docdtv: Link to vintage parallel critique at OLPC Wiki site

<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] | [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] | [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}
{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>

{{TOCright}}
== Mission ==
{{:Education Team/Mission}}

----

We are said to be responsible for setting the Educational goals for the Sugar Community, but this says both too much and too little. In the long run, the children have to set their educational goals, rather than those whom the accidents of history and politics have put in power. Here are some things we can do:

* Help to digest the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
* Start the discussion about appropriate education practice, based on scientific study of what works under various circumstances for what purposes;
* Start the discussion about appropriate uses of computers in education, including software design, textbook redesign, and other content, and about what computers are good for in general;
* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Goals ==

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:
# existing OLPC deployments
# potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
# potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

== Means ==

* Start the discussion on [[Talk:Education Team|what goals children have, and their families, and their communities]]. (and accept that, even if it goes against the rest, especially if the rest is theory)
:I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
::Moved to new Means subsection --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]
* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Meetings==

We held an inaugural Education Team meeting on Friday, 6 March, at 15 UTC (10 EST) on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting but we realize that the meeting time was not ideal, especially for teachers. Please add [[Education Team/Meeting_times|your preferred meeting time]] to the list we are accumulating.

''06 March 2009''
* [http://meeting.laptop.org/sugar-meeting.log.20090306_1002.html Log of the 2009-03-06 meeting]
* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]
==Commentary==
If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

Your words resonant deeply with what I wrote at the OLPC Wiki several years ago [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Teaching%2C_Institutional_and_Professional_Barriers here].
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]
IRC chat lines? For teachers? You've got to be kidding... How many teachers do I know that don't how to SMS or even know what SMS means? IRC? You are speaking to a teeny tiny tiny fraction of teachers via that channel... Teachers are like most people, overworked, underpaid, and very conscious of _not wanting to create more work for themselves_. The way Sugar is being communicated _sounds like Sugar is more work_... but then again, most teachers don't want to hear what you are saying anyway...

Most teachers are just concerned with getting through the, very difficult, day. To get this project onto the minds of teachers then it must come from parents and students and admins telling teachers that this is what must happen. Teachers, for the most part, are unionized. They DON'T have to do anything once attaining tenure. Unions will protect the most incompetent do nothing teachers right up to sexual or physical abuse of a child. Constructivist Cognitive development is far down the list of concerns for a third year teacher. They probably have tenure by then. They may have come into teaching, full of energy and ready to make changes, thinking they'll do the right thing... after the third year, it's all about survival for the school year ahead...

I've personally offered to many teachers to set up [http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome LTSP networks] for them and NOT ONE ever accepted the offer though the evidence of students' superior performance, better cognition and behavior, and superior skill set of the LTSP students versus all the other students was clearly evident. Most teachers _have no reason to change_, no matter how good something may be... if it is not perfectly prepackaged and EASY enough to give to a kid to do if they've finished their homework early...
student: "Ms. Johnson, I've finished my homework..."
Ms Johsnon: "OK, Johnny, see those laptops over there? Set them up with Sugar for tomorrow's class".

If Sugar is NOT that easy, then you'll only ever get a few hardcore "fighting for the good cause" teachers to use Sugar or any other computer platform. Essentially, though, if a teacher knows how to use a computer, they won't be working as teachers for very long...

To get Sugar in a class in the United States, at least, is going to come from private schools, and parents who are savvy enough to understand the arcane language of most of this site...The opening line on this [http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/Installing page] would leave most teachers scratching their heads. The writer's of that document expected what, someone who knows what 'OLPC-XO laptop' or 'Gnu/Linux' or any of that means? They want step 1, 2, 3 done. Don't scare them off with a lot of technical background and geekified mumbo-jumbo! And all that talk about downloading and burning .ISOs and formatting USBs... please. Your target audience (the teachers) is terrified of computers and technology.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.

Look at the Youtube videos produced by kids doing their work. It's clearly evident that they are doing the 'hard stuff' of thinking and problem solving because at the end, at least for some/most, their friends will say, "Cool!".

