Sugar Labs/Current Events

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This page is updated each week (usually on Monday morning) with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list, blogged at walterbender.org, and archived here.) If you would like to contribute, please send email to walter at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit planet.sugarlabs.org.)

Sugar Digest

1. Tales from Peru. I spend a three exhilarating days in Peru this week. As is the case with most flights from the States, I arrived in Lima close to midnight on Wednesday. But I managed to get to the ministry of education for an early morning meeting with Victor Castillo, the pedagogical lead with the Peru one-laptop-per-child program. Peru has deployed hundreds of thousands of machines in some of the most remote regions in the country. Victor gave me an update about the program and briefed me on the IADB-sponsored evaluation. When I asked him what more the development community could do, he response was that he wanted less—fewer activities—because every time we add more, there is a need for more training, which is difficult given the remoteness of the schools. What Victor then explained was that he wanted a solid base of around ten activities from which the teachers and children would grow—"low floor no ceiling". Being able to "hide" additional activities behind the circle in the list view is feature that he looks forward to when they upgrade their machines. The cleanliness and simplicity of the 0.86 toolbar was appreciated, as well as the ubiquitous presence of the Stop Button. But we do need to be vigilant not to overload Sugar with extraneous features. Less really is more.


I also talked with Oscar Becerra, who is leading the project in Peru. He voiced a concern about not introducing change for change sake, but nonetheless we agreed that Sugar 0.86 would be a positive step forward—one that perhaps could be made in conjunction with the introduction of the OLPC XO-1.5 machines. We also discussed using Sugar on a Stick as a way to reach more children sooner, as given budget constraints, it will take many years to reach the point where every child can be given a laptop.


Thursday evening, I attened a meeting for Sugar community volunteers organized by Sebastian Silva [www.fuentelibre.org FuenteLibre] and Kiko Mayorga [escuelab.org Escuelab] at Escuelab's facility in Lima's Centro Historico. The Escuelab is in a beautiful space—labs on one floor, residence on another. I walked in to the sight of a roomful of machines running Sugar on Trisquel. The young son of one of the attendees was exploring Sugar for the first time. When he got to the Physics activity, I was transfixed. He was playing the activity like a musical instrument, a fluid dance of objects bouncing around the screen in unexpected configurations. Amazing.


The meeting itself also had its surprises. More than forty people of diverse crowded into the room; an animated discussion ensued (en español). There is passion and talent in the Sugar community in Peru and they are getting organized. Stay tuned.

The next morning I went to visit a school in Chaclayo . As always, it is thrilling to see children using Sugar, even though in this case, it was Sugar from two-years ago. They were using Write, Record, Chess, and Paint. I gave a Turtle Art lesson, which was a treat for me. The one negative were the touchpads. They were jumping all over the place, which, in this old version of Sugar, caused the Frame to appear sporadically. It was really disruptive. More resent versions of Sugar don't have this problem. We need to get an upgrade to these kids.

I spent Saturday at the University of San Martin de Porres, host to the Fourth Freedom & Open Source Day. I used the theme "turtles all the way down" in my talk, arguing both the need for freedom for education and education for freedom. I started my talk with a puzzle: 0, 1, 2, 720!. What comes next? For some people, this puzzle is pretty easy because they immediately make the connection between 720 and 6!. And since 6 is 3!, a quick series of substitutions lead you to: 0, 1!, 2!!, 3!!!, 4!!!!, … Why did I bring this up? I wanted to make a point about low-shelf vs high-shelf tools. We all have tools on our low shelf, easy to access. If 6!=720 is on your low shelf, this was an easy puzzle. If it is on your high shelf, you had to reach for the solution. If it wasn't on either shelf, you had to work even harder, or perhaps you gave up entirely. I went on to argue that computation should be on every child's low shelf.

I spent the rest of the day at working with the student group, Cixos-FIA (cixosfia.libreusmp.org) . We did a 30-minute code sprint and wrote the stub of an activity. (Actually, it took 45 minutes, because I was using vi.) I installed emacs and then we really started making headway, enough to consider setting up our project in git. We installed git and then it was time to create a new project on Gitorious. When we went to push, we discovered that there was a firewall. So we installed tor, but there was a missing dependency, connect, for which we could only find the source, not a binary. We installed gcc, compiled it, and we able to push our project. It was actually nice to encounter so many roadblocks, but persist and avail.


2. There was an Oversight Board meeting at the same time as I was visiting the school. Our next meeting will be this Friday (30 Oct) on #sugar-meeting at 14:00 UTC.


