User:Walter

Walter Bender

I was at OLPC for several years and now I am a volunteer on the project. My home page can be found here: [1]

Email: walter AT sugarlabs DOT org

bio

Walter Bender is founder and executive director of Sugar Labs, a non-profit foundation. In 2006, Bender co-founded the One Laptop per Child, a non-profit association with Nicholas Negroponte and Seymour Papert. As director of the MIT Media Laboratory, Bender led a team of researchers in fields as varied as tangible media to affective computing to lifelong kindergarten. In 1992, Bender founded the MIT News in the Future consortium, which launched the era of digital news.

bio en es

Walter Bender es el director de la Fundación Sugar Lab, una organización sin fines de lucro, desde donde ha diseñado el sistema operativo SUGAR que utilizan las computadoras XO de la organización OLPC (One Laptop per Child) Una Computadora por estudiante. Uno de los objetivos de Sugar Lab es ofrecer un espacio de reunión y apoyo para una creciente comunidad de educadores y desarrolladores de software que quieran extender la plataforma de Sugar y quienes han estado creando aplicaciones compatibles con esta. Antes de fundar el Sugar Lab, Walter fue parte de la organización OLPC todavía apoya los esfuerzos de esa organización en el desarrollo y diseminación de tecnologías que puedan revolucionar el mundo de los niños y niñas y los atraigan hacia el aprendizaje. Entre los años 2000 y 2006 Walter fue el Director Ejecutivo del Laboratorio de Medios Media Lab, del Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts MIT donde además, por muchos años dirigió el grupo de investigación llamado Las Noticias de Futuro que se fundó en 1996 y su proyecto Publicación Electrónica. En el marco de las investigaciones Publicación Electrónica Walter ayudó a desarrollar en el siglo pasado las herramientas tecnológicas para promover lo que hoy en el siglo XXI conocemos como periodismo ciudadano.

Walter tiene dos experiencias realmente pioneras relacionados con el periodismo ciudadano.

Una se llama los Silver Stringers o Periodistas de Plata, que reúne a un grupo de personas de la tercera edad de la comunidad de Melrose en Massachusetts que publican su periódico sistemáticamente para lo cual siguen el proceso que se lleva a cabo en los grandes medios de comunicación masivo. Para esta experiencia, Walter contó con el apoyo de Jack Driscoll, Editor Pensionado del diario The Boston Globe. Es interesante mencionar que una de las ediciones de Silver Stringers en el año 2001 estuvo dedicada a Costa Rica, cuando algunos de los vecinos de Melrose vinieron de vacaciones a nuestro país y reportaron en el periódico The Silver Stringers o los Periodistas de Plata sobre sus aventuras aquí.

La otra experiencia es el Junior Journal o el Diario Joven, que iniciando 1998 reunió a 300 jóvenes, niños y niñas entre los 13 y los 18 años, viviendo en muchos países alrededor del mundo para, en aquella época (pre web y pre redes sociales) escribir artículos de interés nacional, regional y mundial, editarlos y publicarlos mensualmente en su periódico. Otras experiencias semejantes con niños, niñas y jóvenes incluyen La Fragola en Italia que a la fecha cuenta con 7400 periódicos escolares y colegiales en línea.

Desde todas estas perspectivas Walter ha hecho una importante contribución al conocimiento en las áreas de publicación electrónica, medios digitales y tecnologías para aprender.

Regarding the Sugar Labs Oversight Board

While it has been my goal to help get Sugar Labs to a point of self-sustainability, I don't think we are yet at that point. My goals for 2010 are to focus on fund-raising and further refining the organizational and governance models.

A bit about me and my role in Sugar Labs: I was part of the Sugar team at One Laptop per Child that left to found Sugar Labs in March of 2008. I have worn a few different hats within the organization: activity developer, occasional contributor to Sugar core, member of the deployment team, the marketing team, and the activity team. I was a lead author of the FLOSS Manual on Sugar. I am presently the executive director of Sugar Labs. I also represent Sugar on the GNOME technical advisory board and the Squeakland board. I have been a GSOC mentor and am participating in several pilot deployment projects of Sugar on a Stick.

OWF talk

File:OWF2010 talk.odp

Pakistan talk

File:Pakitsan.odp video

CLEI talk

File:CLEI.odp video?

Libre Planet talk

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To do

• get Frame test set up in Peru/Uruguay/Paraguay</srike>
• New Activity templates

Much of the information that is consistent across activities can be held in activities.s.o. (dfarning 22:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC))

• Follow-up with Linux Foundation
• Draft membership agreement for Sugar Labs
• rebase Turtle Art on SVG
• ask SFC for pointers to lawyers in SA
• start writing NSF/USAID proposal
• local-labs proposals
• NSF Creativity grant
• Babson brief
• Watertown follow-up
• Curriculum guides from GPA programs

Done

• New Getting Started Guide (See The Sugar FLOSS Manual)
• Add ParserFunctions to Sugar Labs mediawiki
• Draft rules of governance for Sugar Labs
• Start Community-News Sugar Weekly Digest list
• CoSN proposal
• rebase Gmail on new Browse
• Finalize arrangements with SFC
  • Incorporate Sugar Labs

Recent writing about Sugar and learning

• Confessions of a fundamentalist (Part 1)
• Confessions of a fundamentalist (Part 2)
• A page from the Hilbert playbook
• Media, Mathematics, and Mallard Fillmore

(I also blog the weekly Sugar Digest.)