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...
===in the meantime make it easy for the motivated===
A [http://wubi-installer.org/ wubi] like dual boot option at startup with a simple downloader tool that pulls the needed Sugar parts onto the harddrive so that those who have old Windows machines can pull a Wubi like Sugar install and walk away while it does its thing... SoaS is a great idea but way too labor intensive (and temperamental in my experience) for anyone thinking big like 30+ machines old Windows machines, which by the way are cheap and widely available. And, as noted on the IRC, USB sticks are notoriously temperamental and prone to corruption.

===Soas thoughts===
I can hear the students now... "My USB stick ate my homework!" And then the parents start calling. And the administrators get involved... no teacher wants those kinds of variables in their class and will actively work against such chaos. There's chaos enough in the classroom without malfunctioning technology... right? Work some tech magic, if there is an internet connection then [http://www.samba.org/rsync/ rsync] or whatever the students' last changed work. Google Gears? Some other subscription animal? Make that an option... bluetooth it where possible into common file names. Something, anything, to back up the student work as grades are riding on that work... and parents and administrators go BALLISTIC/POSTAL when a student gets a bad grade because they didn't turn 'in their work because the XYZ techno system didn't work'. I've been at the front of a few of those blasts and its enough to want to quit teaching... who needs the hassle? Again, this is why computers have not been embraced in the classroom. Too many variables not enough reason to introduce all of this chaos, the costs out weigh the benefits.

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.
===idealized===
The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,minimizes variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

==See also==
* [[Education Team/Theory and practce|Theory and practice]]
* [[Education Team/Lesson Plan resources|Lesson-plan resources]]
* [[Education Team/Education_Bibliographies|Education bibliography]]
* [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]
* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Team/}}

[[Category:Education Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Marketing Team/Name

2010-01-20T04:10:21Z

Docdtv: Add "OLPC Juice"

== Introduction ==

This is a discussion on the name "Sugar" and potential alternatives. There are currently no active initiatives to rebrand. Note that re-branding would be a very difficult, costly, and extended process - however, if you believe it to be worthwhile, go for it and start mapping out and proposing a gameplan on how and why to do so. Please add to the discussion on this page if you have ideas/are interested.

== History ==

Please explain here how the name "Sugar" emerged and how the decision to use it was made.

== Downsides to current name ==

* Does the name "Sugar" really convey our common mission in a way is at the very least memorable and at the very best is inspiring?
* Do we have a slogan that conveys the proper images to non-technical audiences?

The names "Sugar" and "Sugar Labs" have no intuitive relationship to education or to our mission goals.

== Potential alternatives ==

* Sugar Land
* Playground

Both names convey a sense of place and safety for children. Sugar is not simply a background canvas like Windows XP. I propose keeping Sugar Labs for the organization name and renaming "Sugar" the environment to SugarLand.

* OLPC Juice - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

I thought the term "OLPC" was much better known than "Sugar Labs," but based ONLY on
[http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/docdtv/Technology/Popularity/20100119.htm Web search hit counts], OLPC has even better name recognition than I had guessed. And the phrase "one laptop per child" does even enormously better - but it is a mouthful! So I think re-branding Sugar as an OLPC derivative makes a lot of sense. On the whole, the word "juice" has wholesome connotations - as a nutritional food, a font of energy and so on - much better, I think, than Sugar. Juice is also an extract which is intimately related to its precursor host. That's why I think "OLPC Juice" is a much better name for what is now called "Sugar." (If there is some reason the acronym "OLPC" could not be used by Sugar Labs, I think even "Sugar Labs Juice" is a better software name than "Sugar.")

* Learning Logs & refinements - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

The name is evocative of a once(still?)-popular commercial USA building tool for children called "Lincoln Logs." The second word also recalls "Logo," with its arcane but respectable educational heritage and also "Lego," yet another commercial building tool for children, of international repute. One drawback is that "Logs" does not immediately convey the VIRTUAL nature of the learning environment. However, the word "log" DOES reflect that Activities are preserved, so that they can be revisited and extended at a future time.
(Some quick online searching reveals this name is ALREADY applied to a type of pedagogy. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_log). Perhaps more words could be added for branding. A feeble possibility is "Logical Learning Logs", suggesting the use of the undergirding logic circuitry of the machine. Being alliterative, many triple-L logos are immediately obvious. One can escape alliteration with "Digital Learning Logs." The phrase "Digital Online Learning Logs" roughly has as its acronym DOLLs - but I am told that boys today will only play with "action figures."

