Walter, This is very inspiring work. Thank you.
Gerald On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Walter Bender <walter.ben...@gmail.com>wrote: > == Sugar Digest == > > "Free software gives the license. Sugar provides the means." > > 1. I'm back from a week in Paraguay and Uruguay to celebrate Turtle > Art Days in Caacupé and Montevideo. > > Turtle Art Day Caacupé exceeded my expectations. 275 students, their > parents, and 77 teachers joined educators and Sugar developers from > eight countries throughout the Americas and as far away as Australia > (Tony Forster). Brian Silverman and Artemis Papert, the co-creators of > Turtle Art, led workshops to a room full entralled children. Martin > Abente, Andres Aguirre, and Alan Aguiar similarly led Butiá/Juky > robots workshops, using TurtleBots. Claudia Urrea and I led workshops > using Turtle Blocks, where the emphasis was on sensors and mutlimedia. > Tony led a seminar with teachers on pedagogical framework for Turtle > Art. We were assisted by "Evolution" children, youth leaders in > Caacupé who attend school in the morning, teach in the afternoon, and > on weekends supply technical support to school programs (I hope we are > able to recruit many of them to participate in Google Code In, should > Sugar Labs be chosen to participate again this year). While I have > come to expect that children will deeply engage with Turtle Art, the > fact that they maintained intense focus for three consecutive two-hour > workshops, 70 to room, with only short breaks, was unexpected. Many > thanks to Mary Gomez, Pacita Pena, Cecilia Alcala, and the Paraguay > Educa team for all of the work they did behind the scenes (and in the > classrooms) to make the day a success. > > Turtle Art Day Montevideo was teacher-focused rather than > child-focused. Organized by José Miguel García, it attracted 70 > teachers to ANEP for a series of workshops. Claudia and I began the > day with a short lecture on pedagogy. The workshop themes included > sensors (led by Guzman Trindad), robots (led by Andres and the Butiá > team), advanced blocks, and turtle mathematics. During the robots > workshop, we implemented inter-robot communication by taking advantage > of some new collaboration blocks in Turtle Blocks (ported to > TurtleBots): we mapped the accelerometer from one machine to the > motors of another to make a remote-control steering wheel. In > discussions the following day with Mariana Herrera, who works with > children with severe physical disabilities, we came up with a simple > adaptation that may enable her students to program Butiá using some > buttons embedded in pillows. > > Sdenka Zobeida Salas Pilco and the children at an Aymara-speaking > school organized a Turtle Art Day in Puno as well: "Children and I > organized quickly this event, they provided some ideas for > celebrating, it was their idea to arrange the classroom and sticking > balloons to the walls. Girls asked me to were the traditional local > clothes. They helped me a lot. Also, they prepared a song, a poetry > and riddles in Spanish and Aymara language. Finally, the little ones > worked some codes, 4th graders were exploring the activity, and 6th > graders organized the event." > > Other Turtle Art Days are following: in Costa Rica, Malaysia, and > possibly Singapore. While the primary purpose of these Turtle Art Days > is to promote children learning through programming, an important > secondary goal was also achieved: programming is not just in service > of geometry (what Papert called "Mathland") but also in service of > whatever passion drives the child. (Artemis refers to the work she and > Brian do as "Artland". Work with sensors, robots, multimedia, etc., > offer many "mountains to climb".) > > 2. Other activities in Paraguay and Uruguay this week included EduJam > in Asuncion, a Sugar Hackfest, a meeting with Pablo Flores and the > Python Jóven, a Butiá workshop, and a Ceibal event for educators in > Montevideo. Leticia Romero organized the first EduJam to be held > regionally, at the National University of Asuncion. (I handed out >100 > copies of Sugar on a Stick to interested attendees thanks to the > generosity of Nexcopy [1].) It was well attended by educators and > engineers from Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, et al. The > hackfest was also well attended. It included testing of Sugar 100 in a > session orchestrated by Gonzalo Odiard (a number of bugs were > discovered and fixed), an introduction to the new HTML5/Javascript by > Manuel Quiñones, and a discussion of a proposal Brian to use an > embedded Logo environment in the Arduino "brains" of the various > robots programmed with TurtleBots. The Butiá workshop was an > opportunity for me to observe how children use TurtleBots in > programming their robots -- a few of my observations led to some > fine-tuning of the UI in TurtleBlocks-192. And a chance to get direct > feedback from teachers who use Turtle Blocks in a wide range of > activities. Eye-opening. We discussed the ongoing challenge of > providing both a low floor and a high ceiling. The Ceibal event was > also an opportunity to observe how teachers use Sugar. There were > perhaps 100 booths set up with teachers showing their projects. What > was most impressive to me was that these projects were developed > locally by the teachers, not handed down to them by the commercial > sector: a testimony to the fact that teachers, when given the > opportunity, will learn and use that learning in their classrooms. > > Many thanks to everyone from both .PY and .UY who were so welcoming > and hospitable. It was great to see old friends and make some new one. > I am looking forward to returning to the region soon. > > 3. For the first time ever, four members of the Sugar Labs oversight > board managed to be physically in the same place at the same time. > Daniel Francis, Gonzalo, Claudia, and I met at a coffee shop in > Montevideo and had a chance to discuss a number of topics: > (a) We agreed that we would apply again to Google Code In. It is > imperative that the community come up with challenges for the contest > as per [2]. We'd like to focus more on bug-fixing tasks this year. > I'll be preparing the 2013 pages in the next day or two. > (b) We discussed the need to have more regular meetings (with preset > agendas). I'll be soliciting preferred times for a monthly meeting, > beginning in November. > (c) We need to hold an election for four positions on the oversight > board. Claudia, Daniel, and Gonzalo are continuing. The terms for > Adam, Gerald, Chris and I are all expiring. Details to be posted > shortly. > (d) We discussed the need to amplify direct communication with Sugar > deployments. We'll try to organize regular IRC meetings with technical > and learning representatives from deployments. > (e) We discussed the possibility of establishing local "ambassadors" > to deployments to also increase communication. > (f) We also want to hold brainstorming sessions on some specific > topics, e.g., accessibility. > > === Sugar Labs === > > 4. Please visit (and contribute to) our planet [3]. > > ---- > > [1] http://recycleusb.com/ > [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Google_Code-In_2012 > [3] http://planet.sugarlab.org > > -walter > > -- > Walter Bender > Sugar Labs > http://www.sugarlabs.org > _______________________________________________ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel >
_______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep