[sugar] Sugar Labs introduction

[Sebastian Silva]

Oh, also found this to be relevant:
http://www.creatinglearningcommunities.org/etcetera/selflearning.htm
http://www.creatinglearningcommunities.org/book/internet/lamoreaux1.htm
http://alcob.com/new/alcom_alcob/alcom_alcob_disp.html

Cheers!

Sebastian

2008/12/1 Sebastian Silva <sebastian at fuentelibre.org>:
> Hello,
> I realize I should have jumped into this discussion earlier. Please
> excuse me, I've just put myself thru an intense matrixesque
> self-learning weeks around learning communities, communities of
> practice, community learning, critical pedagogy, radical pedagogy,
> network logics (economies, brains, forests, evolution, the internet),
> network economics, ecology, emergent control, beekeeping, and
> de-centralized governance... it's been fascinating.
> My research question has been "¿how to jumpstart an ecosystem?"
>
> The reason for my research is because I've been looking for a
> sustainability model for our FuenteLibre.Org grassroots initiative.
> I'll briefly relate our story: Born peruvian, raised in Chile,
> came to Lima where I have familiy a year ago to volunteer for OLPC.
> Got into suport-gang, eek,
> support for G1G1? So Walter comes, brings me an XO laptop, I meet
> Hernan Pachas from the ministry, and I offer to organize volunteers
> for support and training, etc. At the time, they had their hands full
> (and their heads), so they informed me they would not be working with
> volunteers, "they would handle it" and that "I should not worry about
> it".
>
> I understood immediately that for this project to succeed, it needed
> community involvement and transparency. I rallied for volunteers and
> got over 150 emails from educators, techies and all sorts of people
> accross Perú interested in helping out. I tailored a Xubuntu+Sugar
> LiveCD in spanish for download. Alas, as yama puts it, I was "nobody",
> so we were left out of helping out in the deployment and were pointed
> to "boring" (but important) stuff like translating the wiki. This was
> very frustrating and I will not make this mistake again. This is not
> to say we wont translate - its part of our mission too.
>
> Now back to the point, Regional SugarLabs. I investigated the Ubuntu
> LoCoTeam "model" if there is such a thing. I found none, sorry to say,
> only a Howto describing very crude "how to run a team" and "what a
> team can do". It does not go into the relation to the mission a local
> group should have, the relationship it would have with SL central
> ("explicit connections outside" mantra). It also does not touch into
> the organizational principles or the strategies or goals of a
> relationship.
>
> The ubuntu LoCo team is explicitly compared to Linux user groups, that
> is, interest groups, fan clubs. That is what it is, basically, a fan
> club. Now I know sugar has fans, I'm one of them, but ubuntu has a
> large user base and great momentum, neither of which sugar has. In the
> spirit of the message being the medium, nobody is getting the message.
>
> Regional SugarLabs should be highly autonomous, carry their own
> identity and mission (which should significantly overlap or include
> central sugarlabs's mission). They should agree on similar set of
> values / principles and also joint set of goals. We just want to be
> "community centers", nodes in a network, not "Regional Offices".
> Basically this means recognition as local partners and ability to
> collect donations for our efforts. The reason for this perhaps is
> obvious: ¿How are we to expect peer recognition if our own structure
> is vertical?
>
> I'm thinking the problem is the underlying model of "aid" - developed
> countries helping developing countries. How are we hoping to bridge
> the divide with this mental model?
> I suggest a diffent approach, an education project aproach for
> de-centralized massive collaboration for learning communities.
> FuenteLibre leverages Sugar fot this and hopes to explore the realm of
> libre social networking (integrating Elgg with the schoolserver for
> instance). This way the medium is the message. For supporting this
> model I'll point you to some strategies in this book:
> http://www.kk.org/newrules/ "New Rules for the New Economy" by Kevin
> Kelly, in summary:
>
> 1) Embrace the Swarm.
> 2) Increasing Returns.
> 3) Plentitude, Not Scarcity.
> 4) Follow the Free.
> 5) Feed the Web First.
> 6) Let Go at the Top.
> 7) From Places to Spaces
> 8) No Harmony, All Flux.
> 9) Relationship Tech.
> 10) Opportunities Before Efficiencies.
>
> So paraphrasing NN, regional sugarlabs Are Educations Projects, not
> Software development projects. This is important, because as such, we
> will be more involved in deployment / integration / training.
> FuenteLibre, is currently involved in a potential deployment of 2300
> desktop computers with Sugar and Ubuntu, and will be offering a
> community learning workshop model for the regional education direction
> tech team that will be deploying and supporting these 200 computer
> labs.
>
> We would be more like a community managed education technology
> consultant non profit, community partner of sugarlabs and working
> closely in accordance to whatever we agree. One of FuenteLibre's goals
> is also to explore replicable / scalable governance model for learning
> communities, so we would encourage more local groups with diverse
> models / missions, and support and incubate them, provided they agree
> to the givene set of principles.
>
> This brings us to the principles, which I'm currently working on very
> heavily for FuenteLibre, for to quote Greg again, in large
> de-centralized projects, the values are the organization. One point
> here where FuenteLibre has a strong commitment is with free software
> and once our discourse and our legal personality (in the works) are in
> place, we will lauch a campaign for rejecting propietary software in
> education (this is also an example of why we shuold keep our own
> identity).
>
> I'll preparing the principles for FuenteLiber and our new site at
> http://beta.fuentelibre.org/
>
> Thanks for walking with me thru this, and thank you for your support
> of our efforts!
>
> I'll add my comments to the other stuff bellow.
>
> Sebastian
>
> 2008/11/28 Rafael Enrique Ortiz Guerrero <dirakx at gmail.com>:
>> For example here in Colombia,  OLPC/Sugar pilots are beginning to get
>> managed by Companies or Foundations, with needs for money but not with needs
>> for doing things well or loving what they are doing ;).
>
>
>
>>
>> Barely they are beginning to understand the project, but they are
>> truly advanced in relation to contracts.($$$).
>>
>> In addition to this, they are not even remotely interested in free software
>> communities...and in some way the liberties are getting compromised.
>
> In our economies, there is not much meritorcracy. Contracts are gained
> by influence. We grassroots geeks have no influence. You re our only
> point of refernce for influence and we expect your full support
> because we locally represent our shared principles that are being
> compromised by these incumbents.
>
>> So as David says there are two schemes, and people in countries can begin to
>> adjust to one or another.
> I'm very interested in this "company partner" scheme. Will be
> monitoring and figuring how to make it work here as well.
>
>>> > On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka
>>> > <yamaplos at bolinux.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> One thing that we need to see is about giving legitimacy to volunteers
>>> >> in
>>> >> countries where only if you have an "official" piece of paper you are
>>> >> to be
>>> >> taken into account.  Right now I have an active, enthusiastic, capable
>>> >> volunteer in Uruguay who is not taken into account by higher
>>> >> authorities
>>> >> because he basically is "nobody".
>>> >>
> He must be my twin brother then! Please put us in touch.
>
> PS: I'd like to have my blog on planet too, tags OLPC and Sugar... Thanks!!
> --
> Sebastian Silva
> Iniciativa FuenteLibre
> http://blog.sebastiansilva.com/
>



-- 
Sebastian Silva
Iniciativa FuenteLibre
http://blog.sebastiansilva.com/