Changes

==Sugar Digest==

==Sugar Digest==

1. September was an exciting month. We held the first Sugar Youth Summit in Montevideo, organized by Daniel Francis and Jose Miguel Garcia and generously hosted by ANEP. The event featured a day-long symposium and series of workshops, including ones on Turtle Art, Butia, and how to write a Sugar activity. One teacher who attended the Turtle Art workshop exclaimed that she could not believe the progress she made.

1. I spent the month of October reacquainting myself with Javascript. Since I cannot learn without learning about something (to paraphrase Seymour Paper), I wrote a new version of [https://turtle.sugarlabs.org Turtle Blocks in Javascript]. It is far from finished, but it is already usuable (at least from a Chrome browser -- for some reason I have broken it on Firefox). Feedback most welcome both in terms of the activity itself and any improvements I can make to the [https://github.com/walterbender/turtleblocksjs code]. (Note: saving is a bit flaky at the moment, so please be prepared to lose your work.)

The event was attended by youths from Uruguay and Paraguay and educators and developers from as far away as Nicaragua and Colombia. We had an Argentine contingent as well.

It is inevitable that Javascript/HTML5 is in our future and so I am determined to make the best of it. While we were in San Francisco at the Google Summer of Code reunion, Martin Abente, Gonzalo Odiard, and I sent time with Raul Gutierrez Segales working on several aspects of the Sugar-web framework, including a model for "under the tree" collaboration. Martin wrote a simple server using socket.io and I wrote a simple neighborhood view that lets you see your collaborators. We had the opportunity to bounce ideas of Ben Schwartz, Sameer Verma, Aaron Borden, and Bernie Innocenti.

The symposium and workshops were held on Software Freedom Day. Given the number of Python programmers in attendance, it occurred to me that we should petition the city of Montevideo to rename itself Monty Python (after whom the language was named) for Software Freedom Day each year.

Raul, Martin, and I also did some brainstorming about developing a new web backend for the Sugar datastore based on git. Details to follow.

The day before the symposium Gonzalo Odiard, Mariana Herrera, Jose Miguel, and I visited a school for children with special needs. As a result, during the code sprint that followed the symposium, we wrote three new activities that have their content and user interface tailored to the school's population. Lorena Paz from Argentina, also in attendance, resurfaces a number of issues around accessibility that we will consider in the coming months as well.

Tip of the hat to Alex Kleider, who hosted our Sugar Camp on his houseboat in Redwood City. Alex has also been providing me with comprehensive feedback on Turtle Blocks JS.

Coincident with the weekend of hacking was a robo-Sumo contest at FING. It was a good opportunity to spend time with Andres Aguirre and Alan Aguiar of Butia fame and to recruit some new talent. Several of the more competitive kids joined us in the workshops. They took a special interest in Turtle Blocks 3D, one of the Google Summer of Code projects that is coming into its own.

Aside: Raul added a wrapper to Turtle Blocks JS that enables it to be launched as a Facebook App. Not public yet as we await Facebook approval, but it opens some interesting possibilities about where we can take some of the core ideas from Sugar.

Gonzalo and I also got a chance to meet with a group of teachers convened by Jose Miguel at his office at ANEP. These teachers are engaged in various project-based learning initiatives across the country. Really good work -- utilizing the computer as a tool to enhance authentic inquiry by the children. I look forward to continued interactions with them.

2. The Google Summer of Code reunion was lots of fun. A chance to catch up with old friends and to help bring into focus some future directions. I spent time with the Google Code In team and I got Sugar Lab's application submitted. We still need to flesh out the [Google_Code_In_2014|wiki page]] with more task ideas and add our growing mentor list. Please contact me regarding details.

2. At the workshop, Martin Abente presented the initial plans for Sugar 104. (Martin has generously offered to be the release manager.) The new features under consideration can be found at [[0.104/Feature_List]]. ([http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2014-10-02T13:13:05 meeting log])

3. Gonzalo, Aaron, and Sameer organized Turtle Art Day San Francisco in conjunction with the OLPC SF meeting. While more sparsely attended than we had anticipated, nonetheless, it was an enriching experience for those who came. Martin also joined the fun, helping with some Turtle Bots programming.

4. It is not too late to toss your hat into the ring for the annual Sugar Labs Oversight Board election (AKA SLOBs). Four (4) seats are open (due to staggered seat terms) for election / re-election to the Sugar Labs Oversight Board for 2013-2014, those of Daniel Francis, Gonzalo Odiard, Adam Holt, and Claudia Urrea. Please let me know if you are interested running for one of our board seats and also, please add your self to the [[Oversight_Board/2014-2015-candidates|candidates' wiki page]]. Also, since only members receive ballots, please be sure to sign up for membership by following [[Sugar_Labs/Members#Applying_for_membership|the instructions in the wiki]]. Finally, we need help running the election itself. Please contact me (or Luke Faraone) if you are interested in helping.

 

 

4. I've been working on a new activity similar to the Portfolio activity that is geared towards reflection. Like Portfolio, it draws upon Journal items that have been starred. It also allows the user to create reflections unrelated to any Journal items. The presentation is quite different from Portfolio, which is modeled after a slide show. Reflect is more like a stream, similar to the news feeds in Facebook and Google+. The stream supports comments and attaching media, and it can be searched by #tags. A preview is available at [http://github.com/walterbender/reflect.git]. Feedback most welcome.

 

5. It is time to begin preparing for the annual Sugar Labs Oversight Board election (AKA SLOBs). Four (4) seats are open (due to staggered seat terms) for election / re-election to the Sugar Labs Oversight Board for 2013-2014, those of Daniel Francis, Gonzalo Odiard, Adam Holt, and Claudia Urrea. Please let me know if you are interested running for one of our board seats and also, please add your self to the candidates' [[Oversight_Board/2014-2015-candidates|wiki page]]. Also, since only members receive ballots, please be sure to [[Sugar_Labs/Members#Applying_for_membership|sign up for membership]] by following the instructions in the wiki. Finally, we need help running the election itself. Please contact me (or Luke Faraone) if you are interested in helping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. Sebastian Silva and Laura Vargas recently announced that > 20000 children are now using Sugar Network. Tip of the hat to Aleksey Lim who has been working diligently behind the scenes on the project.

=== Sugar Labs ===

=== Sugar Labs ===

10. Please visit our planet at [http://planet.sugarlabs.org].

5. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet].

== Community News archive ==

== Community News archive ==