[sugar] Sugar Labs introduction

Fri Nov 28 17:51:51 EST 2008

Hello Yama, David all.

Some thoughts,

It's definitely  really important to have an official certification or
support from SugarLabs international because as you now in our countries
it's really difficult to get moving without a paper that says so..

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.

Fortunately sugar labs is seeing the foundation of regional sugarlabs as an
opportunity and not as a drawback (as maybe OLPC sees it, don't know why
though)

So as David says there are two schemes, and people in countries can begin to
adjust to one or another.

In relation to OLE Sugarlabs, I see OLE in a higher level than SugarLabs,
the relation between them has to be reciprocal but OLE can group a broaden
stile or kind  of efforts related to education,

Rafael Ortiz

On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 3:05 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at bolinux.org>wrote:

> oh yes, totally.
>
> Neal Scoggin was all for a certification program.
>
> OLE had a similar view about local concerns doing local things.  This is
> particularly liffe-and-death in places where American-organization
> presence is not wholly welcome, and where alternate sources of funding
> might favor local institutions.  Moreover, this can open very
> interesting venues for places like Bolivia where the govenrment wants to
> favor Open Source providers, but there is none locally able to take part
> in project bids.
>
> Yama
>
>
> David Farning wrote:
> > We are facing the same problem in Columbia. There is a very strong
> > group that is having trouble being recognized because they are not
> > official.
> >
> > So far we are working on two parallel solutions, Local Labs and Sugar
> > Partners.  Local Labs will be very autonomous, NFP organization that
> > in some way support the Sugar Labs mission.  It will be pretty easy to
> > have Local Labs recognized as official NFPs under the umbrella of
> > Sugar Labs.
> >
> > The second solution is official Sugar Labs Partners.  These are for
> > profit business that would like to be 'Sugar Certified.'
> >
> >
> > Please take a look at http://sugarlabs.org/go/Regional_Sugar_Labs :)
> > I hope to get them going by the end of the week.
> >
> > thanks
> > david
> >
> > 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".
> >>
> >> A Sugarlabs "credential" or some sort of accreditation?
> >>
> >> Yama
> >>
> >>
> >> David Farning wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hey Caroline, Silas, Yama
> >>>
> >>> Would you be interested helping setup the 'charter' Local Labs[1] for
> >>> Sugar Labs.  A lot of this has been inspired by combining Silas' ideas
> >>> on how to collaborate between developed regions and underdeveloped
> >>> regions, Yama's experience, and working Ubuntu LoCo teams.
> >>>
> >>> I would appreciate your feedback on the implementation of Local Labs.
> >>>
> >>> thanks
> >>> david
> >>>
> >>> 1. http://sugarlabs.org/go/Regional_Sugar_Labs
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Caroline Meeks
> >>> <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Hi Silas,
> >>>>
> >>>> How are things going? I'm sorry your email got burried during the
> Sugar
> >>>> Labs
> >>>> conference and just resurfaced.
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Silas Bernardoni <
> sdbernardoni at wisc.edu>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Caroline,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I plan on looking into the moodle more this weekend.  I have a test
> >>>>> tomorrow morning and then I'm facilitating a campus visit for our
> high
> >>>>> school bridge design contest along with the Diversity Affairs Office
> for
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> College of Engineering.  (Way too much on one day!)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We have a project meeting on Monday where all the teachers using XOs
> in
> >>>>> the city will share their lesson plans and giving their updates.  I
> plan
> >>>>> on
> >>>>> pushing the moodle during the meeting with the hope of loading the
> >>>>> moodle
> >>>>> with content within the next week.  I'll keep you informed on how
> that
> >>>>> goes.
> >>>>>  We should also talk about how we are setting up our student
> >>>>> organization
> >>>>> and how I am planning on contributing to Sugar and OLPC.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> How did your meeting go?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> I am also planning on doing my graduate research on the effectiveness
> of
> >>>>> Sugar and the XO starting in January.  The plan is to do small scale
> >>>>> testing
> >>>>> here in Madison and then do large scale testing (3,700 XOs) in
> Paraguay
> >>>>> over
> >>>>> the summer.  I would like to talk to you about the area of
> educational
> >>>>> open
> >>>>> source software and get your views on what should be evaluated.  I
> look
> >>>>> forward to working with you.  I've had a wonderful experience with
> >>>>> everyone
> >>>>> in the Sugar community.  It's amazing how many good things are
> happening
> >>>>> here on our campus with this project!
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> This sounds great.  I'm sure you know quite a bit more about
> assessment
> >>>> then
> >>>> I do. Here are somethings I'm curious about.  In countries that are
> >>>> already
> >>>> doing standardized testing what results are the tests showing?
