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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 and blogged at [http://walterbender.org/ walterbender.org].) If you would like to contribute, please send email to [[User:walter|walter]] at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit <span class="plainlinks">[http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet.sugarlabs.org].</span>)

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 and blogged at [http://walterbender.org/ walterbender.org].) If you would like to contribute, please send email to [[User:walter|walter]] at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit <span class="plainlinks">[http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet.sugarlabs.org].</span>)

===Sugar Digest ===

===Sugar Digest===

1. In a week full of accomplishments, one event stands out. Caroline Meeks has received a grant from the Gould Foundation in support of the Sugar-on-a-Stick pilot at a Boston public elementary school. We'll begin the pilot by participating in a five-week summer program, which will inform a school-wide program in the fall. In a related effort, we will also be working at a Boston public middle school program; these students will be making "how to" videos of Sugar as guides for the elementary school students and teachers.

1. It seems that once per month the computer vs. phone debate reemerges. This time, [http://edutechdebate.org/ Educational Technology Debate] has taken up the theme. Wayan Vota posed the question: Mobile Phones: Better Learning Tools than Computers? Michael Trucano takes the affirmative position in his essay, [http://edutechdebate.org/mobile-phones-and-computers/phones-are-a-real-alternative-to-computers/ "Phones Are a Real Alternative to Computers"] while Robert B. Kozma argues that [http://edutechdebate.org/mobile-phones-and-computers/computers-are-more-capable-than-mobile-phones/ Computers are More Capable than Mobile Phones"]. The usual arguments of pervasiveness (phones) and capacity (computers) were made.

2. María del Pilar Sáenz announced the official launch of [http://co.sugarlabs.org Fundación Sugar Labs Colombia]. The foundation, the first "official" local lab, has been busy: working in partnership with Foundation Buinaima, they have a project approved by the Secretaría de Educación de Bogotá to install and use Sugar in 12 public schools. They have already been working with more than 30 teachers, with whom they will be exploring pedagogy in the classroom over the next six months. The foundation will also help with the use of additional resources, e.g., wikis and blogs, with the goal of the teachers becoming part of the Sugar community.  

We touched on a different set of themes when we discussed this topic ([http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-May/005484.html versus, not]) back in May. We were responding in part to Mark Guzdial's blog: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK Does "There's an App for That" Hurt or Help Computing Education?]. At the time I said that I was optimistic about the role of phones in learning—a u-turn from my long-standing position. The arguments about the difference in affordances between phones and computer remain relevant: e.g., you wouldn't write an essay on your phone if you have a computer at hand; and as Kozma points out, the large installed base of phones is not composed primarily of the latest iPhone on a 3G network. The current installed base has much less capacity. But that will change over time.

3. Jeff Elkner has gotten Sugar Labs DC off to a great start this summer: he has launched an intern program modeled after Google Summer of Code. Pairing students and developers is a great opportunity for learning and a great way to grow the community.

My disregard of phones for learning had been based on my fear that "phone culture" was turning us into a society of consumers of those services that "Ma Bell" chose for us. But the iPhone and the Android are changing that. The meme that is rapidly becoming part of our culture is that phones are programmable, i.e., computers. This is a huge step forward. There is merit in Guzdial's argument that the Apple marketing pitch discourages end-users from becoming active participants in the creative process—we must be viligant in combating this trend. But now that the phone company's model of "phone as a service" is eroding, there is reason for optimism that the corresponding model of "learning as a service" will also wane. The end of restrictions on who can develop what for whom is an important cultural development that wll have an overall positive impact on learning, regardless of the platform. Sugar, which is designed for a relatively lightweight environments, will become more significant to learners.

4. Aleksey Lim has uploaded Bruno Coudoin's award-winning GCompris activities to http://actvities.sugarlabs.org. The inclusion of these 100+ activities doubles the number of activities available for download from our download site.

2. [http://nexcopy.com Nexcopy] has generously donated a USB replicator to Sugar Labs. It will be a great help in our various Sugar-on-a-Stick pilot programs this summer.

===Help Wanted===

 

4. Lionel Laske reports that OLPC France has launch a French FLOSS Manual Sprint and a large part of the work has been completed. They are now looking for help with "Help." Lionel asks, is there a way to do quickly a “one shot” build of the Help Activity in French (amd other languages)?

 

6. David (nubae) Van Assche organized a collaboration testing sprint; together we exercised a number of activities on the openSUSE Sugar image. We plan to continue testing again on Wednesday, 17 June, at 20:00 UTC, irc.freenode.org, channel #sugar-collaboration.

6. David Van Assche published [http://www.nubae.com/collaboration-session-sugar-june10 a report] from the collaboration-testing session that took place last week (10 June 10). Please leave your comments, especially those who took part. We plan to continue testing again on Wednesday, 17 June, at 20:00 UTC, irc.freenode.org, channel #sugar-collaboration.

===In the community===

===In the community===

7. If you are planning to attend [http://linuxtag.org Linuxtag] (24–27 June in Berlin) please [[Marketing_Team/Events/LinuxTag2009#Attendees|add your name to the wiki]]. There will be a [[Marketing_Team/Events/LinuxTag2009#Sugar_Booth|Sugar Labs booth]].  

7. Coming up next week: Sugar at [http://linuxtag.org Linuxtag] (24–27 June in Berlin).

8. Other upcoming events include [http://www.fossed.com/ FOSSED] in Bethel, Maine, 24–26 June and [http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/ NECC] in Washington DC, 28 June–1 July.

8. Also, Sugar at [http://www.fossed.com/ FOSSED] in Bethel, Maine, 24–26 June.

9. Jim Gettys is looking for submissions to the Linux Plumbers Conference, 23–25 September 2009 in Portland, Oregon USA. He is particularly interested in the Sugar collaboration framework.

9. And Sugar at [http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/ NECC] in Washington DC, 28 June–1 July.

10. There is an [http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/336910/3878a88c0c27f977/ article about Sugar] in the latest issue of LWN.

10. The OLPC Learning CLub, DC, is hosting a [http://olpclearningclub.org/meetings/june-meeting-the-brightest-light-in-the-library/ Family XO Mesh Meetup] Saturday, 20 June from 10 AM to 1 PM.

===Tech Talk===

===Tech Talk===

11. Sebastian Dziallas announced this new Sugar-on-a-Stick snapshot ([http://download.sugarlabs.org/soas/snapshots/2/Soas2-200906031834.iso Live Image], [http://download.sugarlabs.org/soas/appliances/soas2-20090603.zip Virtual Appliance], [http://people.sugarlabs.org/sdz/soas-boot-20090603.iso Boot Helper]). Features include:

11. I modified Mitchel Charity's [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4192 Ruler activity] to look up the screen resolution so that it would render properly on non-OLPC-XO displays. I'm parsing xdpyinfo, which may not be the most reliable way to get the display resolution; feedback from testers would be appreciated.

 

* Fixed DPI size issue on the XO - should look better now;

* updated Turtle Art to the latest version.

=== Community News archive ===

=== Community News archive ===