Wiki Team

2010-01-13T03:16:55Z

Docdtv: point to video hosting discussed elsewhere

<noinclude>{{ GoogleTrans-en | es =show | bg =show | zh-CN =show | zh-TW =show | hr =show | cs =show | da =show | nl =show | fi =show | fr =show | de =show | el =show | hi =show | it =show | ja =show | ko =show | no =show | pl =show | pt =show | ro =show | ru =show | sv =show }}
{{TeamHeader|Wiki Team}}</noinclude>{{TOCright}}

==Mission==
{{:Wiki Team/Mission}}

==Welcome to the Wiki Team==
The Wiki Team helps the community keep the Sugar Labs wiki organized and up to date. Individual teams create and maintain their content on the wiki. The wiki team will help edit that content and structure it in the wiki.

===requests===
*collaborative graphical mind mapping tool of some kind
**support for uploading Labyrinth code for live use on Wiki?
*install toolbar plugin for editing tips as found on wikipedia
*enable plugin for video playback in wiki
*tighten control on spammers
*install plugin for creating FAQ layout easily
====questions====
What constraints on uploading video (ogv) files are there? Easy way to get around the various problems of this vid site vs that vid site? How much does B/W and storage cost... (ouch. $?, I know... so why ask? Because it's still a valid question.)

The project is ALREADY handling videos via outsourcing to Dailymotion, and other venues are under discussion. See [[Marketing_Team]]

==Projects==
The main projects of the Wiki Team include:

* Cleaning up older, out-of-date articles
* Updating existing articles
* Organizing, categorizing, & restructuring the Wiki content
* Editing existing articles
* Developing ideas to improve the organization of the content on the Wiki
* Reverting the occasional wiki vandalism

For more details about getting started, please read the [[Wiki Team/Resources|Guide]] and check out our [[Wiki Team/TODO| To Do list]].

== Subpages ==
{{Special:PrefixIndex/Wiki_Team/}}

[[Category:Wiki]]
[[Category:Team]]

Marketing Team/Name

2010-01-13T03:12:38Z

Docdtv: Learning logs already in use - discuss further

== Introduction ==

This is a discussion on the name "Sugar" and potential alternatives. There are currently no active initiatives to rebrand. Note that re-branding would be a very difficult, costly, and extended process - however, if you believe it to be worthwhile, go for it and start mapping out and proposing a gameplan on how and why to do so. Please add to the discussion on this page if you have ideas/are interested.

== History ==

Please explain here how the name "Sugar" emerged and how the decision to use it was made.

== Downsides to current name ==

* Does the name "Sugar" really convey our common mission in a way is at the very least memorable and at the very best is inspiring?
* Do we have a slogan that conveys the proper images to non-technical audiences?

The names "Sugar" and "Sugar Labs" have no intuitive relationship to education or to our mission goals.

== Potential alternatives ==

* Sugar Land
* Playground

Both names convey a sense of place and safety for children. Sugar is not simply a background canvas like Windows XP. I propose keeping Sugar Labs for the organization name and renaming "Sugar" the environment to SugarLand.

* Learning Logs & refinements - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

The name is evocative of a once(still?)-popular commercial USA building tool for children called "Lincoln Logs." The second word also recalls "Logo," with its arcane but respectable educational heritage and also "Lego," yet another commercial building tool for children, of international repute. One drawback is that "Logs" does not immediately convey the VIRTUAL nature of the learning environment. However, the word "log" DOES reflect that Activities are preserved, so that they can be revisited and extended at a future time.
(Some quick online searching reveals this name is ALREADY applied to a type of pedagogy. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_log). Perhaps more words could be added for branding. A feeble possibility is "Logical Learning Logs", suggesting the use of the undergirding logic circuitry of the machine. Being alliterative, many triple-L logos are immediately obvious. One can escape alliteration with "Digital Learning Logs." The phrase "Digital Online Learning Logs" roughly has as its acronym DOLLs - but I am told that boys today will only play with "action figures."

