[Grassroots-l] [SugarLabsPR-en] Sugar Labs Announces Immediate Availability of Sugar on a Stick; Learning Platform Runs on Any PC or Netbook In The Classroom

[pr@sugarlabs.org]

Sugar Labs Announces Immediate Availability of Sugar on a Stick;
Learning Platform Runs on Any PC or Netbook In The Classroom

LinuxTag, Berlin, June 24, 2009: Sugar Labs™, nonprofit provider of
the Sugar Learning Platform to over one-million children worldwide,
announces the immediate availability of Sugar on a Stick v1
Strawberry. Available free for download at www.sugarlabs.org, Sugar on
a Stick can be loaded onto an ordinary 1GB USB flash drive and used to
reboot any PC or netbook directly into the award-winning Sugar
environment. It runs on recent Macs with a helper CD and in Windows
using virtualization. Sugar on a Stick is designed to work with a
School Server that can provide content distribution, homework
collection, backup services, Moodle integration, and filtered access
to the Internet. Today's Strawberry release is meant for classroom
testing; feedback (feedback at sugarlabs.org) will be incorporated into
the next version, available towards the end of 2009.

"One year after its founding, Sugar Labs is delivering on its
education promise for its second million learners," commented Walter
Bender, founder and executive director. "Sugar is preferred because it
is a superior learning experience for young children: engaging while
being affordable. Sugar on a Stick is a great way to try Sugar without
touching your computer's hard disk. It is also well suited to slower,
older PCs and low-powered netbooks. There is a version for the OLPC
XO-1 and it will ship with the newer XO-1.5 laptops in the fall."

Sugar on a Stick provides a coherent and consistent computing
experience. It reduces costs by providing flexibility in hardware
choices, allowing schools to keep their existing investment in
hardware. Learners can benefit from the increased household ownership
of computers; by bringing Sugar on a Stick home, every student has a
consistent, comparable computing environment that parents can share in
as well. It also provides off-line access to applications and content
as not every learner has Internet access at home.

As part of an ongoing effort to make Sugar on a Stick classroom-ready,
Sugar Labs has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the Gould Charitable
Foundation to implement Sugar at the Gardner Pilot Academy, a public
elementary school located in one of the most culturally and
linguistically diverse sections of Boston, Massachusetts.

Learning Activities are at the heart of Sugar. Sugar on a Stick
includes 40 Activities to interest young learners such as Read, Write,
Paint, and Etoys. Hundreds more Activities are available free for
download at the Sugar Activity Library
(http://activities.sugarlabs.org). Most "Sugarized" Activities have
student collaboration built-in; students and teachers work, play, and
learn on the same Activities together. The Sugar Learning Platform is
open, so by leveraging the work of other open source projects,
existing software for children can be integrated; for example, the
acclaimed GCompris suite of 100 Activities developed over the past
five years by Bruno Coudoin was recently added to Sugar, including
Activities such as Chess, Geography, and Sudoku. Teachers and parents
interested in Sugar's Activities and its modern interface for children
can watch short videos on the recently opened Sugar Labs Dailymotion
channel (http://www.dailymotion.com/sugarlabs).

Visitors to LinuxTag are welcome to speak with Sugar Labs contributors
at booth 7.2a 110a.


image: http://www.sugarlabs.org/press/Sugar-on-a-Stick-Strawberry.png

For more information, please contact:
Sean Daly, Marketing Coordinator
website: www.sugarlabs.org
e-mail: pr at sugarlabs.org
telephone: +1-857-254-1100

Mailing address:
Sugar Labs
c/o Software Freedom Conservancy
1995 Broadway,17th Floor
New York, NY 10023-5882
USA

About Sugar Labs
Sugar Labs, a volunteer-driven, nonprofit organization, is a member
project of the Software Freedom Conservancy
(conservancy.softwarefreedom.org). Originally part of the One Laptop
Per Child project (www.laptop.org), Sugar Labs coordinates volunteers
around the world who are passionate about providing educational
opportunities to children through the Sugar Learning Platform. Sugar
Labs celebrates the founding of the first Sugar Local Labs in
Colombia, South America and Washington, DC. Local Labs will provide
valuable connections between Sugar Labs communities and schools
evaluating and learning with Sugar. Sugar Labs is supported by
donations and is seeking funding to accelerate development. For more
information, please visit www.sugarlabs.org.

Sugar Labs is a registered trademark of the Software Freedom
Conservancy. Other names are trademarks of their respective owners.