Changes

3. Mariah Noelle Villarreal just got back from the Google Code-in reunion, where she represented Sugar Labs. She had a chance to meet Ezequiel and Piotr, our two winners, and spend time with members of the other participating projects. Mariah brought multiple copies of Sugar on a Stick to hand out and reports that there was a positive reception, especially among some of the parents in attendance. She also voiced some disappointment with the degree of awareness of Software Libre among attendees. FWIW, Devin Ulibarri and I are working on a new paper regarding the importance of Software Libre to education. Stay tuned.

3. Mariah Noelle Villarreal just got back from the Google Code-in reunion, where she represented Sugar Labs. She had a chance to meet Ezequiel and Piotr, our two winners, and spend time with members of the other participating projects. Mariah brought multiple copies of Sugar on a Stick to hand out and reports that there was a positive reception, especially among some of the parents in attendance. She also voiced some disappointment with the degree of awareness of Software Libre among attendees. FWIW, Devin Ulibarri and I are working on a new paper regarding the importance of Software Libre to education. Stay tuned.

4. I just got back from a trip to Santiago, Chile, where I was hosted by the education division of Fundación Chile. (Cecilia Rodriguez Alcala Garcia, formally of Educa Paraguay, was responsible for my invitation to run some workshops and give a keynote address at Creo Chile.)  The theme of my workshops was programming as a vehicle for engaging in critical thinking. I introduced Turtle Blocks and Music Blocks first to a team of engineers from throughout the foundation, then to an executive group, then to a "hacker" group attending the Creo Chile event, and finally to a group of children and their parents. I was assisted by Andrea Vasquez Garcia, without whom I would have been lost. In addition, I participated in a workshop run by a local rap artist, Nelson Bobadilla Alvarado, and an educator, Francisca Petrovich Ursic. We did a collaborative, interactive Music Blocks program, whereby we could programmatically participate in the performance. A bit crude, but I learned a lot in the process. My keynote, which I have uploaded to [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/docs/fchBender2016.pdf], focused on Sugar and the role of Software Libre in education.

4. I just got back from a trip to Santiago, Chile, where I was hosted by the education division of Fundación Chile. (Cecilia Rodriguez Alcala Garcia, formally of Educa Paraguay, was responsible for my invitation to run some workshops and give a keynote address at Creo Chile.)  The theme of my workshops was programming as a vehicle for engaging in critical thinking. I introduced Turtle Blocks and Music Blocks first to a team of engineers from throughout the foundation, then to an executive group, then to a "hacker" group attending the Creo Chile event, and finally to a group of children and their parents. I was assisted by Andrea Vasquez Garcia, without whom I would have been lost. In addition, I participated in a workshop run by a local rap artist, Nelson Bobadilla Alvarado, and an educator, Francisca Petrovich Ursic. We did a collaborative, interactive Music Blocks program, whereby we could programmatically participate in the performance. A bit crude, but I learned a lot in the process. My keynote, which I have uploaded to [[File:FchBender2016.pdf]], focused on Sugar and the role of Software Libre in education.

In the workshop for executives, I was challenged to write a Turtle program to calculate the expected value of the number of coin flips required to get three heads or three tails in a row. My response can be seen at [http://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks/?file=threeinarow.tb].

In the workshop for executives, I was challenged to write a Turtle program to calculate the expected value of the number of coin flips required to get three heads or three tails in a row. My response can be seen at [http://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks/?file=threeinarow.tb].