[Server-devel] [sugar] sugar roadmap

Sat Apr 12 09:19:31 EDT 2008

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 14:42 +0200, David Van Assche wrote:
> Hi,
>    I want to second the opinion that Moodle is definitely the right
> tool for content distribution, though a localised broken down
> wikipedia as a global reference to information is not a bad idea.
> Coming from a teaching perspective, children students need to be led,
> they need to be shown what to do.

No really, kids i have given an XO from 3 Years open the XO faster than
adult from 30 years. And even switch it on faster.

When we give childeren a ball, they quite capable of exploring the
possiblities of it. Even with evenout a handbook. They quite capable or
create rules to play and adjust to play better.

We can learn a lot from our kids. 

please see:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_teaching_methods

and watch on youtube some movies of kid demoing thier XO's and reparing
them.

Kind regards,
Marten

>  It is not at all the same as at Universisty level where the student
> often takes in the informtation they are interested in. For example,
> not everyone likes mathematics at a school level, yet it is an
> essential teaching philosophy and must be pushed to the student,
> rather than pulled by the student. Moodle allows for this, and I have
> successfully used it in this enivornment for several years. It is
> extremely easy to create content and assignements of any nature,
> though they willl of course all be web based, but that doesn't mean
> you coudln't integrate a core moodle program centred around the sugar
> array of software and how to use it.
>    Another thing I've noticed on this list is the insistence on
> recreating the wheel, and the amount of good FOSS that is already out
> there reallly makes this a waste of time. We should be talking about
> integrating existing tools rather than recreating new ones. Just my 2
> cents...
> 
> Here is a list of eductational FOSS compiled by an organisation in the
> US: http://www.osv.org.au/index.cgi?tid=155
> 
> David
> 
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>         Martin: I have cc'd you because I think Moodle is the right
>         tool for
>         relating activities in a logical narrative, i.e. a 'lesson' or
>         a
>         'tutorial'
>         
>         >  >  7. Need graphical activity manager for removing and
>         adding
>         activities
>         >>
>         >>  Could you detail the requirements for this? Perhaps in the
>         wiki?
>         
>         >This is a good point.  The activity list in Home is intended
>         to take
>         >care of this.  Tomeu, we should probably add little delete
>         buttons at
>         >the right of each entry in the list to make this a simple
>         process.  A
>         >non-modal alert should appear to confirm the deletion, of
>         course.
>         >This should be relatively easy to add.
>         
>         Being able to remove activities w/ an option from the activity
>         list is a
>         good short term option. Long term we quite need a
>         activity/package
>         manager. Right now it is more important to have a good media
>         player than
>         a great activity/package manager.
>         
>         Ben Schwartz wrote:
>         >They present a window saying "You are
>         >downloading a file of type "PDF".  Would you like to open it
>         using
>         >"Document Viewer"?"  They also offer a drop-down list of
>         alternative
>         >applications.
>         
>         This sounds good to me. One problem kids will access file
>         types from
>         many sources, such as their local Moodle server or a regular
>         Internet
>         site. It will be annoying if they have to confirm that they
>         want to
>         launch an activity each time. It would be good if they could
>         choose the
>         default action to launch activities from the local moodle
>         server but
>         this decision shouldn't apply to files of the same type on
>         non-trusted
>         servers -- ugh this could get complicated.
>         
>         
>         Another issue related to the Roadmap . . .
>         
>         ==The Problem of Building an Open-Source community around
>         Sugar==
>         
>         I foresee problems building an open-source community around
>         Sugar
>         because most successful open-source projects are ones that
>         allow
>         programmers to "scratch their own itch" that is build or
>         improve tools
>         they themselves use. Sugar will primarily be used kids and
>         adults w/ low
>         literacy. I can't see programmers using it as their own
>         desktop. A good
>         case in point is GCompris which addresses a critical need of
>         millions
>         (basic math and English) but has very few contributors from
>         what I can
>         tell. Contrast this w/ something like git or the gnu
>         utilities. I
>         believe that Sugar will need longterm financial support to be
>         viable.
>         Perhaps that could come from some of the more enlightened
>         pilot
>         countries once they are heavily invested in Sugar.
>         
>         Another option would be to create a version of Sugar that
>         appeals to
>         programmers. But I can't imagine creating such a version that
>         wouldn't
>         require a lot of programming resources.
>         
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-- 

Marten Vijn
http://martenvijn.nl
http://wifisoft.org
http://opencommunitycamp.org