Deployment Team/School Key
We will be working to deploy Sugar through bootable USB devices - www.schoolkey.org
This Fall we are working with two schools in Boston
Fenway High School - This is a pilot school in Boston with a wide range of computers. We are working with the Future Engineers Club to try out idea and technology.
Shaw Elementary School - This school has one older computer lab and very little computer access for the students.
Next Steps at Fenway
The goal at the Fenway High School is to work with the tech-savy and motivated teens in the Future Engineers club to test using Sugar on USB in a school environment. Longer term, we'd like to use this as a model to get tech-savvy Teens testing, interacting and being ambassadors for Sugar in their school districts.
Current Status: Students have a SLAX distribution on a USB Key and a Boot-helper CD that allows them to boot from computers that are only set up to boot from CD
Next Goal: Get Sugar into their hands.
ToDo:
- Bootable Sugar on a USB Key - DONE
- Boot Helper CD for Fedora (How we did it for SLAX: http://schoolkey.org/blog/2008/09/30/creating-a-slax-boot-cd-helper)
- Test Sugar and get the worst of the bugs out of what we give to Fenway - Known Issues
- Does not Shutdown - Crucial for not corrupting the USB.
- Calculator doesn't work
- Write out instructions for how Fenway students can customize their Sugar and how to report issues.
- Add Activities
- Add Open Source software such a GIMP
- Report Issues - Probably just a wikipage on SugarLabs works for now, we are only talking about a few teens.
Fenway Blog Posts
- http://schoolkey.org/blog/2008/09/21/video-of-fenway-computers-booting
- http://schoolkey.org/blog/2008/10/08/first-meeting-with-future-engineers-at-fenway-high-school
- http://schoolkey.org/blog/2008/09/30/creating-a-slax-boot-cd-helper
Next Steps at Shaw
Shaw School is a K-5 school in Dorchester with one computer lab with 256MG RAM older computers. The goal is to get Sugar to run on the computer lab computers, then add some donated computers into the spaces used by afterschool programs to increase student access to computers.
Blog Posts
- http://schoolkey.org/blog/2008/09/05/schoolkey-on-compaqs-at-shaw-issues-running-in-256mb-ram
- http://schoolkey.org/blog/2008/10/04/sugar-pups
Next Steps for Shaw
The issue at Shaw is that in our last tests neither Sugar nor Fedora would boot and run on the Lab computers. We need a slimmer version of Sugar to have a chance of it booting and performing reasonably.
http://www.sugarlabs.org/~marco/sugar-livecd-1marco.iso
This version booted on my 128MB test machine at home. Marco, should I try to get into the Shaw school to test it?
Vision of different ways the USB might work in the students environment
- USB based boot have and advantage because expands the Sugar experience home and to other computers outside the school.
- Thin Client type environments use fewer computers in a computer lab setting and save energy.
Can we get the best of both worlds?
This is a User Story about "Sasha" a fictional 2nd grander living in a fictional urban school district that has fully employed Sugar at all its elementary schools.
Sasha can access Sugar from in a wide variety of settings. I will create a different location for each type of environment. The point of this User Story is to get feedback on which of these ideas are technically feasible, and whether they are worth doing.
Home: Sasha has a donated computer at home. The disk drive was removed. Sasha boots the home computer from the USB.
Grandma's House: Sasha also uses Grandma's computer. Grandma's computer does not allow the Bios to be set to boot from USB, or maybe Grandma just doesn't know how to do it, so Sasha keeps a CD there. To use Sugar Sasha put in the CD, plugs in the USB and turns on the computer. The boot starts with the CD, and then the CD tells the system to look on the USB for most of the files.
The Zoo: Sasha sometimes takes saturday classes at the Zoo on science themes. They have a cart of sturdy laptops, with built in cameras, mics, and sensors they can plug in. Many of their programs involve taking the kids outside with the laptops. These laptops are exclusively used for the children's programs and they always use Sugar. 95% percent of the kids come in with their School USB, they have loaners for the ones who don't. The laptops are exclusively for Sugar but they still have Hard Drives and when it boots it uses some of the files on the hard drive and looks to the USB for user files. This saves boot time because the files on the hard drive save hardware configuration data and reading the hard drive is faster then reading a USB.
YMCA: After school and on snow days and vactions Sasha goes to the local YMCA. There is a bank of 10 computers for kids to use. They are thin clients run from one server. There is a USB port, and the user experience is just like booting on a stand alone computer, except because it doesn't really have to fully boot for each student switching users is much faster.
At School: Due to the E-Rate program Sasha's school and all the schools in tow are well connected so the schools system decided to take advantage of the economies of scale and hosts a large server centrally. In each classroom there are thin clients and a USB port. The user experience is exactly the same as at the YMCA, but in this case the server is located several miles away.