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| | == Sugar Digest == | | == Sugar Digest == |
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| − | In schools, all hardware and software bestow agency on one of three
| + | 1. Congratulations to Ignacio Rodríguez and Sam Parkinson, the grand-prize winners from Sugar Labs in [http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2015/02/google-code-in-2014-welcome-to-winners.html Google Code-in]. Our finalists are Cristian Garcia, |
| − | parties: the system, the teacher, or the learner. Typically, two of
| + | Daksh Shah, and Jae Eun (Jasmine) Park. |
| − | these actors lose their power as the technology benefits the
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| − | third. Ask a group of colleagues to create a three-column table and
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| − | brainstorm the hardware or software in your school and who is granted
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| − | agency by each. Management software, school-wide grade-book programs,
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| − | integrated learning systems, school-to-home communication packages,
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| − | massive open online courses (MOOCs), and other cost-cutting
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| − | technologies grant maximum benefit to the system. Interactive
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| − | whiteboards, worksheet generators, projectors, whole-class
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| − | simulations, plagiarism software, and so on, benefit the
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| − | teacher. Personal laptops, programming languages, creativity software,
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| − | cameras, MIDI keyboards, microcontrollers, fabrication equipment, and
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| − | personal web space primarily benefit (bestow agency to) the
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| − | learner. -- Gary Stager
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| | | | |
| − | 1. Google Code-In. Wow. Finally a chance to catch my breath. Seven
| + | All five did great work, fixing bugs, writing documentation, and taking us to new places. |
| − | intense weeks: 60 students completed more than 300 tasks for Sugar
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| − | Labs. The impact on Sugar Labs was even greater this year than in the
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| − | previous years we have participated: more diversity among the
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| − | participants, the mentors, the tasks, and a spirit of collaboration
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| − | while striving for excellence prevailed throughout the contest. Thanks
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| − | to Google and Stephanie Taylor for giving us this opportunity, to the
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| − | contestants who not only did great work but taught me a thing or two
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| − | along the way, and the mentors and community members who manned the
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| − | IRC channel 24/7.
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| | | | |
| − | I want to acknowledge the Top Ten+ from whom we will be selecting our
| + | 2. Since the contest finished, Ignacio and Sam have continued to contribute patches almost daily to [http://turtle.sugarlabs.org Turtle Blocks JS]. Jasmine has written some beginner guides (See [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/TurtleBlocksIntroductoryManual.pdf] and http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/TurtleBlocksAdvancedBlocksManual.pdf]). If you haven't checked it out, please give it a try (feedback most welcome). |
| − | finalists this week (results announce in early February):
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| − | | |
| − | Ignacio Rodríguez, Daksh, samdroid, cristian99garcia, Ezequiel | |
| − | Pereira, svineet, Gtrinidad, Jas Park, Rafael Cordano, Richar, Sergio
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| − | Britos, Aishmita Kakkar, Gabriel Lee, et al.
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| − | | |
| − | Also, some mentors (and community members) deserve special
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| − | recognition: Andrés Aguirre, Daniel Francis, Gary Servin, Gonzalo
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| − | Odiard, James Cameron, Jorge Ramirez, Mariah Villarreal, Rajul,
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| − | Rodrigo Parra, and Martin Abente Lahaye.
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| − | | |
| − | Finally, a few projects worth mentioning:
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| − | | |
| − | * Turtle Blocks JS [https://github.com/walterbender/turtleblocksjs/blob/master/plugins.md plugins] (Ignacio, samDroid, Daksh)
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| − | * Turtle Blocks guides (Jas Park) [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/TurtleBlocksIntroductoryManual.pdf]and [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/TurtleBlocksAdvancedBlocksManual.pdf]
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| − | * Activity [https://gabrielleedhs.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/reviewing-an-activity-from-sugar-labs-story-activity/ reviews] (Gabriel Lee)
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| − | * [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4764 Dasher app] (Cristian Garcia)
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| − | * Enhancements to [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4193 Physics] (Svineet)
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| − | * [http://www.google-melange.com/gci/work/download/google/gci2014/5809933962444800?id=5741031244955648 Sugar bugs squashed] (Ezequiel)
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| − | * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYGOnlaTuTk Butia Measure] (Gtrinidad)
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| − | * [http://www.google-melange.com/gci/work/download/google/gci2014/5784136845361152?id=5717271485874176 Simple scrolling interface] for Sugar (Rafael)
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| − | and much much more.
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| − | | |
| − | 2. As mentioned above, we have a number of new Turtle Blocks plugins
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| − | (for both the Python and Javascript versions) as a result of Google
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| − | Code-in. One of the more interesting inspirations for plugins comes
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| − | from mashape.com, a repository of APIs for everything from translation
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| − | services to a bicycle theft alert system. As Sugar becomes more
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| − | web-friendly, we can take advantage of web services and also
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| − | facilitate our users to craft their own tools and services. It is fun
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| − | and empowering.
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| − | | |
| − | === In the community ===
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| − | | |
| − | 3. The Free Software Foundation has put together a nice [https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/FSF30-video/FSF_30_720p.webm video] on the core ideas behind Free Software.
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| − | | |
| − | === Tech Talk ===
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| − | | |
| − | 4. [[Xevents]] is a TurtleBlocks plugin that makes it easy to design
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| − | different types of accessibility interfaces through a variery of
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| − | physical sensors types. It is being developed at FING by Andrés
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| − | Aguirre and Alan Aguiar and was the focus of some of the Google
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| − | Code-in work of Rafael Cordano.
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| − | | |
| − | 5. For you OLPC XO 4 users, James Cameron has been working on [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/12297 enabling the second processor]. He reports "about 38% improvement. For CPU tasks like rendering, alt/tab, kernel compiles, the improvement is somewhat more than 38%. For single threaded tasks that rely on memory bandwidth, performance is lower because the memory controller is shared between two cores." When asked how it impacts Sugar, he said "it feels faster and more responsive."
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| − | | |
| − | 6. Martin has announced the tarballs for the last 0.103.x UNSTABLE
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| − | release of Sugar before 0.104 STABLE. (We delayed the release a few
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| − | weeks in order to take advantage of all of the bug fixes coming in
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| − | from Google Code-in.) With this release we reach the API, UI and
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| − | String freeze (See [[0.104/Roadmap]].
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| − | | |
| − | * http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar/sugar-0.103.2.tar.xz
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| − | * http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/sugar-toolkit-gtk3-0.103.2.tar.xz
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| − | * http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-artwork/sugar-artwork-0.103.2.tar.xz
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| − | * http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-datastore/sugar-datastore-0.103.2.tar.xz
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| − | * http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-runner/sugar-runner-0.103.2.tar.xz
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| − | | |
| − | It's time to switch focus on updating translations, everyone can
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| − | contribute through or [http://translate.sugarlabs.org/ new Pootle instance]. We have time until
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| − | February 13, before the 0.104.0 STABLE release.
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| | | | |
| | === Sugar Labs === | | === Sugar Labs === |
| | | | |
| − | 7. Please visit our planet at [http://planet.sugarlab.org].
| + | 3. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlab.org planet]. |
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| | == Community News archive == | | == Community News archive == |