3. Josh Williams

has been making updates to activities.sugarlabs.org. You can check out his work at 

http://activities-testing.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/ . Speaking of ASLO, 200,000 more activities in the two weeks since we hit the one-million-download milestone.


Sugar Labs

4. Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see SOM).


Community News archive

An archive of this digest is available.

Planet

The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.

Sugar in the news

08 Oct 2009 IBM developerWorks 10 important Linux developments everyone should know about
01 Oct 2009 OLPC FranceInterview Walter Bender au SugarCamp
25 Sep 2009 The InquirerOne Laptop per Child marches on
18 Sep 2009 GroklawThe Role of Free Software in Education
18 Sep 2009 ReutersSugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
17 Sep 2009 ICTDev.orgDream Again with One Laptop per Child
26 Aug 2009 LatinuxAzúcar en una memoria USB
03 Aug 2009 Wired: Geek DadInventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
23 Jul 2009 Everything USBRecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
22 Jul 2009 OLPC FranceSugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
13 Jul 2009 Spiegel OnlineDas zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
07 Jul 2009 ComputerWorldUKGran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
06 Jul 2009 Windows ForestUSBメモリなどから“OLPC”用のOSを利用できる「Sugar on a Stick」が無償公開
02 Jul 2009 Howard County LibrarySugar on a Stick
27 Jun 2009 DeutschlandfunkSüßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
26 Jun 2009 EduTechSugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
26 Jun 2009 Ars TechnicaSugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
24 Jun 2009 BBCOLPC software to power aging PCs
24 Jun 2009 Technology Review$100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
15 Jun 2009 TechSavvyKidsEpisode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
10 Jun 2009 LWN.netSugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
27 May 2009 LWN.netActivities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
27 May 2009 Business WireDailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
01 May 2009 GuysoftNokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
29 Apr 2009 El MercurioAsí se vivió la fiesta del software libre
27 Apr 2009 ostaticSugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
25 Apr 2009 Free Software MagazineThe Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
24 Apr 2009 Ars TechnicaFirst taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
22 Apr 2009 BetanewsBeta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
27 Mar 2009 Mass High TechGoogle promotes summer open-source internships
18 Mar 2009 MetropolisA Good Argument
16 Mar 2009 Laptop MagazineSugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
16 Mar 2009 Market WatchSugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
14 Feb 2009 OLPC Learning Club – DCLearning Learning on a Stick
05 Feb 2009 xconomySugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
26 Jan 2009 Linus MagazineSugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
19 Jan 2009 Feeding the PenguinsThe status of Sugar, post-OLPC
16 Jan 2009 OLPC NewsSugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
12 Jan 2009 Bill Kerrthoughts about olpc cutbacks
07 Jan 2009 Ars TechnicaOLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
06 Jan 2009 OLPC NewsAn Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
30 Dec 2008 OLPC NewsSugar Labs Status at Six Months
22 Dec 2008 The GNOME ProjectSugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
16 Dec 2008 Feeding the PenguinsSugar git repository change
14 Dec 2008 NPRLaptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
13 Dec 2008 NPRLaptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
09 Dec 2008 SFCSugar Labs joins Conservancy
31 Oct 2008 Linux DevicesAn OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
10 Oct 2008 Feeding the PenguinSugar on Ubuntu
21 Sep 2008 GroklawInterview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
17 Sep 2008 Bill KerrSugar Labs
16 Sep 2008 Open SourceSugar everywhere
28 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsAn answer to Walter Bender's question 22
20 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsSugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
08 Aug 2008 Investor's Business Daily'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
06 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsTwenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
18 Jul 2008 Bill Kerrevaluating Sugar in the developed world
28 Jun 2008 OLPC NewsA Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
18 Jun 2008 PC WorldOLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
17 Jun 2008 DatamationIf Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
11 Jun 2008 LinuxInsiderThe Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
06 Jun 2008 Bill Kerruntangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
06 Jun 2008 Open EducationWalter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
06 Jun 2008 BusinessWeekOLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
05 Jun 2008 Code CultureThe Distraction Machine
05 Jun 2008 BusinessWeekOLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
27 May 2008 The New York TimesWhy Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
26 May 2008 Ars TechnicaOLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
22 May 2008 BetaNewsLinux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
16 May 2008 OSTATICOLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
16 May 2008 PCWorldBender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
16 May 2008 MHTBender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
16 May 2008 News.comSugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
16 May 2008 Feeding the PeguinsThe future of Sugar
16 May 2008 Sugar listA few thoughts on SugarLabs
16 May 2008 xconomyBender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
16 May 2008 BBC'$100 laptop' platform moves on
15 May 2008 OLPC wikiDual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
16 May 2008 SoftpediaBender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI

Press releases

See our Press Page