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Line 5: − + − + − The Turtle Blocks workshop was the quid pro quo for participating in four days of meetings with [http://cet.org.il/ CET]. The first two days were spent at [http://www.mindcet.org/ MindCET], an incubator for educational technology in Yeruham in the Negev directed by Avi Warshavsky. Avi had organized a hackathon: we formed fifteen teams to work on project ideas. My team -- Arnon Hershkovitz, Revital Rauchwerger, and Shachaf Sagi -- worked on an extension of Turtle Blocks that opens up the opportunity to explore the power of "big data" by providing a "Cloud-service" for data collection and a [http://github.com/walterbender/turtleblocksjs/plugins/impact.json new block], "fetch", for programmatic access to the data. Our specific use-scenario was to address environmental issues through research-based learning, enriched via actual data collection and investigative programming. Together with the staff at CET we built a working prototype: an Arduino-based weather station that feeds data to the Cloud and the client-side Turtle code. I think the potential for such services is enormous: students engage in critical thinking in the process of being active citizens; they experience computational thinking and purposeful programming; and they collaborate on local and global levels. At the end of two days, each team presented to a panel of youth critics. Their reaction to our project was to ask, "Isn't programming hard?", to which I had an opportunity to quote Marvin Minsky: "Learning is hard fun."+ − − Back in Tel Aviv, I participated in a conference, [http://www.shapingthefuture3.cet.ac.il/en/ "Shaping the Future"], where I had the opportunity to hear a wide variety of perspectives on education technology. The focus was on going beyond the screen. The morning session was a series of presentations from the commercial sector: Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, and ???. Lots of impressive wares, but none of the presenters made a compelling case for learning potential of their technology. Indeed, the theme seemed to be "look what we built" instead of "look at what you can build". But things got more interesting from there: Dale Dougherty, founder of [http://makermedia.com/ ''Make Magazine'' and the Makerfaire], gave a nice overview of the maker community aesthetic. In my presentation, I pointed out that 50 years ago, Logo was already "beyond the screen" and subsequently give a quick snapshot of various Turtle Blocks projects involving sensors, robots, web services, etc. In the ensuing discussion, we touched on the issue of privacy. I took the minority opinion on the panel that there was never a reason to risk compromising the privacy of children and that none of the on-line tools that routinely mine identity data from children are necessary to use in the classroom. The audience, which was mostly comprised of teachers seemed to concur with my position. Next up was a presentation by Robert Gehorsam, whom I knew from his days at Prodogy in the 1980s. Robert is executive director of the [http://www.instituteofplay.org/ Institute of Play], which has a intervention in one of the NYC public schools. The kids use game design as the basis of a project-based learning program, where the "core" curriculum is motivated by just-in-time learning. Steve Hodas completed the day's talks with a description of [http://izonenyc.org/ IZone], an innovation incubator for the NY City public schools. His message: market disruption will not change schools; only organizational disruption will change schools. Something for us to think about as we plan the future of Sugar. − 3. Call for papers for the special issue of RED (Journal of Distance Education):"Skills for coding and pre-coding":+ Line 25:
Line 23: − 4. We will be holding an additional Sugar Labs oversight board meeting (SLOB) this month (we hold a meeting the first Monday of each month). Please join us on 15 June at 19:00 EST (Boston), 23:00 UTC on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting, to discuss strategy and tactics as we move forward as a community. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + − 5. For those of you who are interested, we hold our GSoC group meetings on Fridays, 11:00 EST (Boston), 14:00 UTC on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting.+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + − 6. I am running a Turtle Blocks workshop in Bridgeport, Connecticut on 16 June.+ − 7. Martin Abente has announced that we are now in the [[0.106/Testing|testing phase of Sugar 105]]. Your feedback is important to us.+ + + − 8. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet].+
→Sugar Digest
== Sugar Digest ==
== Sugar Digest ==
1. I am en route to the Google Code-in meet up in San Francisco. Looking forward to meeting Ignacio and Sam, our two finalists. I am hoping we'll get some coding time in amidst all the activities that Google has planned.
1. [[0.106/Notes|Sugar 106]] has been released. Some great new features, including the integration of social help and the ability to launch Activities from other Activities, and lots of work on bug fixing and stablization. Many thanks to the developers, testers, and our release master, Martin Abente. For those of you who are so inclined, Sam Parkinson make a fun [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXFaXAGIw04&feature=youtu.be video] about the new release.
2. I was home for less than 48 hours, having just returned from Tel Aviv, where I ran a Turtle Blocks workshop with 30 children. The workshop was organized by the Center for Education Technology -- many thanks for Ilan Ben Yaakov for all of his preparations, including completing the Hebrew translations. The kids did great, as expected, and where as this was only the second time I had run a workshop using the Javascript version of [http://turtle.sugarlabs.org Turtle Blocks], things went more smoothly than I had expected. I did make one change to the UI as a result of my observations during the workshop: I disable screen-dragging by default as it was definitely confusing some kids, who would accidentally drag their blocks off the edge of the screen. It is not really necessary for the smaller programs that novices tend to write; experienced users can presumably enable dragging in order to have more room to organize their stacks of blocks. Tip-of-the-hat to Larry Denenberg from Trip Advisor, who also helped with the translations and has contributed to the design.