The slides from a talk I gave about Sugar at the Women2Woman conference are here and here.

Sandbox

User:Walter/Get Sugar

Home View

A new, tighter spiral for the Home View:

class MyLayout(RingLayout):

   """Spiral layout based on Archimedean spiral: r = a + b*theta."""

   __gtype_name__ = 'MyLayout'

   icon_name = 'view-mylayout'
   """Name of icon used in home view dropdown palette."""

   profile_key = 'my-layout'
   """String used in profile to represent this view."""

   def __init__(self):
       RingLayout.__init__(self)
       self.my_radius = _MINIMUM_RADIUS
       self.my_orientation = math.pi

   def _calculate_radius_and_icon_size(self, children_count):
       """Stub out this method; not used in `My Layout`."""
       return _MINIMUM_RADIUS, style.STANDARD_ICON_SIZE

   def _calculate_position(self, radius, icon_size, index, children_count):
       """ Increment the radius as you go """

       if index == 0:
           self.my_radius = _MINIMUM_RADIUS
           self.my_orientation = math.pi

       x, y = self._calculate_xy()

       # add some buffering around the icon
       self._calculate_new_radius_orientation(icon_size + 10)

       width, height = self.box.get_allocation()
       return int(x) + (width - icon_size) / 2, \
           int(y) + (height - icon_size - (style.GRID_CELL_SIZE / 2) ) / 2

   def _calculate_xy(self):
       """ Convert r, o to x, y """
       return -math.sin(self.my_orientation) * self.my_radius, \
           math.cos(self.my_orientation) * self.my_radius

   def _calculate_new_radius_orientation(self, icon_size):
       """ Based upon current radius, calculate new increments """
       circumference = self.my_radius * 2 * math.pi
       n = circumference / icon_size
       self.my_orientation += 2 * math.pi / n
       self.my_radius += float(icon_size) / n

This version inherits from RandomLayout and lets you rearrange the icons.

class MyLayout(RandomLayout):

   """Spiral layout based on Archimedean spiral: r = a + b*theta."""

   __gtype_name__ = 'MyLayout'

   icon_name = 'view-mylayout'
   """Name of icon used in home view dropdown palette."""

   profile_key = 'my-layout'
   """String used in profile to represent this view."""

   def __init__(self):
       RandomLayout.__init__(self)
       self.my_radius = _MINIMUM_RADIUS
       self.my_orientation = math.pi

   def _calculate_radius_and_icon_size(self, children_count):
       """Stub out this method; not used in `My Layout`."""
       return _MINIMUM_RADIUS, style.STANDARD_ICON_SIZE

   def _calculate_position(self, icon_size):
       """ Increment the radius as you go """
       x, y = self._calculate_xy()

       # add some buffering around the icon
       self._calculate_new_radius_orientation(icon_size + 10)

       width, height = self.box.get_allocation()
       return int(x) + (width - icon_size) / 2, \
           int(y) + (height - icon_size - (style.GRID_CELL_SIZE / 2) ) / 2

   def _calculate_xy(self):
       """ Convert r, o to x, y """
       return -math.sin(self.my_orientation) * self.my_radius, \
           math.cos(self.my_orientation) * self.my_radius

   def _calculate_new_radius_orientation(self, icon_size):
       """ Based upon current radius, calculate new increments """
       circumference = self.my_radius * 2 * math.pi
       n = circumference / icon_size
       self.my_orientation += 2 * math.pi / n
       self.my_radius += float(icon_size) / n

   def append(self, icon, locked=False):
       """ Instead of assigning the position based on a hash, use spiral """
       FavoritesLayout.append(self, icon, locked)

       min_width_, child_width = icon.get_width_request()
       min_height_, child_height = icon.get_height_request(child_width)
       min_width_, width = self.box.get_width_request()
       min_height_, height = self.box.get_height_request(width)

       if icon in self.fixed_positions:
           x, y = self.fixed_positions[icon]
           x = min(x, width - child_width)
           y = min(y, height - child_height)
       else:
           x, y = self._calculate_position(child_width)

       if x is None or y is None:
           self._grid.add(icon,
                          child_width / _CELL_SIZE, child_height / _CELL_SIZE)
       else:
           self._grid.add(icon,
                          child_width / _CELL_SIZE, child_height / _CELL_SIZE,
                          x / _CELL_SIZE, y / _CELL_SIZE)

Keyboards

I used to design the keyboards for OLPC. I am doing one for them for a 'high-school' version of the XO-1.5. Here is a first pass:

es

us

Misc.

