Hi Tabitha,<br><br>I've taken a look at the thread on the MLE group [1]. I thought a longer email would aimed at clearing up some of the confusion would be beneficial. Are you able to forward this on?<br><br><b>About me</b><br>
I have been involved in global QA efforts for over a year. I'm currently one of Sugar Labs Google Summer of Code Coordinator for 2010, <br><br><b>OLPC/Sugar: 2 sentence introduction</b><br>One Laptop Per Child is an educational programme that emphasises constructivist learning, especially in the developing world. With computers, it's easy to update learning materials and provide increasing levels of educational complexity.<br>
<br><b>Terminology</b><br>Just to clear up terminology - OLPC is the organisation that supports the One Laptop Per Child programme. XO is the make of the PCs that run the Sugar Learning Platform. Sugar is the zoom interface, that centres all the focus around the learner and her activities and friends.<br>
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<b>Support</b><br>
Every XO is running Fedora. Sugar is a
set of pure Python modules that hide this. It's likely that IT support staff have probably encountered Red Hat Enterprise Linux in servers. Therefore, it's highly likely that there is support there.<br><br><b>Sugar on a Stick (SoaS)</b><br>
If you're thinking about using Sugar - you don't need the laptops. The whole operating system can run on a USB stick. <br><br><b>Sugar on your current PCs</b><br>Like any Linux distribution, Sugar will sit happily next to your current operating system. If you're running Ubuntu, "apt-get install sugar" will allow you to run Sugar from the login screen.<br>
<br><b>Mesh networking</b><br>XOs support the 802.11s (draft) standard. You've probably heard of the b, g and n (draft) standards. The s standard allows the internet connection to bunny hop between computers in the mesh.<br>
<br><b>In schools</b><br>XOs are supported by the school sever. The school server automates registration, backups of the machine. It also includes Moodle & several tools. Basically it does most of the things that educators in New Zealand would expect a pupil-facing server to do, but specialised towards the XO.<br>
<br>In a school environment, I wouldn't rely on mesh networking. It's quite demanding on CPUs. When XOs mesh with over about 7 PCs, there is a notable reduction in performance. Wifi wireless access points work really well.<br>
<br clear="all">Tim McNamara<br> <a href="http://www.timmcnamara.co.nz">http://www.timmcnamara.co.nz</a> <br> <a href="http://twitter.com/timClicks">http://twitter.com/timClicks</a><br>
<br>[1] <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/mle-reference-group/browse_thread/thread/35748498b4ce01f/8ed0c9b964b9fd19">http://groups.google.com/group/mle-reference-group/browse_thread/thread/35748498b4ce01f/8ed0c9b964b9fd19</a><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Tabitha Roder <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tabitha@tabitha.net.nz">tabitha@tabitha.net.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi NZ volunteers<br><br>Can we please help Craig: <a href="mailto:craigm@maranatha.school.nz" target="_blank">craigm@maranatha.school.nz</a><br><br>Craig posted this request for help on <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/mle-reference-group/" target="_blank">http://groups.google.com/group/mle-reference-group/</a><br>
<blockquote>
Can anybody help me with sugar. I ran it at home on our school netbooks through a cable ok but through Smartnet at school I don't know what
settings it wants or if it can go wireless. I'm hoping to get the junior
teachers into it initially. Is there a tech page, cause I can't find it.<br></blockquote><br>Maranatha Christian School is just out of Lower Hutt so hoping a Wellington volunteer can help out. <br><br>Thanks volunteers<br>
<br>Tabitha<br>Cell +64 21 482229<br>
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