Brett, You might want to check out a couple of FLOSS Manuals I put together. The first one is finished, and is about developing Sugar Activities. The second is in progress and is about finding, using, creating and publishing e-books.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/ActivitiesGuideSugar/Introduction http://en.flossmanuals.net/ReadingandSugar/Introduction Personally I think that Sugar is suited to high school students, and could be made more so with a bit of work on the Journal. My Activity Sugar Commander shows some ideas of what a more grown-up version of the Journal might be like. The new XOs will ship with both Sugar and GNOME, a desktop environment like Windows but without the viruses. This should make them quite appealing to older students. If you learn how to make e-books as described in the second book you can use them on several different platforms, including those cheap Android tablets that are coming out. There are lots of free e-books, many of which would be of interest to high school students. Let me know what you think. James Simmons > Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 18:50:18 -0500 > From: Brett Neese <brne...@brneese.com> > Subject: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions > To: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org, olpc-o...@lists.laptop.org, > grassro...@lists.laptop.org > Message-ID: > <aanlktinh5x_9bxmp6ogn=ylmfo-kd_vvx3j=gcwkk...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > Hi there, > > I'm looking for some advice. My name is Brett Neese, and I'm currently a > high school student at a school in Iowa, USA (although I'm planning on > graduating early in December 2010). I have been working on a little project > (in its current incarnation, it's more of an idea, really) I'm dubbing > Project coEL. See, the OLPC project is great -- I think what you are doing > in developing countries is terrific; I commend your efforts to bring > computing to the poorest children in the world -- but in my opinion there > are a few flaws; namely the fact that most developed countries, such as the > US, don't currently have a large-scale XO deployment. While I understand > that the need for these laptops in developing countries is MUCH greater than > it is in the US (and I'm not trying to sound like greedy, rich, American or > anything, either) , I also know from being a high-school student myself > (albeit one with some learning difficulties) that the US needs some of this > type of technology as well, especially for others who, like me, sometimes > have trouble learning. My other issue is the fact that currently the Sugar > user experience is in no way optimized for the high school learner. I think, > from my experience, that if deployed in the US, the high school/secondary > school student could benefit the most from this sort of technology and it > could trickle down to the elementary level.... but, at present, the UX is > not optimized for the way teachers teach and students learn in today's > world. > > So those are my problems with OLPC. However, I don't think these issues are > such in that we can't work together, either now or in the future. My overall > "vision" for coEL is to bring a specially-designed hardware and software > ecosystem to every high school in the US. You can read more about the > overall vision in coEL's blog -- it's at http://projectcoel.tumblr.com/ > <http://projectcoel.tumblr.com/%20>-- but in short it's a specially designed > open-source laptop in the hand of every highschooler, along with the > appropriate backend server and other hardware, a highly open and extensible > API/SDK -- many of the same technological goals as the XO laptop -- which I > why I'm asking for your help. You have great hardware, I'd love to build off > of it, but in my opinion, your software is lacking, though with the XO-3 > concepts floating around, and your recent partnership with Marvell, its only > going to get better. > > I'll be honest, I don't program. I don't know anything about hardware R&D, > nor know anything about education at an administrative level. I?m just a > 17-year-old high school student who, quite frankly, hates school and wants > to make a difference in the world. I do, however, know a little bit about > design; I interned at a mobile UX agency last year. > > But, in general, what I'm asking you, OLPC staff and volunteers, is this -- > what can we do, together, to help make this vision become reality? > > More specifically, I want to start a grassroots effort, but I'm not quite > sure where to go from here. Should I apply to the contributors program? > Start a regional group? How? Participate in the IRC chatrooms? Edit the > wiki? Any other suggestions/advice? > > In closing, I just wanted to thank you for reading this email. I realize its > a little lengthy, and greatly appreciate your time. Please forgive me if I'm > speaking out-of-turn here, and excuse me if I sent this to the wrong lists > -- please forward this message on to the relevant lists if that is the case. > > Again, thanks so much, > > Brett Neese _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep