<div dir="ltr">-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This strikes my interest particularly as I hav both an OLPC with Sugar and a child who will be entering the school system in the near future. Nathan Eckenrode Website: EckenrodeHouse.netContact Me: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: <a href="http://getfiregpg.org">http://getfiregpg.org</a> iD8DBQFI44QE5kmPG6hw+h8RAoC6AJ9Kk6r73iiAHzNgA0Jyzp++nxuWbgCdE0q5 plPOAK15dWGpfAHMy3Oq96A= =Mtne -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- <div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 09:25, Steve Pomeroy <<a href="mailto:steve@staticfree.info">steve@staticfree.info</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I have been talking with Walter Bender from Sugar Labs <<a href="http://sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">http://sugarlabs.org</a>> and he was telling me about some initiatives involving Sugar, Ubuntu and at least one local elementary school. He suggested that our team may be interested in trying to coordinate some local Boston efforts to support GNU/Linux / Sugar / Ubuntu in education. For those who don't know, Sugar is the GUI used on OLPC's XO computers. Development of Sugar has been an ongoing community effort and with Sugar Labs, the community can focus on the most important parts of GNU/Linux in education. Sugar is more than a GUI, though: it's a suite of tools that are useful for kids to learn about the world, be creative and collaborate.  While many developers have focused on the UI, many more need to focus on the tools provided to its users. In a sense, Sugar is a bit like an operating system, but with a tool chain for learning instead of writing software. What does this mean for our team? Well, we have a lot of people who want to help, but often aren't sure where they can best put their efforts to use. I think our most valuable contribution could be to support and train educators and teachers, giving them someone to call if they need a hand learning some technology. Ubuntu / Sugar / Linux in K-12 education has a lot of potential, especially if the people running it on a day-to-day basis are able to get the support they need. Beyond social contributions, there are some technical problems that need to be addressed to make this all happen. Sugar that ships with Ubuntu is terribly stale and could use some people familiar with Ubuntu and its processes to see that it stays modern. I'd love to see a version of Ubuntu that ships with Sugar as the main "OS". There needs to be a better way to get Sugar into the hands of the kids who could benefit most from it. There's been talk of a LiveUSB release of it, that would make it easy to get kids playing with Sugar on whatever computer they can find. If there's enough interest, I'd like to coordinate a meeting with Walter Bender, some folks from Sugar Labs and as many of us as we can muster. We can go over how we can best help local K-12 schools, including one particular elementary school in Dorchester, and see what else we can do to help out our community. If you are interested in helping out in the efforts to bring GNU/Linux and Sugar to kids, join! For some interesting updates on Sugar, see: <a href="http://walterbender.org/" target="_blank">http://walterbender.org/</a> -- Steve Pomeroy <a href="http://staticfree.info/" target="_blank">http://staticfree.info/</a> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFI43pI7GhjlSoG4IgRAiSIAJ0QEXoS2IS5QicIgh5WXM8IJLi3kgCcD/V2 Ughcf/KhBmF2DmGOsEgUYiQ= =l16n -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Ubuntu-us-ma mailing list <a href="mailto:Ubuntu-us-ma@lists.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu-us-ma@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-ma" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-ma</a> </blockquote></div> </div>