Getting Started/Explore

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--Inkyfingers 09:27, 2 December 2011 (EST) Estimate completion 48 hours

Explore it

Once you have successfully launched Sugar on a Stick, you should explore the Sugar Learning Platform.

Do try running Sugar on more than one machine, so you can enjoy its collaboration features.

If you find navigation unusual try this micro tutorial.

Here is the user guide.

The Sugar Learners' manual

view now:
	available as: or 128 pages, 8.3 MBytes (for saving or printing). The manual needs to be updated to include information regarding Sugar-on-a-Stick.

Configuration

Sugar on a Stick uses by default the English (USA) keyboard layout.
If you need to change this, you need to right click the Learner icon and click on 'My Settings'

From the My Settings control panel you will see a 'Keyboard' control tool that will allow you to change the default keyboard layout.
Explore the other configuration changes that you may make on this panel.

It is interesting to explore the changes you can make in 'Frame'.

Connecting to the Internet

Connecting to the Internet is something that somewhat falls between the cracks of Sugar and the computer it's running on.

On the XO laptop, there are three ways to connect to the Internet:

Wireless access point (Wi-Fi hotspot);
“School Server” mesh network; or
“simple” mesh network, which lets you collaborate directly with other XOs running Sugar.

From a conventional laptop running Sugar, connecting through an access point works. (Mesh support is becoming available on more machines.) Depending upon which Jabber server you are connected to, you'll see different collections of "neighbors" in the Neighborhood View.

Read the Connecting to the Internet page for detailed instructions.

Getting Productive

Look Around

A browser

The activity named Browse is supplied on XO laptops (here is the homepage at OLPC). A separate activity named Surf is supplied with Sugar on a Stick. Both are Internet browsers.

Find the Floss manual for Browse is here, http://en.flossmanuals.net/browse/index/

Browse includes Gnash, the GNU Flash movie player.

You could do a quick test that your sound and video are working correctly by visiting this link http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Media_of_the_day

This link is an excellent introduction to Sugar. If it is not in your first language, all the better, you can concentrate more on watching!

The Journal

The Journal activity is an automated diary of everything you do.

See the The Sugar Learners' manual chapter The Journal.

Memorize

The game memorize is about finding matching pairs. A pair can consist of any multimedia object. At the moment these are images, sounds and text but this could be extended to animations or movie snippets as well. Which pairs do match is up to the creator of the game. Memorize is actually more than just a predefined game you can play, it allows you to create new games yourself as well. At present the home page for Memorize is with OLPC

This silent video clip shows Memorize in action. http://olpc.dailymotion.com/video/x9dfoq_memorize_creation

Record

The Record activity provides a simple way for children to take pictures, view slide shows, and record video and audio—all content that can be shared.

Record Activity Manual

Turtle Art

You might like to watch this video clip, http://olpc.dailymotion.com/video/xa71j3_to-square_creation read a few paragraphs of Activities/TurtleArt#Getting_Started, then jump right in!

Note you can expect this clip to work in Sugar, but may be blocked to other browsers.

If the clip fails to run to the end, try this one http://olpc.dailymotion.com/video/x9coz8_turtle-art-basics_creation

Later, make sure to go back to the manual, [Turtle Art] and the home page Activities/TurtleArt.

There are some nice tutorials here Turtle Art tutorials by Tony Forster and Mokurai.

Abacus

Activities/Abacus

Write

Write is a basic text editing application featuring straightforward tools and a simple interface. Write

Etoys

Etoys is ...

an educational tool for teaching children powerful ideas in compelling ways
a media-rich authoring environment and visual programming system
a free software program that works on almost all personal computers

This activity is the Sugar version of Etoys, which is compatible with the versions running on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

When you open Etoys the splash on lower right is the launcher for tutorials and demos. The ? in top left corner for help links.

More at the homepage: http://squeakland.org/

Pippy

Pippy is a simple and fun introduction to programming in Python, the dynamic programming language underlying much of the software on the laptop.

The home page for Pippy at OLPC

Downloads

Along with the applications built into Sugar there is an ever-growing array of downloadable content and built-in access to popular Web-based applications. This includes Google applications, SimCity, GCompris (a suite of award-winning educational software for children), and hundreds of other applications. There are currently thousands of software developers around the world developing content for the Sugar and OLPC .

To download and install a new activity:

start the Activity Browse or Surf,
go to http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/ webpage, (or click the Activities link, third from left on the colored navigation bar along the top of this page.)
search for a new activity,
say you chose Listen and Spell 2
click on the Download Now button under the title to download Listen and Spell 2
Wait for the download to complete - watch for the countdown,
open the Journal activity
“resume" or "start” the downloaded activity from the Journal entry; the new activity should both launch and install on your taskbar.

TamTam

TamTamMini for the very young

TamTamJam is the music performance activity. Sounds are played by striking individual keys on the keyboard

TamTamEdit a colorful and intuitive graphical interface to create, modify and organise notes on five virtual “tracks”

SynthLab is an advanced application for those who are ready to venture into sophisticated sound design.

Here is the homepage at OLPC

Read an eBook

Read your favorite book. Activities/Read_Etexts

Calculate

A simple calculator.

More to explore

Have you noticed? When you are thinking how do I work this? the first place to look is the homepage of the activity. They are listed here Category:Activities. If you do not find what you need, try the developer pages - Activities - this is the same link as "Activity pages" in the navigation sidebar.

Activity Manuals and Tutorials

You will find the range of Floss Activity manuals here, look under OLPC / Sugar

Manuals in .pdf

This is a link to a .pdf manual for the Activity Record. When you click on the link you have the opportunity to download the file. Click the download link and the file will start to download. When the download is complete the file will be in your Journal. Provided you have the Activity Read successfully installed, the .pdf file will open when you click on it. You should note that the Activity Read, is known not to work, at present, on Sugar On a Stick.

This is a link to the directory containing the record manual and more .pdf manuals, which you can download.

Sugar Labs video clips at OLPC

A collection of video clips which should be viewable in the Sugar Activity, Browse.

Three final words.

So when you are uncertain, what will you do?

Read the manual.

Feedback

Sugar Labs is an all volunteer-run organization that depends on the feedback and participation of Learners (our community).

all on the sidebar of every wiki page.