Difference between revisions of "Education Team"

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<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 }}
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{{Graduate|All activity moved to http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/ but might have nice things to pull}}
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{{TeamHeader|EducationTeam}}</noinclude>
 
  
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{{Translations  
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<noinclude>{{Translations | [[Education Team|english]] &#124; [[Education Team/lang-es|español]] &#124; [[Education Team/lang-ru|русский]]}}{{TeamHeader|Education Team}}</noinclude>
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  | [[EducationTeam|english]] &#124; [[EducationTeam/lang-es|español]] &#124; [[EducationTeam/lang-ru|русский]]}}
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 +
 
 +
 
 +
== 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:
 
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:
  
−
* Start the very large and wide-ranging discussion about appropriate education theory (based on scientific study of children and adults, such as schoolteachers);
+
* 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 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;
 
* 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;
Line 13: Line 18:
 
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.
 
* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.
  
−
==Theory==
+
== Meeting venues ==
−
:''Epistemology is the construction of personal standards for telling fact from fancy, truth from fiction, and certainty from doubt. Ontology is the construction of theories of what exists. Ethical constructions remind us of what we think we should do even if we don't want to, and why. Everybody has them, and normally no two of us agree on them. The epistemology of Prussian-style education is, the King and his ministers are always right, and even if they weren't you would have no business questioning them. Or, at the classroom level, “It's true because I said so, now shut up and sit down!” The same attitude is common, even usual, in ontology and ethics as well. Nations are real because I said so, You're going to war to because I said so.''—Edward Cherlin (revised [[User:Mokurai|Mokurai]] 06:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC))
 
  
−
Cherlin paints a grim picture.
+
'''Walter Bender reports on Feb 1, 2013 that:
  
−
Fortunately, this is nowhere near the whole story, but we have a long way to go before children's right to pursue truth is seriously recognized. While the theoretical layer of didactic methods has advanced, unfortunately, in much of the world's formal education systems, there has been little progress.
+
''The "education team" meets weekly here [1], [2], [3].
  
−
The computer serves as a powerful tool for getting new pedagogical approaches into the system. But, while getting computers into the hands of more children is undoubtedly of benefit, the question remains, “how does one maximize the learning that occurs?” The question often is framed in terms of teacher-centric methods (Instructionism) versus child-centric or learning-centric methods. This dichotomy is a false one [Really?]; while we should not be prescriptive, we should be striving for a “learning-centric” approach, where teachers mentor students as they engage with powerful ideas, “teaching less and learning more.”  While we want to give children access to knowledge—through media such as electronic books, the world-wide web, and multimedia—we also should try to skew the odds toward children and teachers appropriating this knowledge by putting it to use and engaging in critical dialog. That is not just going to happen by itself; we have to try to make it happen by giving them tools that put them in the roles of consumer, critic, and creator within the context of a learning community.
+
[1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Charlas_aprendizaje_2012
  
−
Learning is not a service—it's a process of active appropriation.
+
[2] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Chat_Espanol_2011
  
−
One of the forces being unleashed by the one-to-one computing initiatives—where children have access to computing “anytime” and “anywhere”—is the change in the way software developers and computer-makers think about the education industry. A combination of strong and capable leadership—by technologists and epistemologists—and cross-community collaboration is necessary to ensure that the ideals of freedom, sharing, open critique, and transparency will be part of the interface to learning that touches children in the world’s classrooms. While community collaboration may seem unrealistic from the vantage point of a model of economy as a machine, which individuals are single-purpose cogs wheels and gear, collaboration—and the resulting synthesis of ideas—is the most efficient means of invention and subsequent development. The “intelligence is in the leaves” and those who unleash that intelligence will prosper.
+
[3] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Spanish_Chat (2010)''
 +
'''
  
−
These ideas are embodied in the culture of free software, which is a powerful culture for learning. It is possible to instill in the education industry some of the culture, technology, and morals of the open source movement. Such a transfer of culture could greatly enhance the education industry and its ability to engage teachers and students: empowering them with both the freedom to act and the freedom to be critical. Criticism of ideas is a powerful force in learning and in fostering economic development; unleashing that is an important part of the mission. Conventional wisdom suggests that teachers don't want to learn (and change); to the contrary, teachers perhaps more than any other constituency know that the status quo is failing.
+
== 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)
  
−
==Practice==
+
== Means ==
  
−
Previous attempts at major education reform have foundered on the impossibility of rewriting all textbooks and retraining all teachers simultaneously, on the blank incomprehension of parents, and on political opposition to these new-fangled ideas. The XO gets around these obstacles by not confronting them. In particular, the XO provides access to the diversity of the Internet, without changes to textbooks or curricula, and without major retraining of teachers. New textbooks will come in due course, and teacher training will eventually catch up. With computers and Internet, children can show parents what they are learning. This genie will not go back into the bottle. Political opponents of educational advances are already in retreat to private schools and home schooling to a degree. We cannot predict how the political fight will turn out, because of its complexities and because it is a battle of ideas and organization, whose working we do not understand at all well. In such a case, it is prudent to organize support before the need is urgent. A degree of support will arise almost automatically from those whose children start to get a real education for the first time. Organizing that support appropriately is a daunting challenge, but some will turn up with the desire and ability to do various parts of it.
+
* 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)
  
−
==Computers==
+
* 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.
  
