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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, blogged at walterbender.org, and archived here.) 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. Just back from two exhilarating weeks in India. Along with Harriet
Vidyasagar, I visited with Sugar and OLPC aficionados in Delhi, Goa,
Mumbai, and Guwahati. It was quite eye-opening. (Salil Konkar documented the
trip in a slideshow
on his blog.)
The first stop was Delhi. Harriet had arranged meetings with Sesame
Street India, which is using Sugar in an after-school program. They
were blown away when I told them the history of the Simple Graph
program, one of their favorites. Then we went to JNU where I met with
Dr. Ajith Kumar. Kumar works at the inter-university particle
accelerator center, but is also the inventor of ExpEyes, a
peripheral device similar to Arduino (or Lego WeDo) but for more
serious EE work (it has a signal generator and a buffer for doing
precise sampling of signals). Of course, I could not resist writing a
Turtle Art plugin for his device.
I also attended a seminar on Digital Literacy sponsored by the
Hindustan Times, Intel, and Microsoft. The seminar itself was pretty
depressing: a very paternalistic approach to providing government
services to the masses. But I met a number of good people there whom I
will be following up with.
Also in Delhi, I got a chance to see Manusheel Gupta, who had interned
for me in the very early days of OLPC. It was very nice to catch up.
The next stop was Goa, where there is a small OLPC deployment. One of
the highlights of the trip was finally meeting Salil Konkar, who has
been maintaining the deployment on a volunteer basis. There are not
enough laptops for each child to get their own, so before each class,
a selected group of students retrieve then (XO 1.0s) from a charging
station (designed at the Homi Bhabha Centre) for use in the class. The
students, perhaps seven to eight years old, were using the Numbers
activity that day, and although it was somewhat of a traditional class
in format--desks in rows facing forward--they were actively engaged
and helping each other. I had a prototype of XO Touch with me, so I
did a small study with some of the kids to see how they took to it.
(Although it is unfair to compare with the erratic touchpad of the
first-generation XO 1.0s, it was nonetheless obvious that touch will
make a big difference: the interface, which had been getting in the
way was suddenly in background; all focus was on the math.)
Another highlight in Goa was the opportunity to meet Rita Paes, who
directs the Nirmala Institute, a teacher-training college. I got a
chance to talk to the students about Sugar (who welcomed me with a
lovely ceremony) and with Rita about the potential for establishing a
center of excellence for teacher training to support our efforts in
India. I saw great potential. Rita also introduced Harriet and me to
some locals who have interest in helping with the localization of
Sugar into Konkani. It was interesting to me that some people write
Konkani using Latin script, while others use Devanagari script. It is
somewhat of a political issue, so Chris Leonard has enabled both
communities to work in pootle.
From there, I went to the University of Goa, where I gave a
lecture to the engineering students. The next evening, I gave a
seminar on how to write a Sugar activity to about seventy students.
Clearly there is some latent interest in the project. I also have a
lecture at the local meeting of the ACM, which happened to coincide
with my visit. Finally, I travelled an hour out of town to the
Goa Institute of Management, a beautiful campus on a hill top, to talk
to the students on the theme of "learning to change the world." We
discussed strategies for making Sugar (and OLPC) take hold on the
Peninsula. (See Part 1,
Part 2, and
Part 3.)
From Goa I travelled to Mumbai, where I was hosted by the Homi Bhabha
Centre for Science Education Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
specifically G Nagarjuna and his students at the Gnowledge Lab.
G's students are well versed in Sugar, having been active in
supporting the OLPC deployment in Khairat. Their principal project
is metastudio.org, a peer-to-peer collaborative workspace that
utilizes many semantic features. We discussed the possibility of
folding some of their work into future School Server designs.
Hopefully they will be able to participate (mostly likely on line) in
the discussions at the SF summit.
From Mumbai, I visited two schools: a school for children with
disabilities and the village school in Khairat. At the former, I
discussed with the computer teacher the possibility of using Sugar
instead of Microsoft Windows XP as a way to engage the children more
directly. While Sugar is attractive from the learning perspective, one
concern is that a good deal of the computer training is geared towards
an exam that is based on mastery of Microsoft products, which is a hurdle
the children must jump over in order to enter the job market. Of
course, for most populations of learners, master one word processor
means that one can quickly master any other, but it is still to be
demonstrated that such a transfer would occur with this population.
At the school in Khairat, I got a chance to see what has sprouted from
the seed that Carla Gomez Monroy planted four years ago. Khairat was
one of the early OLPC deployments and, although the program has as yet
to take off in India as a whole, this program is still going strong.
