Sugar Labs/Current Events

What's new

This page is updated each week (usually on Monday morning) with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list and blogged at walterbender.org.) If you would like to contribute, please send email to walter at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit planet.sugarlabs.org.)


Sugar Digest

1. I took some time off from programming to attend Evangeline Harris Stefanakis's class at Boston University, School of Education. It is a graduate seminar in which the students are expected to do some field work. Her students are all over-achievers, each with a wealth of experience working with either pre-school or elementary-aged children, many from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I gave a brief Sugar overview and also introduced them to the Portfolio tool. They then explored on their own for an hour or so. Prof. Stefanakis then challenged them to think of ways in which they might incorporate Sugar into their class projects.

Stay tuned.

2. Mel Chua has been leading the marketing-team discussions the past two weeks. She has brought a renewed energy to the group (log). We are focusing on setting goals and being more structured in our approach to meeting our goals. Sean Daly's participation has given us more grounding.

3. Tony Forster is even more fanatic than I am: he has written "Turtle Lander" in Turtle Art (See Turtle Lander). Previously, I'd written a Turtle Art falling-blocks game (See We got game). Both of us are trying to understand the limits of Turtle Art as a language. Meanwhile, a visit to turtleart.org will give you a sense of how expressive Turtle Art can be within the more narrow domain of Art!

In response to last week's discussion about collaboration, I decided to add collaboration to Turtle Art Portfolio. I wanted to see how difficult it would be and have an excuse to think about what a collaborative programming environment might look like. Try sharing Version 16 (TurtleArtPortfolio-16.xo), but I wouldn't recommend more than 2 or 3 people working together at once.

I've also begun documenting both Turtle Art and Turtle Art Portfolio in the wiki: Turtle Art and Turtle Art Portfolio.

Community jams, meet-ups, and meetings

4. Simon Schampijer reports that "a bunch of enthusiastic Sugar developers, contributors and community members got together at FOSDEM'09 in Brussels, Belgium this weekend. In addition, a one-day pre-conference meetup took place on Friday. While a variety of topics and issues were discussed, the focus was on how make Sugar a better and more usable solution in the classroom. To that end, a closer connection with both teachers/educators and pilots/deployments that use Sugar must be forged. There also needs to be an easily accessible and central place that contains a list of suggestions for future improvements and their status (think 'Trac for teachers'). Another important need is to make simple activities that are required in the classroom, e.g. simple Maths programs, typing tutors, etc.

"In an inspiring talk given by Red Hat's Greg deKonigsberg it was emphasized that assessment of tasks and activities must also be integral part of the Sugar platform. Tomeu Vizoso outlined the opportunities in the Sugar playground for the GNOME community in his talk in the GNOME room. There were also many interesting discussions with folks from different communities such as Gnome, Gnash, Mandriva, Fedora, etc.

"Notes taken at the event are posted (FOSDEM 2009)."

5. Tutorius is an open source project developed by nine computer engineering students at Sherbrooke University in Canada. Their project is based Sugar, with the simple goal of making education easier and more accessible to teachers and children around the world and also of improving education quality in general. They plan on building an interactive tutor, an Activities editor, a community website and more.

Help Wanted

6. We could use some USB sticks for distributing Sugar on a Stick. If you know any one who might be able to donate some USB sticks, please let us know.

7. We need more testing of 0.84 as we approach the March release.

Tech Talk

8. Simon also reports that "we had a Sucrose 0.83.5 development release planed for 30 January; we missed that opportunity. We just did an uncoordinated release of the latest sugar, sugar-toolkit and sugar-datastore so packagers can get those into the builds already.

"The next Sucrose release is next week; this will be our Release Candidate 1. Make sure to polish everything up and get your fixes in.

"Testers, please have a look at the new SoaS announcements (snapshots can be found at SoaS snapshots) and the packages in your distribution of choice."

Sugar Labs

9. Gary Martin has generated another SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see SOM).


Community News archive

An archive of this digest is available.

Planet

The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.

Sugar in the news

05 Feb 2009 xcoonomySugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
26 Jan 2009 Linus MagazineSugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
19 Jan 2009 Feeding the PenguinsThe status of Sugar, post-OLPC
16 Jan 2009 OLPC NewsSugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
12 Jan 2009 Bill Kerrthoughts about olpc cutbacks
07 Jan 2009 Ars TechnicaOLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
06 Jan 2009 OLPC NewsAn Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
30 Dec 2008 OLPC NewsSugar Labs Status at Six Months
22 Dec 2008 The GNOME ProjectSugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
16 Dec 2008 Feeding the PenguinsSugar git repository change
14 Dec 2008 NPRLaptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
13 Dec 2008 NPRLaptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
09 Dec 2008 SFCSugar Labs joins Conservancy
31 Oct 2008 Linux DevicesAn OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
10 Oct 2008 Feeding the PenguinSugar on Ubuntu
21 Sep 2008 GroklawInterview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
17 Sep 2008 Bill KerrSugar Labs
16 Sep 2008 Open SourceSugar everywhere
28 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsAn answer to Walter Bender's question 22
20 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsSugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
08 Aug 2008 Investor's Business Daily'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
06 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsTwenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
18 Jul 2008 Bill Kerrevaluating Sugar in the developed world
28 Jun 2008 OLPC NewsA Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
18 Jun 2008 PC WorldOLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
17 Jun 2008 DatamationIf Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
11 Jun 2008 LinuxInsiderThe Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
06 Jun 2008 Bill Kerruntangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
06 Jun 2008 Open EducationWalter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
06 Jun 2008 BusinessWeekOLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
05 Jun 2008 Code CultureThe Distraction Machine
05 Jun 2008 BusinessWeekOLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
27 May 2008 The New York TimesWhy Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
26 May 2008 Ars TechnicaOLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
22 May 2008 BetaNewsLinux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
16 May 2008 OSTATICOLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
16 May 2008 PCWorldBender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
16 May 2008 MHTBender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
16 May 2008 News.comSugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
16 May 2008 Feeding the PeguinsThe future of Sugar
16 May 2008 Sugar listA few thoughts on SugarLabs
16 May 2008 xconomyBender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
16 May 2008 BBC'$100 laptop' platform moves on
15 May 2008 OLPC wikiDual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
16 May 2008 SoftpediaBender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI

Press releases

 9 Dec 2008 Sugar Labs/Sugar Labs joins the SFC
 15 May 2008 Sugar Labs/Announcing Sugar Labs