Marketing Team/Name

2010-01-13T02:58:30Z

Docdtv: /* Potential alternatives */

Marketing Team/Name

2010-01-13T02:49:20Z

Docdtv: History request

Marketing Team

2010-01-13T02:46:24Z

Docdtv: Add auditing

<noinclude>{{ GoogleTrans-en}}{{TeamHeader|Marketing Team}}</noinclude>

<div style="font-size: 1.0em; background: #daffd5; padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #cde7a8" align=left>'''The Sugar Labs Marketing Team exists to spread the good word about Sugar.''' Sugar provides a simple yet powerful means of engaging young children in the world of learning that is opened up by computing and the Internet. It is the job of the Sugar Labs Marketing Team to promote the benefits of Sugar as widely as possible, and to recruit volunteers to help improve the Sugar experience.</div>

{{TOCright}}

== Mission ==
{{:Marketing Team/Mission}}

== Team Coordinator ==

{{:Marketing Team/Coordinator}} (sdaly at sugarlabs.org) is Marketing Coordinator and welcomes ideas and comments but most of all communicators interested in helping out!

== Projects ==

Deliverables and/or initiatives actively being worked on (with goals and deadlines).

===[[Marketing_Team/Events|Events]]===
See [[Marketing Team/Events]] for a table of events we are targeting.

=== Press page ===

Our Press page is here: http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press

Translator assistance welcomed!

=== Sugar Stories ===

How Sugar motivates us: a series of profiles on contributors. [[Marketing Team/Sugar stories]]

=== Press contacts list ===

We're working on a [[Marketing Team/Press contacts]] list with education-oriented publications. This list is maintained by the Marketing Coordinator.

=== PR phone line ===

+1.857.265.1100

[[Marketing Team/Phone]] is a number that journalists can call for quotes, interviews, clarifications, etc. about Sugar. This is a VoIP number which at this time forwards either to the Marketing Coordinator, an Oversight Board member, or voicemail which is forwarded as a timestamped soundfile to pr AT sugarlabs DOT org, an account monitored through forwarding by the Marketing Coordinator and two others.

=== Sugar Labs website ===

Our polished static website as a landing page for Sugar Labs is live and the new Activities section too. We are currently working on a common navigation bar for all the site sections to simplify navigation for first-time visitors. [[Marketing Team/Website]]

=== [[Marketing Team/Swag|Swag]] ===

To view, download, and contribute to swag designs (stickers, t-shirts, business cards, USB sticks, etc.) and coordinate purchasing swag from suppliers, see [[Marketing Team/Swag]].

== Discussions ==

Conversations that may one day turn into projects, or may have in the past been projects.

=== "Audited" Circulation ===

- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

While a small user community might discourage adoption of a tool,
a large user community can help encourage adoption. And of course,
small communities need always precede large ones! You know the old
expression: "Eat Sugar! 10**9 flies can't be wrong!" <G>

How do you measure the size of a community? A great way to do that
with automata connected to a global communication network is to
have them "phone home" now and then. Now, I hope what I am suggesting
does not break with any covenent, (implicit or explicit, moral or legal).
But would it be so harmful if, say once a day, a Sugar installation
would briefly tell Sugar Labs "Hey, I'm alive on a machine today!"

Some might agree to do this, but worry about a slippery slope.
Would the future of this humble audit parallel the course of the
United States decennial census, growing from a simple enumeration
into a ruthless and arrogant demographic strip-search?

Of course, audits could be of great benefit to end-users, especially
if they included Activity installation audits. For example, they could
evolve into a mechanism for warning the user about a terrible bug
that needs patching, or advertising a follow-on tool almost all users
adopt upon learning about the new existence of same. By "factoring" the
audit mechanism into a system-wide facility, Activity developers would
be spared the need to code such support on their own.

As a courtesy to Sugar users, cooperation in audits should be voluntary.
But every user should be told why such an audit can help him and others.

Naturally, all this is limited by the fact that not every last machine
on which Sugar will be run will be attached to the Internet.