> >>>>
> >>>> In classes that are getting good results what is happening?  So
> digging
> >>>> beyond the gross statistics and trying to find out what things create
> the
> >>>> best results.  In the classes I've taken they say one of the things
> that
> >>>> makes evaluating educational technology hard is that it takes the
> >>>> teachers a
> >>>> year or two to get the hang of teaching with the new technolgoy. This
> has
> >>>> to
> >>>> be even more so in developing countries.  So average statistics may
> not
> >>>> tell
> >>>> us much useful initially.  Ideally I'd like to see research that could
> be
> >>>> used as feedback to teacher training.
> >>>>
> >>>> The Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America spoke at Harvard
> >>>> recently
> >>>> and talked about how they have been trying to learn from the few
> teachers
> >>>> who really are effective at significantly changing the trajectories of
> >>>> the
> >>>> thier students.  They then are putting that back into thier training
> and
> >>>> trying to boost the percentage of people who become those
> exceptionally
> >>>> effective teachers. I think that would be a wonderful model to follow.
> If
> >>>> that falls within your interestes perhaps they would share thier
> >>>> evaluation
> >>>> techniques.
> >>>>
> >>>> Look forward to hearing more.  Lets set up a time to talk voice.
> >>>>
> >>>> Again, sorry for losing your email!
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>> Caroline
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Silas
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Silas Bernardoni
> >>>>> Industrial and Systems Engineering
> >>>>> University of Wisconsin- Madison
> >>>>> Office: B1026 ECB
> >>>>> sdbernardoni at wisc.edu
> >>>>> (608)482-0255
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>>> From: Caroline Meeks <caroline at solutiongrove.com>
> >>>>> Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:13 am
> >>>>> Subject: Re: Sugar Labs introduction
> >>>>> To: David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> >>>>> Cc: Silas Bernardoni <sdbernardoni at wisc.edu>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> hi Silas,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> nice to meet you!  Please let me knowif you need any help with
> >>>>>> schools.sugarlabs.org and I'm looking forward to learning more
> about
> >>>>>> your
> >>>>>> project.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>>> Caroline
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 4:27 PM, David Farning
> >>>>>> <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Hey Caroline and Silas,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I wanted to make sure that the two of you were aware of each
> other's
> >>>>>>> work.  I met Silas a few weeks ago at the University of Wisconsin -
> >>>>>>> Madison.  He is the leader of a OLPC - student organization that
> the
> >>>>>>> university.  The chapter currently has ~100 XO deployed around the
> >>>>>>> city at schools and community centers.  There is also a research
> lab
> >>>>>>> set up in the School of engineering with another 10 XO to work on.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> They are working on a lot of problems that I would consider outside
> >>>>>>> the primary scope of Sugar Labs, but very useful nonetheless.  The
> are
> >>>>>>> great projects for proving the worth of the distributed development
> >>>>>>> model of Sugar Labs.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> He, and the Madison chapter, are working closely with Paraguay to
> >>>>>>> develop a model where Madison support the Paraguay deployment
> remotely
> >>>>>>> and physically.  I believe I cced you into a conversation about
> >>>>>>> Paraguay last week.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I met Caroline at an Open Source in education conference a few
> months
> >>>>>>> ago.  Since then, she has been instrumental in driving the Sugar on
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> a
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> stick work forward.  Her contributions have been mostly in the form
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> of
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> high quality feedback to the developers about what she, as an
> >>>>>>> educator, needs in the classroom.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Caroline's company, Solutions Grove, is hosting the moodle server
> at
> >>>>>>> schools.sugarlabs.org.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Silas's long term interest in the project is in measuring the
> >>>>>>> effectiveness of the XO and Sugar as learning and teaching tools.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> In the short term, he has agreed to help seed the content at
> >>>>>>> schools.sugarlabs.org!
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> thanks
> >>>>>>> david
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Caroline Meeks
> >>>>>> Solution Grove
> >>>>>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 617-500-3488 - Office
> >>>>>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Caroline Meeks
> >>>> Solution Grove
> >>>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >>>>
> >>>> 617-500-3488 - Office
> >>>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >
> >
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