I have been pleased with : > https://walterbender.github...
> El 9 feb. 2016, a las 6:27 p.m., Walter Bender <walter.ben...@gmail.com> > escribió: > > == Sugar Digest == > > Ten days ago, my mentor and friend Marvin Minsky passed away. As one of the > co-founders of the field of Artificial Intelligence, his passing has been > widely covered by the press and many notable colleagues has blogged about his > numerous intellectual contributions. I have little to add regarding his > contributions to AI, although I had the pleasure of many conversations with > him about the ideas he discusses in Society of Mind and The Emotion Machine. > > Perhaps less well known are some of Marvin's writing on learning. He was a > long-time colleague of Seymour Papert and made significant contributions to > Logo and the core ideas of Construtionism. (He built one of the first Logo > "turtles" and, along with Ed Fredkin, invented the digital synthesizer, which > he interfaced to Logo.) While I was at One Laptop per Child, I commissioned > him to write some essays on learning (See [1]). Alas, we will never get to > read the final four essays in the series (Future Essays). > > Spending time with Marvin was always a pleasure: the range of topics > discussed, the challenging of every assumption and convention, the > unquenchable curiosity, and the generosity with ideas, critique, and > reflection is in my experience unmatched. > > I promise to take the time to share some recollections from our time together > over the coming months, beginning here with a scenario I saw repeated on > numerous occasions. In the days of overhead projectors, when Marvin would > give a lecture he would (I always presumed deliberately) drop his slides on > the floor as he approached the projector. He'd then look down, pick one up > seeming at random, put it on the projector, and then dive into a fascinating > discourse, not necessarily on topic, but always well worth the time and > attention of his audience. Marvin was always at his best when he was > unleashed. > > Marvin had a beautiful mind and a beautiful spirit. He is dearly missed. > > 1. A warm welcome to the new Sugar Labs oversight board: Walter Bender; > Lionel Laské; Adam Holt; Sameer Verma; Claudia Urrea; Tony Anderson; and José > Miguel García. We'll hold our first meeting this Friday at 16 UTC on > irc.freenode.net #sugar. Please join us. > > Many thanks to Daniel Francis, Gonzalo Odiard, and Chris Leonard whom have > served many years on the oversight board and continue to make numerous > contributions to the Sugar community. > > 2. Google Code-In is over and the mentor team has selected our two > grand-prize winners: Piotr Antosz (from Poland) and Ezequiel Pereira Lopez > (from Uruguay). While it is never an easy decision -- we had many strong > contenders for the top two spots -- I am quite pleased with the decision as > both Piotr and Ezequiel did great work and have deeply engaged with the > community. Congratulations to both of them. And, again, thank you to all of > the contestants and to the mentors. > > 3. One topic I hope to discuss on Friday is Google Summer of Code 2016. I've > set up a preliminary page in the wiki [2] to get the application process > start (I am presuming that the oversight board will agree to participate > again this year). Please add project suggests to the wiki. > > === In the Community === > > 4. I just returned from Constructionism 2016 (See [3]), a "bi-annual > gathering of researchers and practitioners of the constructionist learning > philosophy is intended to be a place to showcase lessons learned, innovative > learning tools, new case studies, and novel approaches that has been > happening throughout the world." A number of Sugar Labs community members > were there, including Cynthia Solomon, Claudia Urrea, and Devin Ulibarri. > Devin and I spoke about Music Blocks and along with Cynthia and Claudia, we > ran several workshops for children and teachers. Lots of great feedback and > many new and renewed connections. (Our host, Khun Paron, has been an advocate > for Sugar for almost a decade.) The entire conference was videotaped and will > be posted online soon. Be sure to watch Cynthia's keynote address in which > she reviewed the history of Constructionism, which has had a great influence > on the design and development of Sugar. > > 5. Music Blocks is a fork the Turtle Blocks program that we began last year > during GSoC. Our goal is for Music Blocks to be an open-ended, yet musically > relevant tool—one that invites learners to explore fundamental musical > concepts that are both intrinsic to music yet transcendent of a specific > discipline. > > The structure of our workshops included the concept of a "Power Piece". A > power piece is a melody or a song that is taught because it is powerful and > becomes more powerful as it is taught. Children took phrases of some familiar > music as a basis of exploring and manipulating the music through programming. > > As a result of feedback from the workshops, I have made a number of > improvements to Music Blocks [4]. It is much more robust and internally > consistent. Please do try it (there is a guide at [5]) and give me additional > feedback. > > By coincidence, I subsequently read in Stephen Wolfram's blog about Marvin > Minsky that "Marvin immediately launched into talking about how programming > languages are the only ones that people are expected to learn to write before > they can read. He said he’d been trying to convince Seymour Papert that the > best way to teach programming was to start by showing people good code. He > gave the example of teaching music by giving people Eine kleine Nachtmusik, > and asking them to transpose it to a different rhythm and see what bugs > occur." > > Papert did speak of the need for guidance, both in the programming > environment itself and in the teacher’s facilitating a child's exploration of > it. Power Pieces introduce rich musical ideas that can be studied, analyzed, > transformed, and > re-imagined, they are ripe for open-ended explorations as part of workshops. > > During the workshops (and at the conference) Devin and I both stood on our > "soap boxes" in support of Free/Libre Software. Using computers and > programming software to run on computers is a powerful means to drive > learning. Free Software raises the ceiling by enabling student contributions > to the design, the documentation, and the code itself. > > Tip of the hat to Sawaros Thanapornsangsuth, who translated Music Blocks into > Thai for our workshops. > > === Tech Talk === > > 6. The Sugar Labs systems team has been busy upgrading our servers. Thanks to > their efforts we have had very little down time in the past few years. > > === Sugar Labs === > > 7. Please visit our planet [7]. > > ---- > > [1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays > [2] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2016 > [3] http://e-school.kmutt.ac.th/constructionism2016/ > [4] https://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks > [5] https://github.com/walterbender/musicblocks/blob/master/guide/README.md > [6] http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/01/farewell-marvin-minsky-19272016/ > [7] http://planet.sugarlabs.org > > -walter > > -- > Walter Bender > Sugar Labs > http://www.sugarlabs.org > _______________________________________________ > Lista olpc-Sur > olpc-Sur@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-sur
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