Harriet and I were welcomed to the village with a traditional ceremony
that included beautiful garlands of flowers. We sat with some of the
mothers and preschool children, whom I immediately presented the XO
Touch. The children took to it immediately. One child, using paint,
kept looking at his finger for the ink. But the real fun was visiting
the classroom. The children took turns standing in front of the class
to talk about their work: often drawing, custom-made memory games,
writing (in both English and Marathi--they are completely fluid in
switching between scripts on the XO keyboard), and Turtle Art. I got
to watch as a child figured out how to scale his drawings in Turtle
Art. I got a chance to present to the class, so I thought I would
engage them in something a bit different. Daniel Drake has written a
yet-to-be-released activity that features some animated dance and
exercise moves. I showed them some dances and they did not need
prompting to follow along. But then I asked them to show me some of
the local dance steps. I challenged them to make their own dance
videos and coached them through the process using Turtle Art. They quickly grasped the concept behind the various media
blocks (they had previously been using an old version of Turtle Art
that did not yet have these features). Together we engaged in some
"hard fun."
My next stop was IIT Guwahati. I gave the keynote at Techniche,
the annual techno-management festival. Interestingly, as I was staying
at the university guest house, I had a chance to interact with much of
the staff, particularly in the kitchen (did I mention I love Indian
food?). They were really taken with the XO and we discussed how we
might get some for their children. As it turns out, the students at
the IIT run a school for the children of the workers, so perhaps it is
not out of the question.
I spent another 24 hours in Delhi. Harriet and I spent much of the day
with Satyaakam Goswami and his students at JNU and members of the local FOSS community.
In addition to being
very active in helping to translate Sugar into Hindi, Satyaakam has
been working in an urban school in Nithari, using Raspberry PI. I
visited the school and only have admiration for the teachers and
students who seem to be thriving despite very difficult circumstances.
As with the school for the disabled, much of the emphasis in the
school is for the children to pass their exams, so in discussion with
the teachers, we talked about trying to establish some
extra-curricular activities for the children using Sugar.
India opened my eyes both to the possibilities and the challenges of
Sugar and OLPC. Many thanks to Harriet for her support. And to the
numerous volunteers I met who are trying to give the opportunity of
learning to so many children.
2. In response to feedback from FZT, I released a new version of the Nutrition activity. Also, in the spirit of eating my own dog food, as usual I gave my talks in India using Turtle Art. In the process, I uncovered some corner cases in some of the new features I had introduced in Version 154. Version 156 has some bug fixes.
3. I just got the galley back from the publisher of a book I am writing (with Chuck Kane), Learning to Change the World, about OLPC. I hope to do justice to the project.
4. There are plans to hold the next OLPC SF summit in San Francisco the weekend of October 19-21. We are looking into organizing a Sugar Camp following the summit.
Tech Talk
Misc.
- The last of Hippo is removed from the shell!!
- Work on 13.1 is under way.
Sugar Labs
Visit our planet for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.
An archive of this digest is available.
Planet
The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.
Sugar in the news
| 07 Sep 2012 |
NDTV – One Laptop Per Child initiative a hit in rural India
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| 08 Jul 2012 |
Estado de S. Paulo – Para educar
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| 24 Apr 2012 |
Pacific Standard – OLPC Redux
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| 12 Apr 2012 |
Huffington Post – Hult Global Case Challenge: One Laptop Per Child
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| 30 Mar 2012 |
newswise – “Sugar on a Stick” Helps Kids Learn How to Learn
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| 11 Jan 2012 |
Boston Herald – One Laptop Per Child screening $100 tablet
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| 10 Jan 2012 |
ars technica – Crank, bicycle, and waterwheel: hands-on with the OLPC XO 3.0 tablet
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| 08 Jan 2012 |
The Verge – OLPC XO 3.0 tablet preview: impressions, video, and pictures
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| 07 Jan 2012 |
The Verge – OLPC XO 3.0 tablet: an 8-inch tablet for $100, with Android and Sugar options for the children
|
| 23 Dec 2011 |
Miller-McCune – One Laptop Per Child Redux
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| 18 Oct 2011 |
BDU – Robotics in Uruguay (video)
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| 11 Aug 2011 |
Berlin.de – Gewinner des Berliner Landeswettbewerbs zu Open Source stehen fest
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| 25 Jul 2011 |
CCC Classic – Garmin-sugarlabs development cycling team at Crit starting line
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| 25 Jul 2011 |
CCC Classic – Garmin-sugarlabs development cycling team after Crit
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| 13 Apr 2011 |
framablog – L'expérience Sugar Labs préfigure-t-elle une révolution éducative du XXIe siècle?
