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added suggestion for full-time educator
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==Mako's Essay on Funding Free Software Projects==
''Regardless of the steps that a project chooses, transparency will act in a central role in maintaining volunteerism.'' — Mako Hill
''Regardless of the steps that a project chooses, transparency will act in a central role in maintaining volunteerism.'' — Mako Hill
I thought we could use this text, taken from Mako's essay, [http://mako.cc/writing/funding_volunteers/funding_volunteers.html "Problems and Strategies in Financing Voluntary Free Software Projects"], as a starting point for a discussion on what sorts of activities Sugar Labs should be funding. In the essay, Mako takes a strong stance against the introduce of paid labor into a primarily voluntary free software project, so this is far from a neutral starting point. Nonetheless, let the discussion begin! --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 13:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought we could use this text, taken from Mako's essay, [http://mako.cc/writing/funding_volunteers/funding_volunteers.html "Problems and Strategies in Financing Voluntary Free Software Projects"], as a starting point for a discussion on what sorts of activities Sugar Labs should be funding. In the essay, Mako takes a strong stance against the introduce of paid labor into a primarily voluntary free software project, so this is far from a neutral starting point. Nonetheless, let the discussion begin! --[[User:Walter|Walter]] 13:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
"While conferences and sprints can be a clever way to spend money without sacrificing the voluntary nature of development projects, it is worth keeping one important caveat in mind. When a project selects people for funded attendance at the expense of others, it demonstrates favoritism that can be divisive. In the process of organizing these events, it is important to '''maintain a high degree of transparency and fairness'''. Organizers should use published and fair criteria to determine conference funded attendance and leave attendance open to all. Good criteria for fair selection includes "first come, first served," constructive activity on mailing lists, the number of important commits to a source code or documentation repository, or a good reputation among fellow developers (e.g., as determined by a fair and representative committee)."
"While conferences and sprints can be a clever way to spend money without sacrificing the voluntary nature of development projects, it is worth keeping one important caveat in mind. When a project selects people for funded attendance at the expense of others, it demonstrates favoritism that can be divisive. In the process of organizing these events, it is important to '''maintain a high degree of transparency and fairness'''. Organizers should use published and fair criteria to determine conference funded attendance and leave attendance open to all. Good criteria for fair selection includes "first come, first served," constructive activity on mailing lists, the number of important commits to a source code or documentation repository, or a good reputation among fellow developers (e.g., as determined by a fair and representative committee)."
==Need for a Full-time Educator==
Sugarlabs should acquire funding to hire a
full-time field-educator to manage communication b/w developers and
teachers. This is really critical to make sure that Sugar meets "felt
needs" of teachers in the developing world rather than perceived needs.
This person would also manager feedback on activities and requests from
the deployments.
It is really critical that this person be an experienced teacher who has
worked full-time at the primary or secondary level, ideally in a
developing country.
An education Ph D from Harvard or MIT would be the wrong person. Those
folks tend to focus on policy and theory, and tend not to have teaching
experience in public schools. We need someone who is thinking about the
problems of teaching long division in a constructionist way and the
use of the subjunctive in English.
[[User:BryanWB|BryanWB]] 03:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
[[Category:General public]]
[[Category:General public]]