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Line 5: − 1. I mostly look forward rather than back, so it is not often that I think about my time at the MIT Media Lab. But I had three occasions to think about it in the past week. I joined Yumi Mori and Toshi Takasaki in Tokyo last week to celebrate the 10th anniversary of [http://www.pangaean.org Pangaea], a project they started while I was director of the lab. I met some old friends, including K. Nishi, a pioneer in electronic publishing and Bernie Kirsher, who started the rural school program in Cambodia that was the catalyst for our founding One Laptop per Child program. Next, I gave a lecture at Kyoto University at the launch event of a new research program meant to bring Japanese industry and the university's design school together. I dusted off an old presentation, [http://www.media.mit.edu/publications/bttj/ForwardPages5-6.pdf ''The Seven Secrets of the Media Lab''] and then went on to describe how the same principles of design apply to Sugar: the foundation for learning is the same, whether you are 8 or 80. Finally, I was reminiscing with John Maeda, president of RSID and former colleague at MIT, about Jerome Wiesner. Jerry was the true visionary behind all of the programs in the arts at MIT, a proponent of "STEAM" rather than STEM [ [[Archive/Current_Events/2011-08-07|1]], [http://stemtosteam.org/ 2] ] since the 1960s. Jerry's one-sentence mission statement for the Media Lab, still has relevance:+ − "Technology in support of learning and expression by people and machines"+ − 2. In anticipation of next week's events in Paraguay (See items 3 and 4 below), I wrote a short manifesto about learning. Claudia Urrea will be fleshing it out with me, but I include a rough draft here:+ − "A good reason that kids should learn to paint, compose, play music, act *and* program computers is that each form of expression require deep commitment, careful thought, reflection, sensitivity to external and often unanticipated stimuli *and* build upon a young person's remarkable capacity for intensity. They also allow a kid to spend intense periods of time inside of their own head." -- Gary Stager+ − Motivation is a key factor in education: how do we motivate children to learn and how do the mechanisms of motivation impact how and what children learn. Typical of most schools is the use of "carrots and sticks" (rewards and punishment, in the form of grades, stickers, and stars, and, in some places, literally the stick in the form of corporal punishment). This approach results in children learning to be adept at avoiding the stick, keeping their heads down, reciting the correct answers. Creativity and intellectual risk-taking are drilled out of them, as is the love of learning. An alternative approach, grounded in the literature, is to use autonomy, mastery, and a sense of purpose as motivators: children become practitioners of creative problem-solving, on the path to entrepreneurial pursuits.+ − In the early 1960s, while studying with Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert had the insight that computation was a "thing to think with". He and his colleagues created Logo -- the first programming language for children -- in order to bring computational thinking to schools. (Early versions of Logo controlled a robot that raised and lowered a pen as it moved forward, left, and right on the floor. This robot resembled a turtle; consequently the turtle became synonymous with Logo.) For the next 40 years, Papert and his colleagues at MIT explored the use of Logo (and other tools) while developing a pedagogy that combined computation, personal expression, and authentic problem-solving in pilot programs around the world. Many of these pilots involved 1-to-1 computing, in order to ensure that the computer could be used as readily as a pencil by each child, in exploring and expressing. (As early as the 1980s, we were doing 1-to-1 computing in Senegal, Pakistan, and Colombia.)+ − In 2005, a team of researchers from MIT founded the One Laptop per Child program in an effort to provide every child with the opportunity to engage in the pedagogy of computational thinking. We pioneered the development of low-cost hardware for computation, sensors, and a durable form-factor suitable for both classroom and beyond-the-classroom exploration. We coupled the hardware with software that provides the scaffolding needed to encourage children and teachers to "imagine and realize" and "critique and reflect" upon their creations. Central to this effort is programming: Turtle Art, Scratch, Etoys, and other programming environments are made freely available to every child. Our goal is not to raise a generation of computer scientists, but rather, a generation of children who are comfortable with the discipline of computational thinking and able to apply this discipline to problem-solving in a wide range of domains: children who can invent their own future.