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| 05 Apr 2011 |
Businesswire – The Government of Peru Expands the One Laptop Per Child Program with Local Manufacturing
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| 31 Jan 2011 |
Sundance – A Day in the Life – Peru
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| 01 Dec 2010 |
velonation – Sugar Labs to back Garmin-Cervelo’s development team in unique arrangement
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| 28 Oct 2010 |
UCR – Nuevas tecnologías deben estar al alcance de todos los niños y niñas
|
| 05 Oct 2010 |
xconomy – One Ecosystem per Child
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| 08 Sep 2010 |
FLOSS Weekly – Sugar Labs
|
| 09 Aug 2010 |
ABC digital – Indicadores constatan el impacto positivo en el aprendizaje de niños
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| 23 Jun 2010 |
ABC digital – Xo para todas las escuelas de Caacupé
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| 21 Jun 2010 |
La Nacion – “Buscamos que los niños no solo usen softwares, sino que puedan crear uno”
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| 20 Jun 2010 |
UltimaHora.com – La laptop une a padres, alumnos y docentes
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| 15 Jun 2010 |
The H – OLPC XO-1.5 software updated
|
| 10 Jun 2010 |
engadget – Sugar on a Stick hits 3.0, teaches us about a new kind of fruit
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| 27 May 2010 |
Pro Linux DE – Sugar on a Stick v3 freigegeben (German)
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| 27 May 2010 |
NY Times – One Laptop Per Child Project Works With Marvell to Produce a $100 Tablet
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| 27 May 2010 |
PC World – OLPC Rules out Windows for XO-3
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| 03 May 2010 |
WXXI: Mixed Media – Interview with Walter Bender (audio)
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| 03 May 2010 |
Linux Magazine – OLPC Computers for Palestinian Refugee Children
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| 14 Apr 2010 |
National Science Foundation – XO Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham, Alabama (video)
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| 02 Apr 2010 |
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| 15 Mar 2010 |
nbc13.com – Birmingham City students opt to spend spring break in class, XO computer camps (video)
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| 18 Feb 2010 |
LWN – Karma targets easier creation of educational software
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| 05 Feb 2010 |
iprofesional – La PC barata de Negroponte desembarca en la Argentina para pelear contra Intel
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| 14 Jan 2010 |
AALF – Open Systems for Broader Change
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| 03 Jan 2010 |
Educacion 2.0 – PLAN CEIBAL, El Libro
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| 14 Dec 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar gets sweeter
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| 10 Dec 2009 |
ars technica – Sugar software environment gets sweeter with version 2
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| 09 Dec 2009 |
Wired – New Sugar on a Stick Brings Much Needed Improvements
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| 08 Dec 2009 |
engadget – Sugar on a Stick OS goes to 2.0, gets Blueberry coating and creamy Fedora 12 center (video)
|
| 07 Dec 2009 |
Teleread.org – Sugar on a Stick: What it means for e-books and education
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| 27 Nov 2009 |
CNET Japan – 「コードを見せて、もっと良くなるよ」と言える子どもが生まれる--Sugar Labsが描く未来
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| 16 Nov 2009 |
zanichelli – software libero a scuola
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| 12 Nov 2009 |
opensuse.org – openSUSE 11.2 Released
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| 07 Nov 2009 |
My Broadband News – Mandriva 2010 packs a punch [and Sugar]
|
| 06 Nov 2009 |
GhanaWeb – Open education and an IT-enabled economic growth in Ghana: Musings of a dutiful citizen
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| 26 Oct 2009 |
Linux Magazine ES – Software Libre como apoyo al aprendizaje
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| 09 Oct 2009 |
interdisciplines – OLPC and Sugar: mobility through the community
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| 08 Oct 2009 |
IBM developerWorks – 10 important Linux developments everyone should know about
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| 01 Oct 2009 |
OLPC France – Interview Walter Bender au SugarCamp
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| 25 Sep 2009 |
The Inquirer – One Laptop per Child marches on
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| 18 Sep 2009 |
Groklaw – The Role of Free Software in Education
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| 18 Sep 2009 |
Reuters – Sugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
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| 17 Sep 2009 |
ICTDev.org – Dream Again with One Laptop per Child
|
| 26 Aug 2009 |
Latinux – Azúcar en una memoria USB
|
| 03 Aug 2009 |
Wired: Geek Dad – Inventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
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| 30 Jul 2009 |
Zanichelli – Sugar on a Stick: imparare insieme
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| 23 Jul 2009 |
Everything USB – RecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
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| 22 Jul 2009 |
OLPC France – Sugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
|
| 13 Jul 2009 |
Spiegel Online – Das zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
|
| 07 Jul 2009 |
ComputerWorldUK – Gran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
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| 06 Jul 2009 |
Windows Forest – USBメモリなどから“OLPC”用のOSを利用できる「Sugar on a Stick」が無償公開
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| 02 Jul 2009 |
Howard County Library – Sugar on a Stick
|
