Sugar Labs - User contributions [en]

User talk:Mokurai/Earth Treasury

2009-02-21T22:40:53Z

AndriusKulikauskas: Hi Ed, it's working!

==What <strike>is</strike>WAS not in the OLPC mission?==
it seems that NN altered the goals of olpc.

This restructuring is also the result of an exciting
new direction for OLPC. Our technology initiatives will focus on:
* Development of Generation 2.0
* A no-cost connectivity program
* A million digital books
* Passing on the development of the Sugar Operating System to the community.
[* and the 0$ laptop, sak]

--- Nicholas Negroponte
(from http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4228.msg28414#msg28414)

he didn't mention "education" or even "constructivism/constructionism". sadly [[User:Sak|Sak]] 14:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

== Creating Textbooks ==
Hi,

I'm wondering if your textbook idea ("This will also liberate 48 US states from the domination of the textbook market by California and Texas") includes K-12? If so, do you have a spot for Direct Instruction (not direct instruction) curriculum? Any ideas on funding?
-Kathy [[User:harriska2|harriska2]]

== Hi Ed==

I checked and the page http://www.earthtreasury.net on our server sends you to the Earth Treasury page at the sugar labs wiki. Andrius

XOCamp 2

2008-12-26T19:41:44Z

AndriusKulikauskas: /* Requests */

The second XOCamp is being held January 14-16 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

== Fundraising ==

Much of the original planning for XOCamp 2, including the fundraising and -spending, was actually carried out at SugarCamp. This is documented at [[olpc:XOCamp 2/Old fundraising]].

For XOCamp 2, it would be good to be able to repeat this fundraising for travel scholarships. There has been a proposal to divide half of all money raised equally, and half proportionally to remaining travel costs, among all attendants who claim a need and are coming from over 500 miles away. Thus if $600 were raised and divided among two people who spent $400 and $800 on tickets, they would get $350 and $550 respectively.

All donations are tax deductible and should be sent to [[Sugar_Labs/Donate | Sugar Labs]]. Please note your donation or pledge for travel here so that it can be used for this purpose instead of the general fund.

=== Pledges ===

Please include contact information. Or, for anonymous donations, contact me: I'm Jameson Quinn, my email is firstname.lastname@gmail.com. (Don't just send a check or we won't know what it's for.)

''Example:''

* Charles Babbage pledges <b>5 pounds</b> { babbage at differenceengine dot london }

''Donations''

* An anonymous donor pledges $100

=== Requests ===

* Jameson Quinn, from Guatemala, to give a talk on Develop activity. Approximately $650 including bus and airfare.

* Andres Ambrois, from Uruguay, to ???. Approximately $1300 including bus and airfare.

* JonasSmedegaard, from Denmark, to help discuss .deb-based packaging. Approximately $670 including bus and airfare.

* [[User:DanielDrake|DanielDrake]], from UK, approximate cost $600

* [[User:RafaelOrtiz|RafaelOrtiz]], from Colombia, approximate cost $1300

* John Dada, from Nigeria, approximate cost $1500

* [[User:Mokurai|Ed Cherlin]], from California, to give a talk on [[creating textbooks]] approximate cost $300

* Andrius Kulikauskus, from Bosnia, to discuss textbooks. He needs a ticket one way. About $350.

Minciu Sodas

2008-12-16T21:29:26Z

AndriusKulikauskas:

[http://www.ms.lt Minciu Sodas] is an online laboratory for serving and organizing independent thinkers.

Andrius Kulikauskas is founder and Direktorius. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics and (as of December 2008) is teaching algebra at [http://www.aubih.ba American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina].

Edward Cherlin leads the [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthtreasury Earth Treasury] working group at Minciu Sodas.

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthtreasury/message/161 Andrius's letter to Edward, December 16, 2008]

Edward,

Yes! Please add my interest, and that of our Minciu Sodas laboratory
http://www.ms.lt, to participate in your textbook project. I would gladly
work for you or others to write open source textbooks in math, philosophy,
fighting peacefully or other subjects. I alert others at our lab who
might like to write textbooks.

This semester I've been teaching algebra from my own notes:
http://www.worknets.org/upload/AndriusKulikauskas/precalculus.pdf
which are for teaching math based on the deep ideas behind it. I would
like to write a short book based on that approach. I am thinking to call
it "Classic Math Problems". Each problem would illustrate a particular
idea. I would supplement the text with video and additional materials,
exercises.

So, for example, I tell my students that algebra is the study of "thinking
in steps". And here is a problem that teaches that. Suppose you usually
buy pants in the marketplace because the department store charges
one-third more. But the store is now having a sale, and everything is
one-third off. Where should you buy the pants?