+ − An important characteristic of the tools we provide is that they are not black boxes: children are free to delve deeply into the tools, see how they work, and even modify them. We do this by utilizing free and open-source software (FOSS), AKA Software Libre. We provide the license to use and modify the tools. We also provide the necessary scaffolding to enable them to make use of this license. Children are given the opportunity to make their own tools. With this opportunity comes a sense of ownership and responsibility. Thus we immerse children in a culture that values autonomy, mastery, and a sense of purpose.+ − We have been working in Paraguay in collaboration with Paraguay Educa and colleagues at ANU since 2007. Here we have found a community of educators well versed in the pedagogy of contructionism. They have had positive and pronounced impact on how computation is used in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities that has had far reach. We have also found talented practitioners. (An example of the quality of their efforts is Dextrose, a branch of our Sugar learning platform, which was conceived and developed in Paraguay and is used by more than 500000 children in Uruguay, Australia, Nepal, etc.) And we have also seen creativity in the teachers we work with in Caacupé. In the course of our collaboration, they have demonstrated not just the ability to apply our tools, but also to invent new ones, e.g., the Caacupé Abacus.+ + + + + + + − Looking ahead, in order to bring computational thinking to all the children of Paraguay, we need to: (1) provide Guarani language support (Sugar and Turtle Art are easily translated -- learning in one's first language has demonstrable impact); (2) adapt to local culture (both in terms of content and pedagogy); and (3) rethink the mechanisms we use to motivate children to become active and expressive in their learning. Together we also need to create a space of growth for the remarkable learning community in Paraguay so that they can make a difference in Paraguay, and consequently have a reason to stay in Paraguay. Together, we will raise a generation of problem-solvers; confident that they can be entrepreneurial; inventing the future Paraguay.+ − − − − 3. International Turtle Art Day will be on October 12. Pacita Peña and Cecilia Alcala will be hosting an event in Caacupé and there will be other events around the world sharing ideas and resources. Brian Silverman and Artemis Papert will be featured guests. There are guides to holding a Turtle Art Day event available in [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/Guia_Ingles_10-08-2013.pdf English] and [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/Guia_Esp_12-08-2013.pdf Spanish]. (Tip of the hat to Claudia Urrea, who has led this effort.) − + − 5. From 10-13 October, there will be an [http://ceibaljam.org/drupal/?q=edujam2013 EduJam!], in Asunción. On the 13th, we will hold a hack-a-thon, and hopefully make some headway on some of the open issues with Sugar on Android. We will also take advantage of the occasion of so many Sugar oversight board members (Gonzalo, Claudia, and me) in one place to hold a SLOB meeting (on Sunday morning).+ − − === Tech Talk === − − 6. We are wrapping up Sugar 100 and need all hands helping with both closing a few [http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=accepted&status=reopened&priority=Immediate&priority=Urgent&component=Sugar&status_field=New&order=priority outstanding tickets] and helping with testing. Gonzalo has prepared a [http://dev.laptop.org/~gonzalo/AU1B/33019xx4.zd new image] (Fedora 18) for OLPC AU that can be used for testing in XO-4 hardware. − − === Sugar Labs === − 7. Please visit (and contribute to) our [http://planet.sugarlab.org planet].+ + +
Sugar Labs/Current Events (view source)
Revision as of 10:28, 22 October 2013
, 10:28, 22 October 2013→Sugar Digest
== Sugar Digest ==
== Sugar Digest ==
"Free software gives the license. Sugar provides the means."
1. I'm back from a week in Paraguay and Uruguay to celebrate Turtle Art Days in Caacupé and Montevideo.
Turtle Art Day Caacupé exceeded my expectations. 275 students, their parents, and 77 teachers joined educators and Sugar developers from eight countries throughout the Americas and as far away as Australia (Tony Forster). Brian Silverman and Artemis Papert, the co-creators of Turtle Art, led workshops to a room full entralled children. Martin Abente, Andres Aguirre, and Alan Aguiar similarly led Butiá/Juky robots workshops, using TurtleBots. Claudia Urrea and I led workshops using Turtle Blocks, where the emphasis was on sensors and mutlimedia. Tony led a seminar with teachers on pedagogical framework for Turtle Art. We were assisted by "Evolution" children, youth leaders in Caacupé who attend school in the morning, teach in the afternoon, and on weekends supply technical support to school programs (I hope we are able to recruit many of them to participate in Google Code In, should Sugar Labs be chosen to participate again this year). While I have come to expect that children will deeply engage with Turtle Art, the fact that they maintained intense focus for three consecutive two-hour workshops, 70 to room, with only short breaks, was unexpected. Many thanks to Mary Gomez, Pacita Pena, Cecilia Alcala, and the Paraguay Educa team for all of the work they did behind the scenes (and in the classrooms) to make the day a success.