2. A few weeks ago I was at the Google Code-in meet up in San Francisco where I had the opportunity to spend time with Ignacio Rodriguez and Sam Parkinson, our two finalists. They are not only productive members of our community in terms of coding, but also exemplars of a new generation of well-rounded, articulate, observant and caring human beings. I'm honored that they have chosen our community in which to develop their skills. Bonus: as I was hoping, we got some coding time in amidst all the activities that Google scheduled. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Raul at Twitter.
3. I ran a Turtle Blocks workshop in Bridgeport, Connecticut at a charter school that serves disadvantaged youths. The workshop was organized by Dennis Wong, an old friend from my Media Lab days and an active member of the local Rotary Club. The kids were enthusiastic despite the difficult circumstances under which we worked -- the computer lab is typically used for taking tests, so it was arranged to minimize the possibilities that the learners would interact with and help each other. I'm hoping as a follow up, the Rotary can help the school make the room into more of a maker space.
=== In the community ===
=== In the community ===
4. Call for papers for the special issue of RED (Journal of Distance Education):"Skills for coding and pre-coding":
* Deadline for submitting manuscripts: 31 July 2015
* Deadline for submitting manuscripts: 31 July 2015
* Estimated Publishing Date: 15 September 2015.
* Estimated Publishing Date: 15 September 2015.
Normas de publicación y pautas para los autores [http://www.um.es/ead/red/normasRED.htm#_Toc324610817].
Normas de publicación y pautas para los autores [http://www.um.es/ead/red/normasRED.htm#_Toc324610817].
5. For those of you who are interested, we hold our GSoC group meetings on Fridays, 11:00 EST (Boston), 14:00 UTC on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting.
6. We will be holding a new Sugar Oversight Board (SLOB) election this fall. The Membership Committee -- Samson Goddy, Caryl Bigenho, and Sebastian Silva -- are gearing up to make a major push to enroll community members onto our members list and we implore everyone to encourage both participation in the election and to consider running for one of the open seats on the board. Details forthcoming. As part of the push, Caryl is putting together a newsletter about recent Sugar activities. If you have stories to share, please contact Caryl (caryl AT laptop DOT org).
7. Dear colleagues,
Sugar Labs is organizing a survey of its youth contributors with the aim of publishing a report in the special issue of RED mentioned above. Towards this end, we invite you to answer the questions below. Please send your answers (written in your native language) to walter AT sugarlabs DOT org or francis AT sugarlabs DOT org.
How and why did you first get involved in programming?
How did you get involved with Sugar? What were your motivations for contributing to the Sugar project?
Did the fact that the project was FOSS (Software Libre) impact your decisions? your motivation? your habits?
What work or contribution that you have participated in has most motivated you? Why?
What work or contribution that you have participated in has least motivated you? Why?
When you program, how do you decide what to work on? Where to you get ideas? help? Do you help others?
How do you communicate your ideas? your questions? your doubts?
Do you have any regrets?
What are your plans regarding programming in the future?
Any other comments?
----
Estimados colaboradores,
Sugar Labs está organizando una encuesta a sus colaboradores jóvenes
con el objetivo de generar un artículo y publicarlo a un medio de
prensa en castellano.
Por este motivo la junta desde Sugar Labs los invitamos a responder la
siguiente serie de preguntas que hemos armado.
Este mensaje va con copia a aquellos jóvenes que recuerdo involucrados
en la comunidad y sé que han realizado aportes. Si consideran que
alguien más es apropiado para responder esta encuesta pueden agregarlo
al CC e invitarlo a responder la encuesta.
Las preguntas son:
¿Cómo, cuándo y por qué comenzaste a involucrarte en la programación?
¿Cómo te involucraste con Sugar? ¿Cuáles fueron tus motivaciones para
contribuir al proyecto de Sugar?
El hecho de que el proyecto sea FOSS (Free and Open Source Software)
¿afectó tus decisiones? ¿Afectó tu motivación? ¿Afectó tus hábitos?
¿Cuál ha sido el trabajo o contribución en que has participado que más
te ha motivado? ¿Por qué?
¿Cuál ha sido el trabajo o contribución en que has participado que
menos te ha motivado? ¿Por qué?
Cuando tu programas, ¿cómo decides en qué trabajar? ¿De dónde sacas
las ideas? ¿Dónde obtienes ayuda? ¿Ayudas a los demás?
¿Cómo compartes, comunicas o debates tus ideas? ¿Y tus preguntas? ¿Y tus dudas?
¿Hay algo que lamentas o que no te haya gustado de haberte involucrado
con el proyecto Sugar?
¿Cuáles son tus planes con respecto a la programación para el futuro?
¿Quieres agregar algún otro comentario?
Esperamos sus respuestas.
=== Tech Talk ===
=== Tech Talk ===
8. Please help Martin and the Developer Team [[0.106/Testing|test Sugar 106]]. Your feedback is important to us.
9. Progress continues on [http://turtle.sugarlabs.org Turtle Blocks JS], which runs in a web browser (the [http://people.sugarlabs.org/walter/turtleblocksjs.apk Android version] is still experimental). Some new features include the ability to pass arguments to action stacks and to return values. Thanks to GSoC intern Amit Kumar Jha for his contributions. The other GSoC projects are also progressing nicely.
=== Sugar Labs ===
=== Sugar Labs ===
10. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet].
== Community News archive ==
== Community News archive ==