Quite a few people - and sophisticated people - might say that the price
is now the same, for it is one-third off of one-third more. But if you
think through it step by step, then you will see given x, that one-third
more is 4/3 x, and 2/3 of 4/3 x is 8/9 x. So it will be cheaper at the
store with the sale. For the question is "one-third of what?" This one
problem is a good, self-contained point to communicate this idea. It is a
sophisticated problem, but one that you can master. There are many
variants, such as a stock price that goes up 1/3 and down 1/4, or a tax
and a rebate. And if you learn 20 or 30 or 50 problems like that, then
you know all of algebra, or certainly the fundamentals.

Working together I'm sure we'd discover ways to support all manner of
self-teaching approaches and preferences. Myself, I'd like to focus on
self-learning adults (like at our lab) and I'm curious how that compares
with children learning.

I'm also interested in related resources. I've organized my students into
20 teams of 4 or 5 students each. We're collecting quantities (amounts
and units) for a Math Encyclopedia. Each team is working on a dimension
like price, speed, distance, mass.
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?MathEncyclopedia
My hope is that we'll have 1,000 or 2,000 facts in a few weeks and then
can build from there.

My work and Minciu Sodas's work is in the Public Domain and it would be
great if that might always be an option, if not the default, in your
mission. I wish for a culture centered on ethics rather than law.

Please also know that you can participate at the COMMUNIA meetings in
Europe through our lab. We're a member and we have travel money for our
participants, including from the US. The next meetings are Jan 23 in
Zurich, March in London and June in Turin, Italy. COMMUNIA is, I think,
in need of such projects.

I should learn this week if I'm teaching here next semester.

Edward, Congratulations on your progress! Please keep us posted!

Minciu Sodas

2008-12-16T21:25:33Z

AndriusKulikauskas:

[http://www.ms.lt Minciu Sodas] is an online laboratory for serving and organizing independent thinkers.

Minciu Sodas

2008-12-16T21:25:09Z

AndriusKulikauskas: New page: Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt is an online laboratory for serving and organizing independent thinkers.

[[Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt]] is an online laboratory for serving and organizing independent thinkers.

Education Team/Creating textbooks

2008-12-16T21:23:39Z

AndriusKulikauskas: Minciu Sodas

We know we have to create a new generation of electronic textbooks, but until now, nobody has stepped up. People tell me that this is in part because they don't see how to get past print publishers, teachers' unions, and Ministries of Education to get the new materials into use. But there is a sneaky way to do it. We just give them away for free, and completely bypass the established bureaucratic textbook acquisition process with all of its expenses, delays, and compromises. This will also liberate 48 US states from the domination of the textbook market by California and Texas.

==Partners==

[[Earth Treasury]] has initiated a project to create interactive digital textbooks with the following potential partners

* Sugar Labs
* OLPC
* Alan Kay's Viewpoints Research Institute
* The Doug Engelbart Institute at SRI
* Creative Commons ccLearn program
* FLOSS Manuals
* Open Learning Exchange
* OneVillage Foundation
* [[Minciu Sodas]]

==Principles==

We all agree in principle that we want to do it. Now we have to hold some meetings and online discussions to determine who wants to do what, and create a business plan, some White Papers, and a draft Statement of Work.

Our guiding principles (with key sources) include

* Interactive software integrated into "textbooks" (Omar Khayyam Moore, Ken Iverson, Stephen Wolfram, others)
* Textbooks integrated into curricula (Well, duh, but they never did in Computer Literacy)
* Intellectual honesty (Jerome Bruner, Richard Feynman)
* Age-appropriate learning (Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori)
* Deep understanding (Marvin Minsky)
* Powerful ideas (Seymour Papert)
* Mastery learning (Alan Kay)
* Augmenting Collective Intelligence, Bootstrapping, Dogfooding (Doug Engelbart)
* Whatever is needed, not We Have Always Done It This Way (Robert Townsend, Frank Borman)
* Freedom (Richard Stallman)
* Continuous Improvement (W. Edwards Deming)

==Business Model==

Much of the work will be done by volunteer authors scratching an itch, as usual, but we will offer a deal to Ministries of Education and to aid organizations, to write any urgently-needed textbooks on contract. All books containing software to be GPLed. We will also work with educational research institution on testing and improving our work.

==Tasks==

* Survey of curricula worldwide
* Survey of topics and subject-matter experts
* Catalog of best practices
* Bootstrap from the FLOSS Manuals Book Sprint methodology and current best practices to build continuously better and faster methods
* Organize a research program
* Choose demonstration projects
* You tell me--[[User:Mokurai|Mokurai]] 01:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)