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Line 7: − + − The Paraguay course was taught by Raúl Gutierrez, Bernie Innocenti, Martin Abente, and Jorge Saldivar. They covered all the basics and broke the students into project teams, which resulted in four new activities: Scrabble, Pintando Fracciones, SugarBrain, and Conozco. (The [http://wiki.paraguayeduca.org/index.php/Curso_Sugar_FPUNA detailed syllabus] is available on their wiki.)+ − Raúl raised an interesting question on IRC (and subsequently in [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2010-May/010965.html email]) about issuing a certification of participation in the class. It has been a goal that as Sugar deployments expand, affiliates of Local Sugar Labs would offer services. We have a mechanism for approving the creation of local labs. Is that mechanism adequate, or should we have a separate mechanism for approving the certifications they award? (As someone who would be looking to hire a developer, it would be reassuring to know that Sugar Labs has confidence in their skills. This would suggest that there be a community-based process in place.)+ − In the case of Moodle, only selected "Moodle Partners" can officially certify a developer's skills in Moodle-based e-learning. They have a "rigorous and highly-regarded assessment programme developed by the international Moodle community." We have no such rigorous Sugar assessment program, but perhaps the Activity Team should develop one. In the meantime, I am in favor of deferring to our local Sugar Labs.+ − + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + − 3. CeibalJam, a community-based group in Uruguay, which was recently acknowledged by Ars Electronica, has made yet another contribution: [http://sites.google.com/site/sugaractivities/jam JAMedia], an advanced multimedia player for Sugar. (See it in action on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUpvN0ngsZw YouTube].)+ − Features include:+ − * multiple audio formats+ − * multiple video formats − * on-line radio − * on-line streaming video − − 4. Last week we announced Sugar-on-a-Stick Mirabelle. This week, Thomas C Gilliard announced a revised Sugar-Creation-Kit DVD for downloading for "sneakernet" and behind-firewall installs. From one [http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/Sugar-Creation-Kit-09.iso download], you have everything you need to locally build a complete environment for Sugar. See http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/SugarCreationKit09-Contents.txt for details. − − 5. Alas, I was unable to attend the recent Deployment Team meeting, but Tabitha Roder took [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2010-May/010959.html detailed notes]. It reads like a great start to addressing the questions of how we build a bridge between developers and deployments and between deployments themselves. Thanks to all who attended and to Raul for organizing it. − 6. Sugar will be represented at [http://www.linuxtag.org/2010/ Linux Tag 2010](June 9–12 in Berlin).+ − 7. [[SugarWorldCup2010|Sugar World Cup 2010]] will be held from 11 June to 11 July.+ − 8. Aleksey Lim has been working on the Sugar 0install version of Open Office for Kids. See [http://services.sugarlabs.org/ooo4kids/].+ + + − 9. I added a few new features to the [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4293 Abacus activity], including a binary abacus and an abacus that lets you add fractions, e.g., 1/2+1/3+1/6.+ Line 47:
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→Sugar Digest
==Sugar Digest==
==Sugar Digest==
1. [http://www.paraguayeduca.org/ Paraguay educa] team conducted a two-week workshop on Sugar Activity development. It is great that deployments are facilitating local Activity development—many of our most popular activities have come from downstream, which is exactly as it should be.
1. In their humorous treatise on political double-speak, ''Aristotle and an Aardvark go to Washington'', Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein define 'contextomy' as "a subtle variation on the straw-man argument" where you ''yank'' your victim's words out of context. A straw-man argument attributes an opponent to a position that in fact they do not hold. Contextomy adds the twist that you de-contextualize a quote in order to mistate (or overstate) their position.
An example of contextomy is Mark Warschauer's post, ''OLPC: How Not to Run a Laptop Program''. The premise of Warschauer's article is that the 'OLPC model' is "simply passing out XOs and getting out of children’s way." No planning, no training, no teacher engagement... He goes on to say that this is an ill-advised model that does not work. In the article itself Warchauer never cites an evidence that this is in fact the 'OLCP model', but in a comment he refers the reader to the OLPC mission statement as justification for his straw-man argument. Contextomy.
I am not aware of any OLPC (or Sugar) deployment that in any way resembles Warshauer's straw man, in the United States or elsewhere. (The largest deployment in the United States is the city-wide deployment in Birmingham Alabama, which has involved extensive engagement of teachers, parents, the local university, libraries, churches, and other community assets. As with most deployments, there is extensive [http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116638 observation and longitudinal data] are beginning to become available.) Frankly, it is irresponsible for Warshauer to ignore these data. If he has any actual data to back up his position, he fails to cite it.