• 2010 DML proposal
• File:VisualMatch-18.xo
• User:Walter/sandbox
• User:Walter/favoriteslayout.py
• User:Walter/favoritesview.py
• User:Walter/View-mylayout.svg
• Activities/Turtle Art/Patching

Spiral Home View

Fermat Spiral

Modifying TurtleArt

Floss Manual

<img src=""/> <style>

@import url("http://en.flossmanuals.net/bookstore/bookstore.css");

</style>

<script src="http://en.flossmanuals.net/bookstore/bookstore.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
 FM.init({"paging":true,"preferred":["OLPC LAPTOP USERS GUIDE","SUGAR USERS GUIDE"]});
</script>

Portfolio

I am making a "TurtleArt: inspired portfolio tool. See TAPortfolio for more details.

first sketch of the portfolio tool

another sketch of the portfolio tool

almost to Version 1.0

clap to advance to next slide

type to advance to next slide

Turtle Art → Logo

I added a "view source" for Turtle Art that exports Logo.

a Turtle Art project

the UCB Logo version

Some procedures for setting up the palette and the shade functionality:

to tasetpalette :i :r :g :b :myshade
make "s ((:myshade - 50) / 50)
ifelse lessp :s 0 [
make "s (1 + (:s *0.8))
make "r (:r * :s) 
make "g (:g * :s) 
make "b (:b * :s)
] [
make "s (:s * 0.9)
make "r (:r + ((100-:r) * :s)) 
make "g (:g + ((100-:g) * :s)) 
make "b (:b + ((100-:b) * :s))
]
setpalette :i (list :r :g :b)
end

to rgb :myi :mycolors :myshade
make "myr first :mycolors
make "mycolors butfirst :mycolors
make "myg first :mycolors
make "mycolors butfirst :mycolors
make "myb first :mycolors
make "mycolors butfirst :mycolors
tasetpalette :myi :myr :myg :myb :myshade
output :mycolors
end

to processcolor :mycolors :myshade
if emptyp :mycolors [stop]
make "i :i + 1
processcolor (rgb :i :mycolors :myshade) :myshade
end

to tasetshade :shade
make "myshade modulo :shade 200
if greaterp :myshade 99 [make "myshade (199-:myshade)]
make "i 7
make "mycolors :colors 
processcolor :mycolors :myshade
end

to tasetpencolor :c
make "color modulo round :c 100
setpencolor :color + 8
end

make "colors [
100 0 0 100 5 0 100 10 0 100 15 0 100 20 0 100 25 0 100 30 0 100 35 0 100 40 0 100 45 0 
100 50 0 100 55 0 100 60 0 100 65 0 100 70 0 100 75 0 100 80 0 100 85 0 100 90 0 100 95 0 
100 100 0 90 100 0 80 100 0 70 100 0 60 100 0 50 100 0 40 100 0 30 100 0 20 100 0 10 100 0 
0 100 0 0 100 5 0 100 10 0 100 15 0 100 20 0 100 25 0 100 30 0 100 35 0 100 40 0 100 45 
0 100 50 0 100 55 0 100 60 0 100 65 0 100 70 0 100 75 0 100 80 0 100 85 0 100 90 0 100 95 
0 100 100 0 95 100 0 90 100 0 85 100 0 80 100 0 75 100 0 70 100 0 65 100 0 60 100 0 55 100 
0 50 100 0 45 100 0 40 100 0 35 100 0 30 100 0 25 100 0 20 100 0 15 100 0 10 100 0 5 100 
0 0 100 5 0 100 10 0 100 15 0 100 20 0 100 25 0 100 30 0 100 35 0 100 40 0 100 45 0 100 
50 0 100 55 0 100 60 0 100 65 0 100 70 0 100 75 0 100 80 0 100 85 0 100 90 0 100 95 0 100 
100 0 100 100 0 90 100 0 80 100 0 70 100 0 60 100 0 50 100 0 40 100 0 30 100 0 20 100 0 10]
make "shade 50
tasetshade :shade

to tasetbackground :color :shade
tasetshade :shade
setbackground :color + 8
end

The project:

to ta
clearscreen tasetbackground 21 100 setpensize 25.0 make "box1 0.0 
repeat 300.0 [ tasetpencolor xcor / 6.0 tasetshade heading forward :box1 right 91.0 make "box1 :box1 + 1.0 ] 
end

ta

Turtle Art variables

Following the lead of Luis Michelena, I've added named blocks and stacks. I plan to add push and pop next, which should greatly expand the range of possible constructions.

to square

reworking the graphics

Turtle Art push and pop

While it is not the intent that Turtle Art be a full implementation of Logo, but there has been some discussion on teh Sur list about adding some capability for passing arguments to stacks. (and to support recursion). I have added a FILO and push and pop blocks to enable this functionality. I am looking for feedback. regarding this choice.

File:Push and pop.png

push and pop

HBS-style analysis

• our points of difference
• our points of parity
• their points of difference