=== Video channels ===

- [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

1. Does a YouTube channel exist? If not, why not?
There already is a channel at Dailymotion with 19 videos as we write:
http://www.dailymotion.com/sugarlabs/1
YouTube may not use an open source codec, but it is an
incredibly popular search engine and affiliate-propagation tool, see:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/12/31/technology/internet/31tubeGrfx/articleInline.jpg

2. First video would be a 60-second TV-style ad explaining

... what Sugar is (leverage OLPC brand-awareness!)

... that it is free

... what you need to run it

... how you get a copy to install

3. Every time a pitch (q.v. below) is created, a YouTube video record of same is made.
The YouTube version can add stills or short video clips to a talking head.

=== Pitches ===

Short, 1-page elevator pitches to sell Sugar to various audiences. Not formalized, but the homepage (www.sugarlabs.org) is the best starting point. [[Marketing Team/Pitches]]

=== Logo ===

See [[Marketing Team/Logo]].

=== Name ===

Ongoing discussion. See [[Marketing Team/Name]]

=== Slogans ===

Several slogan options are available at [[Marketing Team/Slogan]].

== Subpages ==

{{Special:PrefixIndex/Marketing_Team/}}

[[Category:Marketing Team]]
[[Category:Team]]

Marketing Team/Logo

2010-01-13T02:16:59Z

Docdtv: Cross-reference wiki page

{{TOCright}}
===Wiki page cross-reference===

See also the related page [[Design Team/Logo Ideas]]

===Sugar Graphic Identity===

The Sugar Labs logo exists in the color combinations shown below. The logo can sit either on a white or black background, and the color combinations change order based on the background--against a white background the outline color around "sugar" is always lighter than the fill color, while against a black background the outline color is darker than the fill color.

==Sugar logo variations==

[[Image:logo_alt_3.png|240px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_3.png]]

Sugar logo | primary colors | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_3.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_3.png PNG]

[[Image:logo_alt_1.png|400px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_1.png]]

Sugar Labs logo | primary colors | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_1.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_1.png PNG]

[[Image:Logo_alt_1(R).png|400px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Logo_alt_1(R).png]]

Sugar Labs logo | primary colors w/ registration mark | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Logo_alt_1(R).svg] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Logo_alt_1(R).png]

[[Image:logo_alt_2.png|240px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_2.png]]

Sugar Labs logo (alternate, usage discouraged) | primary colors | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_2.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_alt_2.png PNG]

[[Image:logo_SoaS_01.png|540px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_01.png]]

Sugar on a Stick logo | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_01.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_01.png PNG]

[[Image:logo_SoaS_02.png|540px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_02.png]]

Sugar on a Stick logo | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_02.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_02.png PNG]

[[Image:logo_SoaS_03.png|540px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_03.png]]

Sugar on a Stick logo | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_03.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_SoaS_03.png PNG]

==Logo usage==
*The logo should be used '''only on a black or white background'''
*Make sure there is '''generous space surrounding the logo''', as shown in the PNG and SVG files.
*Don't use any other color combinations than the ones shown below.
*'''Don't alter the logo''' in any other way--don't stretch, rotate, or change the letter spacing and size.
*Scale down only as long as the color outline around "sugar" is still clearly visible.
*While the Sugar Labs logo also exists as a stacked version for use in space-confined situations, the '''single line logo is the primary treatment''' and should be used wherever possible.
*'''Prefixes or suffixes should not be incorporated into the logo'''. This also accounts for country names, e.g. "[Sugar Labs Logo] CountryName". The logo needs to stand on its own. Prefixes or suffixes should not be handled as a part of the logo, but instead in regular text, such as when writing about a country specific Sugar Labs entity, e.g. "Sugar Labs CountryName". Note: There may be exceptions that should be discussed case by case, such as the Sugar on a Stick logo above.
*Solely for informational purposes, the logo font is VAG rounded. The font Modata, in the mgopen package, is closely based on this font (individual [http://www.zvr.gr/typo/mgopen/index Modata] ttf files).

If you have any questions about correct logo usage, contact [http://sugarlabs.org/go/User:Christianmarcschmidt Christian Marc Schmidt] at anything [at] christianmarcschmidt.com.