Maenwhile, in this week's IRC discussion with teachers running Sugar projects, some evidence surfaced that contradicts Warshchauer's argument. (Apologies for my poor translation of the Spanish-language original.)
2. Meanwhile, we have surpassed the 3-million-served mark on our [http://activities.sugarlabs.org activity portal].
[snip]
:C: It is best to hear directly from the actors themselves ...
:C: What can different group members tell us about their approaches to the training of teachers ...
:F: In Nicaragua selected schools participate in the program, then teachers are invited to
general training workshops three or two days. After that process initiated the visits and support in schools.
:C: I can share one important element in what I do personally is to make sure that teachers can experience tools in the same way I expect them to do with the children ...
:M: In Paraguay at this moment we are training teachers in seventh grade and we are developing a total of 150 hours where we develop educational issues. Principally develop their curricula in various activities.
:C: We can not expect teachers to teach in a "Constructionist", which taught for instructions ...
:J: The workshop of the last two days had a lot of participation active teachers, and they built their own learning projects
:S: J. took that approach.
:J: [The teachers] said in their evaluation that what they liked most was the process
:J: To share and create something with the other
:I: It was very fruitful because the projects were assembled collaboratively
:J: It is good to see that people value this opportunity, whether they are aware of their base "constructionist" or not
:C: Another important element ... we do not want to sell the idea that after a workshop (2, 3 or up to 5 days) we will teach ALL ... the best way to learn is by doing and using XO Activities ...
:M: The constructionist approach to ours is the challenge is that teachers so they understand
:C: M, do you mean by that develop curricula of the various activities?
:I: There is no construction without collaboration
:I: Going from theory to practice and vice versa
:M: to touch directly the issues that develop in the classroom
:F: In our workshops we work in groups or tables work, we try to have a facilitator at each table. to Teachers are provided guidelines we have developed learning here at the Foundation.
:C: According ... construction in collaboration .. I like that!
:M: for those who can not be present, there information on a web site or examples of projects?
:C: Thanks Mary ... perfect!
:C: F. ... and there is a space for teachers develop their own guidelines?
:I: They are rich in sharing desks, and guides such as built?
:S: It is simple to really understand the idea let children explore, that each child has their skills and why the proposal should be diversified classroom, for example. The Teachers are great instructions. Yesterday there were many corrections at this point.
:I: it is interesting that teachers construct their own guides ...
:F: Right. At some point the workshop alongside teachers of each level and each plan their own activities
:I: Interesting ...
:S: In Colombia we have four objectives with the Qualifications [of deployments]: 1. Create local capacity to respond to administrative, technical and related educational implementation; 2. Explore routes that allow the introduction XO's success as a teaching resource; 3. Promote culture constructionist as an innovative learning models; 4. ...
[this thread continues for an hour]
Granted there were some legitimate and useful criticism of OLPC in the comments to Warschauer's article, but the article itself was unhelpful doublespeak.
2. Carolyn Meeks and I submitted the [[Gardner_Pilot_Academy/Final_report|final report]] for the Gardner Pilot Academy Sugar-on-a-Stick pilot.
===In the community===
===In the community===
3. It is not too late to participate in the [[SugarWorldCup2010|Sugar World Cup 2010]] beginning 11 June.
4. Logs of the Spanish-language weekly IRC meetings of teachers working with Sugar are archived [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Spanish_Chat here].
===Tech talk===
===Tech talk===
5. 0.88.1 landed... thanks Simon, Tomeu, and all those who reported bugs and submitted patches: Aleksey, Korakurider, Aleksey Lim, Bernie Innocenti, Benjamin Berg, et al.
6. Chris Ball reports that "I got Sugar running on the ARM SoC we'll be using for XO-1.75 and XO-3, and it didn't require any porting at all." There has been some discussions about enhancements to Sugar to better accommodate touch and multi-touch. Join the discussion.
7. There has also been a discussion of potential features for 0.90. See the devel list archives.
===Sugar Labs===
===Sugar Labs===
<gallery>
<gallery>
File:2010-May-22-28-som.jpg|'''2010 May 22-28''' (45 emails)
File:2010-May-29-June-4-som.jpg|'''2010 May 29–June 4''' (62 emails)
</gallery>
</gallery>