Education Team: Difference between revisions

== Mission ==

{{:Education Team/Mission}}

* Mediate between these desiderata and what is possible on the available and imminent hardware platforms, given the current and projected state of connectivity, rural electricity, the other issues and obstacles of poverty, and the current state of [[What is Sugar?|Sugar]];

* Share lots of examples of what works (and what doesn't)—along with a discussion of how and why.

== Goals ==

* Survey teachers in existing deployments (We are putting together a survey. Please [[Education Team/Survey_questions|add your questions]]

* [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep It's an Education Project] mailing list. See, for example this thread, [http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg05330.html Physics education] that draws in several authentic observations and potential activities.

==Meetings==

''06 March 2009''

* [[Education Team/Meetings/2009-03-06|Summary of the 2009-03-06 meeting]]

==Commentary==

If I may add, as a teacher, the vast numbers of teachers, at least in the US and Russia, that I have encountered, are not sufficiently interested/ skilled/ convinced that the tools you are offering, no matter how 'free and great' they may be will be of any use unless it is super simple.

If this project wants deeper acceptance in the community then show that it is CHILD'S PLAY to get it working. One click install and walkaway. If you have to stay with SOAS, then get a video of a kid performing the process of setting  up Sugar on a Stick. But even that will get adults to say something like... "Oh, those kids today, I could never do that!" I've heard that, from teachers!

  I also try to stoke envy among parents, making generous use of Youtube video. - [[User:Docdtv|Docdtv]]

Most importantly, to get Sugar traction in schools, make it easy for kids to publish their genius works via video and etc. Get screencasting as part of nearly every activity. Hook on to youtube's [http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html API] or [http://www.vimeo.com/api vimeo's API] or something like that so that kids will show other kids how __cool__ they are... Adults want Sugar because it should make their kids smarter better problem solvers, more likely to survive the hard world, etc. The real trick is to _make kid's want Sugar_. It can be done a lot of ways but the biggest reason for kids is because it can help them generate/build/maintain/ grow/improve their 'cool' factor among their friends at their schools. How? By posting their latest SUGAR success on a publicly available media channel i.e. youtube, vimeo, etc. for all their very hip and connected friends to see online.  

Let's make it easy for kids to get that cool factor using Sugar... then Sugar will get traction among the very complacent teachers...  

Go run a working school computer lab one for awhile, talk to a public school administrator... you'll know/hear what I'm talking about. Noone willingly creates more work for themselves unless they see it saves gobs of energy or time elsewhere or blows test scores out of the water... SoaS doesn't offer any of that yet, IMHO.

Make Sugar homework safe, easy to use, and keep it simple for Aunt Tilly to understand and install.

===idealized===

The ideal school computer set up is easy to install,<b>minimizes</b> variables, and maximizes ease of use and power.  

* [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ Learning evolves – Bill Kerr]

* [[Education Team/Creating textbooks|Creating textbooks]]

== Subpages ==