==Sugar Labs logo for white backgrounds==

{|
|[[Image:logo_white_01.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_01.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_01.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_01.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_02.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_02.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_02.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_02.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_03.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_03.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_03.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_03.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_white_04.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_04.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_04.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_04.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_05.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_05.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_05.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_05.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_06.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_06.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_06.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_06.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_white_07.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_07.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_07.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_07.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_8.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_8.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_8.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_8.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_09.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_09.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_09.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_09.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_white_10.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_10.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_10.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_10.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_11.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_11.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_11.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_11.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_white_12.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_12.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_12.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_white_12.png PNG]
|}

==Sugar Labs logo for black backgrounds==

{|
|[[Image:logo_black_01.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_01.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_01.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_01.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_02.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_02.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_02.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_02.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_03.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_03.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_03.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_03.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_black_04.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_04.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_04.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_04.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_05.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_05.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_05.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_05.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_06.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_06.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_06.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_06.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_black_07.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_07.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_07.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_07.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_08.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_08.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_08.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_08.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_09.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_09.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_9.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_09.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_black_10.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_10.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_10.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_10.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_11.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_11.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_11.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_11.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_black_12.png|300px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_12.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_12.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_black_12.png PNG]
|}

==Sugar Labs logo (alt) for white backgrounds==

(use only in space-confined situations)

{|
|[[Image:logo_square_white_01.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_01.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_01.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_01.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_02.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_02.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_02.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_02.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_03.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_03.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_03.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_03.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_04.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_04.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_04.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_04.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_square_white_05.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_05.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_05.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_05.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_06.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_06.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_06.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_06.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_07.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_07.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_07.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_07.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_8.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_8.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_08.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_8.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_square_white_09.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_09.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_09.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_09.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_10.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_10.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_10.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_10.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_11.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_11.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_11.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_11.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_white_12.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_12.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_12.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_white_12.png PNG]
|}

==Sugar Labs logo (alt) for black backgrounds==

(use only in space-confined situations)

{|
|[[Image:logo_square_black_01.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_01.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_01.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_01.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_02.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_02.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_02.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_02.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_03.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_03.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_03.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_03.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_04.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_04.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_04.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_04.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_square_black_05.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_05.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_05.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_05.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_06.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_06.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_06.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_06.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_07.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_07.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_07.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_07.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_08.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_08.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_08.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_08.png PNG]
|-
|[[Image:logo_square_black_09.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_09.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_09.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_09.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_10.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_10.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_10.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_10.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_11.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_11.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_11.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_11.png PNG]
|[[Image:logo_square_black_12.png|180px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_12.png]]
[http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_12.svg SVG] | [http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:logo_square_black_12.png PNG]
|}

==Sugar Labs favicons==

{|
|[[Image:favicon_01.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_01.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_02.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_02.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_03.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_03.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_04.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_04.png]]
|-
|[[Image:favicon_05.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_05.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_06.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_06.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_07.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_07.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_08.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_08.png]]
|-
|[[Image:favicon_09.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_09.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_10.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_10.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_11.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_11.png]]
|[[Image:favicon_12.png|64|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:favicon_12.png]]
|}

==Color Palette==
[[Image:Color_palette.png|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Color_palette.png]]

==SoaS Banners==
[[Image:Sugar-on-a-Stick-Strawberry.png|400px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Sugar-on-a-Stick-Strawberry.png]]
[[Image:Sugar-on-a-Stick-Blueberry.png|400px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Sugar-on-a-Stick-Blueberry.png]]
[[Image:Sugar-on-a-Stick-Grape.png|400px|http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:Sugar-on-a-Stick-Grape.png]]

==Documentation==
Sugar Labs logo PDF (2009-01-31)
http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:090131_sugarlabs_logo.pdf

Sugar Labs certification badges PDF (2008-10-22)
http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:081022_badges.pdf

Design Team/Logo Ideas

2010-01-13T02:15:14Z

Docdtv: cross-reference Wiki page

Design Team/Logo Ideas

2010-01-13T02:05:02Z

Docdtv: Mix building blocks and sugar cubes of the same size

Design Team/Logo Ideas

2010-01-13T01:54:04Z

Docdtv: evaluate suggestion

Marketing Team

2010-01-13T01:35:01Z

Docdtv: Mention Dailymotion

Marketing Team

2010-01-08T02:26:12Z

Docdtv: Create Youtube channel section