Turtle Art Day Montevideo was teacher-focused rather than child-focused. Organized by José Miguel García, it attracted 70 teachers to ANEP for a series of workshops. Claudia and I began the day with a short lecture on pedagogy. The workshop themes included sensors (led by Guzman Trindad), robots (led by Andres and the Butiá team), advanced blocks, and turtle mathematics. During the robots workshop, we implemented inter-robot communication by taking advantage of some new collaboration blocks in Turtle Blocks (ported to TurtleBots): we mapped the accelerometer from one machine to the motors of another to make a remote-control steering wheel. In discussions the following day with Mariana Herrera, who works with children with severe physical disabilities, we came up with a simple adaptation that may enable her students to program Butiá using some buttons embedded in pillows.
Sdenka Zobeida Salas Pilco and the children at an Aymara-speaking school organized a Turtle Art Day in Puno as well: "Children and I organized quickly this event, they provided some ideas for celebrating, it was their idea to arrange the classroom and sticking balloons to the walls. Girls asked me to were the traditional local clothes. They helped me a lot. Also, they prepared a song, a poetry and riddles in Spanish and Aymara language. Finally, the little ones worked some codes, 4th graders were exploring the activity, and 6th graders organized the event."
Other Turtle Art Days are following: in Costa Rica, Malaysia, and possibly Singapore. While the primary purpose of these Turtle Art Days is to promote children learning through programming, an important secondary goal was also achieved: programming is not just in service of geometry (what Papert called "Mathland") but also in service of whatever passion drives the child. (Artemis refers to the work she and Brian do as "Artland". Work with sensors, robots, multimedia, etc., offer many "mountains to climb".)
2. Other activities in Paraguay and Uruguay this week included EduJam in Asuncion, a Sugar Hackfest, a meeting with Pablo Flores and the Python Jóven, a Butiá workshop, and a Ceibal event for educators in Montevideo. Leticia Romero organized the first EduJam to be held regionally, at the National University of Asuncion. (I handed out >100 copies of Sugar on a Stick to interested attendees thanks to the generosity of Nexcopy [1].) It was well attended by educators and engineers from Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, et al. The hackfest was also well attended. It included testing of Sugar 100 in a session orchestrated by Gonzalo Odiard (a number of bugs were discovered and fixed), an introduction to the new HTML5/Javascript by Manuel Quiñones, and a discussion of a proposal Brian to use an embedded Logo environment in the Arduino "brains" of the various robots programmed with TurtleBots. The Butiá workshop was an opportunity for me to observe how children use TurtleBots in programming their robots -- a few of my observations led to some fine-tuning of the UI in TurtleBlocks-192. And a chance to get direct feedback from teachers who use Turtle Blocks in a wide range of activities. Eye-opening. We discussed the ongoing challenge of providing both a low floor and a high ceiling. The Ceibal event was also an opportunity to observe how teachers use Sugar. There were perhaps 100 booths set up with teachers showing their projects. What was most impressive to me was that these projects were developed locally by the teachers, not handed down to them by the commercial sector: a testimony to the fact that teachers, when given the opportunity, will learn and use that learning in their classrooms.
Many thanks to everyone from both .PY and .UY who were so welcoming and hospitable. It was great to see old friends and make some new one. I am looking forward to returning to the region soon.
3. For the first time ever, four members of the Sugar Labs oversight board managed to be physically in the same place at the same time. Daniel Francis, Gonzalo, Claudia, and I met at a coffee shop in Montevideo and had a chance to discuss a number of topics:
(a) We agreed that we would apply again to Google Code In. It is imperative that the community come up with challenges for the contest as per [2]. We'd like to focus more on bug-fixing tasks this year. I'll be preparing the 2013 pages in the next day or two.
(b) We discussed the need to have more regular meetings (with preset agendas). I'll be soliciting preferred times for a monthly meeting, beginning in November.
(c) We need to hold an election for four positions on the oversight board. Claudia, Daniel, and Gonzalo are continuing. The terms for Adam, Gerald, Chris and I are all expiring. Details to be posted shortly.
(d) We discussed the need to amplify direct communication with Sugar deployments. We'll try to organize regular IRC meetings with technical and learning representatives from deployments.
(e) We discussed the possibility of establishing local "ambassadors" to deployments to also increase communication.
(f) We also want to hold brainstorming sessions on some specific topics, e.g., accessibility.
=== Sugar Labs ===
=== In the community ===
4. Another Turtle Art Day event will be held on October 15 in Montevideo, organized by José Miguel García. Details soon. We also have a Turtle Art Day planned for Malacca on November 16.
4. Please visit (and contribute to) our planet [3].
----
[1] http://recycleusb.com/
[2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Google_Code-In_2012
[3] http://planet.sugarlab.org
== Community News archive ==
== Community News archive ==