−
OLPC is about Seymour Papert's Constructionist education theory, although the announcements don't say that consistently. Sugar Labs is more clearly committed to Constructionism. But what is Constructionism? Is it true? Is it effective? Have we arrived at the one complete and final truth about education, so that no more need be said? Well, the answer to that last question is, Don't be silly. Like any good theory, Constructionism is reasonably accurate on some points, and needs further research on the great expanse of the unknown that surrounds that little lighted patch. So we cannot give a glib definition, or a brief summary, and claim that you know what you need to know. If you are serious about Constructionism, then like anything else worthwhile, you have to study at length and in detail to get any good at it, and there will always be somebody who is better at some part of it.
+
==Mailing Lists==
  
−
Seymour Papert slyly points out that simply giving a definition would not be a Constructionist way to teach you. Instead he suggests ways in which you can experience what works and what doesn't in current Constructionist programs. We can be a little more explicit, but the need for experience remains central.
+
'''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)
  
−
In Piaget's Constructivist theory of child development and learning, based on decades of research with children, understanding is something a child constructs internally out of experience and previous understanding (which in some cases will be misunderstanding), when the child's brain is sufficiently developed to support the ideas involved. One of his favorite examples is a mathematician who as a child had been astonished to discover that no matter how he arranged some pebbles he was playing with, when he counted them there were always ten. I don't know any adults who can remember not knowing that, so it is hard to discuss from personal experience. Children who don't know that yet would have no idea what you were talking about if you asked them, so that doesn't help either. But there are many things that come to children typically at a particular age, so that you can find younger children who don't know, and older children who do, and if you are particularly persistent and lucky you may be able to observe the developmental changeover from one day to the next, or even from one moment to another.
+
==Meetings==
  
−
Much more common are Aha! moments, in which a child (or adult) who has been working on a problem without insight suddenly gets it. In Constructionist education on computers, this is deliberately fostered. Alan Kay gives examples of ten-year-olds, with appropriate guidance on where and how to look, and appropriate computer software to assist them, discover essential concepts of calculus, such as the laws of constant acceleration with their geometric realization and their application to physics. The symbol manipulation and formal proofs have to be delayed to a more appropriate developmental stage, of course.
+
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.
  
−
Much more common still are opportunities to work together with the collaboration and mesh networking capabilities of the XO and Sugar to construct something, and to explore all that is known and unknown and share the results. This is what Ivan Krstić told us captured the teachers in Latin America, who were no longer bound to the inadequate textbooks and teaching materials provided by the government. And after the teachers got it, the parents soon got it.
+
''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,<b>minimizes</b> variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.
 +
--[[User:Dennis Daniels|Dennis Daniels]] 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  
 
==See also==
 
==See also==
−
* [[EducationTeam/Lesson Plan resources|lesson-plan resources]]
+
* [[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://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays Marvin Minksy essays]
−
[[Category:EducationTeam]]
+
* [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]]

Latest revision as of 13:29, 16 May 2016


english | español | русский HowTo [ID# 98637] 

Team Home   ·   Join   ·   Contacts   ·   Resources   ·   FAQ   ·   Roadmap   ·   To Do   ·   Meetings


Mission

The mission of the education team is to explain why Sugar is an ideal platform for learning, and to provide guidance and feedback to those who are working on how Sugar enhances learning.


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 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

See this 2011 September report:

Goals

Concretely, we want to reach three target audiences:

  1. existing OLPC deployments
  2. potential Sugar on a Stick deployments (classroom teachers, parents, community centers)
  3. potential non-OLPC netbook deployments (classroom teachers, parents)

Means

I put this here because it is an addition, but I feel it should be the first bullet point Yamaplos 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Moved to new Means subsection --Walter 16:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

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[1], whose archives[2] date from May 2008 and continue at least to the time of this writing, February 2013. - 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 your preferred meeting time to the list we are accumulating.

06 March 2009

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 here.
I am gratified to see a working teacher speak eloquently to these issues, as you do.
- 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 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 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 here.
I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - 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 API or 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. - 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 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 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.
- 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. --Dennis Daniels 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

See also

Subpages

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