Changes

2. It was great to hear from Bill Kerr, who has some of his students trialling Sugar on a Stick. Check out [http://xo-whs2009.blogspot.com/ Bill's blog] (which also appears in our Planet) and read up on his students impressions of Sugar, which are linked from the sidebar.

2. It was great to hear from Bill Kerr, who has some of his students trialling Sugar on a Stick. Check out [http://xo-whs2009.blogspot.com/ Bill's blog] (which also appears in our Planet) and read up on his students impressions of Sugar, which are linked from the sidebar.

3. I forget how exhasting teaching can be, even part time. I've been teaching five Sugar classes per week this summer: two for second graders, one for third graders, and one for middle-school youth. The [[Gardner_Pilot_Academy#Class_notes|reports from the Gardner School]] describe much of what I have been doing. The demands of the children being what they are, I keep biting off more and more as the summer has progressed. (One of the dangers of putting developers and teachers in the same room.) Lately, I have been exploring how the children might use Turtle Art to create some geography games similar to [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4199 Conozco Uruguay]. Without too much effort, I managed to create a simple framework that I used to sketch out a few games (See [http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sugarlabs/video/x9yrxj_continent-game_tech Continent Game] and [http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sugarlabs/video/x9xz9o_stategame_tech].) This morning, I made [http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sugarlabs/video/x9zy4v_where-is-the-gardner-schooly_tech a game specific to the Gardner School], leveraging the work they had been doing with maps and pictures of their neighborhood. We played all the games as a group--the kids were animated and engaged. Then I shared the Gardner Game with their Sugar neighborhood and asked them to launch it.  

3. I forget how exhausting teaching can be, even part time. I've been teaching five Sugar classes per week this summer: two for second graders, one for third graders, and one for middle-school youth. The [[Gardner_Pilot_Academy#Class_notes|reports from the Gardner School]] describe much of what I have been doing. The demands of the children being what they are, I keep biting off more and more as the summer has progressed. (One of the dangers of putting developers and teachers in the same room.) Lately, I have been exploring how the children might use Turtle Art to create some geography games similar to [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4199 Conozco Uruguay]. Without too much effort, I managed to create a simple framework that I used to sketch out a few games (See [http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sugarlabs/video/x9yrxj_continent-game_tech Continent Game] and [http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sugarlabs/video/x9xz9o_stategame_tech].) This morning, I made [http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sugarlabs/video/x9zy4v_where-is-the-gardner-schooly_tech a game specific to the Gardner School], leveraging the work they had been doing with maps and pictures of their neighborhood. We played all the games as a group--the kids were animated and engaged. Then I shared the Gardner Game with their Sugar neighborhood and asked them to launch it.  

Here is where the trouble began. First of all, the version of Turtle Art I used to build the game is newer than the version they had installed on their machines. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but I had used a block that they didn't have, so the sharing halted part way through. The good news is that Sebastian Dziallias pushed a change for Sugar on a Stick to contain all activities packaged as XO files, meaning that all activities can update. (Presently, it is non-trivial to update activities that had been distributed as RPM.) The bad news is, Turtle Art, being part of Fructose, had been distrubuted as RPM on the Gardner School sticks. So I will have to update them by hand.

Here is where the trouble began. First of all, the version of Turtle Art I used to build the game is newer than the version they had installed on their machines. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but I had used a block that they didn't have, so the sharing halted part way through. The good news is that Sebastian Dziallias pushed a change for Sugar on a Stick to contain all activities packaged as XO files, meaning that all activities can update. (Presently, it is non-trivial to update activities that had been distributed as RPM.) The bad news is, Turtle Art, being part of Fructose, had been distributed as RPM on the Gardner School sticks. So I will have to update them by hand.

But had sharing worked, I still would have run into some problems, since once, shared, always shared. I discussed the problem with Ben Schwartz in IRC:

But had sharing worked, I still would have run into some problems, since once, shared, always shared. I discussed the problem with Ben Schwartz in IRC:

:'''<walterbender>''' (I suppose I could make TA share in only one direction, using the current model).

:'''<walterbender>''' (I suppose I could make TA share in only one direction, using the current model).

:'''<walterbender>''' but then how would a kid share her cool innovation?

:'''<walterbender>''' but then how would a kid share her cool innovation?

walterbender: hmm. Why not use object transfer?

:'''<bemasc>''' walterbender: hmm. Why not use object transfer?

:'''<bemasc>''' walterbender: as I've suggested with my mockups, we could have a system in which every time a user launches a previously shared activity, they have the option to work privately.

:'''<bemasc>''' walterbender: as I've suggested with my mockups, we could have a system in which every time a user launches a previously shared activity, they have the option to work privately.

:'''<bemasc>''' I haven't implemented this, mostly because I'm not much a GUI programmer, but it's a possibility.

:'''<bemasc>''' I haven't implemented this, mostly because I'm not much a GUI programmer, but it's a possibility.