[DC LoCo] Shuttleworth Foundation cancels the Kusasa (eToys) Project

[Kevin Cole]

Hi,

Of note to those with an interest in eToys and Ubuntu.  The notice of
the cancelling of the project was the first I'd heard of the project
itself. However, I see that at least one person in the headers below
who was a participant in the "eToys in Space" meeting last week.  So
I'm probably just "out of the loop" as usual.) For background on the
Kusasa Project see their home page at http://www.kusasa.org/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bill Kerr <billkerr at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 19:29
Subject: [IAEP] kusasa
To: Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>
Cc: Tom Hoffman <tom.hoffman at gmail.com>,
    iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>,
    Sugar Devel <sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 4:11 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:

>
> On 13.01.2009, at 17:53, Samuel Klein wrote:
>
> >> Also see
> >>
> >> http://www.kusasa.org/background/mathland/mathland.html
> >
> > yes... a great project to discuss, actually.
>
>
> Indeed. Does anybody have contacts to them, to find out in more detail
> why it was canceled?

http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/media-centre/press-releases/shuttleworth-foundation-cancels-kusasa-project
struck me as an honest attempt to summarise the reasons

some discussion at tom hoffman's blog last year:
http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2008/10/kusasa-cancelled.html
http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2008/10/thats-little-harsh.html

Sadly if a project does require "advanced teacher skills" (which ought
to be spelt out) it does often falter at that point - difficult to
scale

Papert proposed a new field of teacher training called humanistic
computer studies, where:

"In my vision of this field its professionals will need special
combinations of competences. Apart from a foundation in scientific
knowledge and technological skill they will need high degrees of
psychological sensitivity and 'artistic' imagination. For the ones who
will make the greatest social contribution will be those who know how
to mold the computer into forms which people will love to use and in
ways which will lead them on to enrichment and enhancement...." (from
Solomon, p.133)
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