| 27 Jun 2009 |
Deutschlandfunk – Süßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
|
| 26 Jun 2009 |
EduTech – Sugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
|
| 26 Jun 2009 |
ars technica – Sugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
|
| 24 Jun 2009 |
BBC – OLPC software to power aging PCs
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| 24 Jun 2009 |
Technology Review – $100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
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| 15 Jun 2009 |
TechSavvyKids – Episode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
|
| 10 Jun 2009 |
LWN.net – Sugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
|
| 27 May 2009 |
LWN.net – Activities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
|
| 27 May 2009 |
Business Wire – Dailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
|
| 01 May 2009 |
Guysoft – Nokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
|
| 29 Apr 2009 |
El Mercurio – Así se vivió la fiesta del software libre
|
| 27 Apr 2009 |
ostatic – Sugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
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| 25 Apr 2009 |
Free Software Magazine – The Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
|
| 24 Apr 2009 |
ars technica – First taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
|
| 22 Apr 2009 |
Betanews – Beta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
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| 27 Mar 2009 |
Mass High Tech – Google promotes summer open-source internships
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| 18 Mar 2009 |
Metropolis – A Good Argument
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| 16 Mar 2009 |
Laptop Magazine – Sugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
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| 16 Mar 2009 |
Market Watch – Sugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
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| 14 Feb 2009 |
OLPC Learning Club – DC – Learning Learning on a Stick
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| 05 Feb 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
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| 26 Jan 2009 |
Linus Magazine – Sugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
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| 19 Jan 2009 |
Feeding the Penguins – The status of Sugar, post-OLPC
|
| 16 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – Sugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
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| 12 Jan 2009 |
Bill Kerr – thoughts about olpc cutbacks
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| 07 Jan 2009 |
ars technica – OLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
|
| 06 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – An Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
|
| 30 Dec 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugar Labs Status at Six Months
|
| 22 Dec 2008 |
The GNOME Project – Sugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
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| 16 Dec 2008 |
Feeding the Penguins – Sugar git repository change
|
| 14 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
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| 13 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
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| 09 Dec 2008 |
SFC – Sugar Labs joins Conservancy
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| 31 Oct 2008 |
Linux Devices – An OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
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| 10 Oct 2008 |
Feeding the Penguin – Sugar on Ubuntu
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| 21 Sep 2008 |
Groklaw – Interview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
|
| 17 Sep 2008 |
Bill Kerr – Sugar Labs
|
| 16 Sep 2008 |
Open Source – Sugar everywhere
|
| 28 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – An answer to Walter Bender's question 22
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| 20 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
|
| 08 Aug 2008 |
Investor's Business Daily – 'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
|
| 06 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
|
| 18 Jul 2008 |
Bill Kerr – evaluating Sugar in the developed world
|
| 28 Jun 2008 |
OLPC News – A Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
|
| 18 Jun 2008 |
PC World – OLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
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| 17 Jun 2008 |
Datamation – If Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
|
| 11 Jun 2008 |
LinuxInsider – The Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
|
| 06 Jun 2008 |
Bill Kerr – untangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
|
| 06 Jun 2008 |
Open Education – Walter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
|
| 06 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
|
| 05 Jun 2008 |
Code Culture – The Distraction Machine
|
| 05 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
|
| 27 May 2008 |
The New York Times – Why Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
|
| 26 May 2008 |
ars technica – OLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
|
| 22 May 2008 |
BetaNews – Linux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
|
| 16 May 2008 |
OSTATIC – OLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
|
| 16 May 2008 |
PCWorld – Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
|
| 16 May 2008 |
MHT – Bender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
|
| 16 May 2008 |
News.com – Sugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
|
| 16 May 2008 |
Feeding the Peguins – The future of Sugar
|
| 16 May 2008 |
Sugar list – A few thoughts on SugarLabs
|
| 16 May 2008 |
xconomy – Bender 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 wiki – Dual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
|
| 16 May 2008 |
Softpedia – Bender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI
|
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