Re: [IAEP] Fwd: Sugar Ambassadors
I appreciate the Fedora Ambassadors concept as I understand it but I am not sure it's the best approach for Sugar Labs... it seems to me more oriented towards contributor recruitment... the fedora press page for example invites journalists to get involved, which is on-topic for contributor recruitment but is misses by a mile the fact that journalists, analysts and bloggers cannot get involved in *anything* they cover due to conflict of interest; the best one should hope for is a fair shake. Events such as FOSDEM, FOSS VT, LinuxTag, FOSS ED, NECC DC are an amazingly efficient way to change influential minds, but they are expensive to go to and difficult to attend when there are so few of us. We seem to have an Events Calendar (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Events#Sugar_Labs_Events), but I'm not sure it's in use... it would be the logical departure point for in-person recruitment efforts. Now, I certainly agree that contributor recruitment is key for us and I think every team could use more hands, but I would venture that we need to choose another priority: getting feedback from schools where we are and getting into schools where we aren't. In particular, we need teacher-contributors to bridge the wide gap between our development efforts and classrooms with Learners. I have been monitoring the varied OLPC project field studies for some time and I am struck by a nearly universal aspect: the study authors don't invest the time necessary to learn how to use Sugar and so miss its benefits (most studies don't even cite Sugar). Time after time we hear about kids at school chatting on their mesh network, taking and swapping photos, writing together... and the difficulties of teachers to cover learning subjects. The evidence seems to indicate that teachers are slower at learning than grownups (there's truth in that; my 4-year old son completed 8 mazes in a row yesterday with no assistance, more than I ever have), but I would suggest there is another factor: there is no defined teacher computer in the OLPC architecture aside from an XO. I don't mean an XS school server as I understand it, but a bigger screen/keyboard machine running Sugar on the teacher's desk. With increased authority status, an admin for Learners? It's open to debate given Sugar's theoretical underpinnings, but my personal feeling is that providing teachers with tools (say, deactivating video filming in the class when work needs to get done, reactivating after) will have a positive impact on teacher buy-in and recommendations. This by the way is right in line with the nascent Education Team (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team)... its mission is to reach out to teachers and to assist those doing so; I say our best ambassadors will be on that team... ideally, technically adept teachers talking to other teachers... because the Sugar-GNU/Linux stack, not being preinstalled, does require some technical hurdle-jumping. SoaS is designed to reduce these technical barriers and will succeed its ambitious goals as its relatedsupport materials become available, but non-XO preinstalled Sugar is not on the horizon yet and until then, teachers need helpers. So... although marketing does cover all aspects of communication (from booth swag, to sales points flyers, from publicist work with journalists to the Learner-GUI interaction experience), and as marketers we will always be thinking of branding and strategy, I think the way forward is to build on the Education team... start by recruiting a teacher to coordinate it... and take it from there. I'd be interested in participating in those meetings, but I feel a teacher will have far more credibility explaining Sugar to other teachers than marketers (or developers or... :-) will. By the way this could be a handle to contact K-8 bloggers... tell them that Sugar Labs seeks a teacher coordinator and ask them the best way to go about finding one? Finally, I want to mention the snowball effect... it will become far easier to recruit contributors as Sugar becomes more widespread. We are on track to do that, with great code and a coherent marketing message. Sean. On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 10:58 PM, David Farningdfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: Hey all, Below is a thread on Sugar ambassadors from last week. I meant to send it to iaep with a few follow on cc's. Looks like I left off iaep. david -- Forwarded message -- From: David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org Date: Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:59 PM Subject: Sugar Ambassadors To: Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com, Walter Bender wal...@sugarlabs.org We have hinted around the edges several times about the importance of an ambassadors program for Sugar Labs. The basic idea behind the ambassadors programs is to help people such as Caryl feel like they have what they need to effectively communicate to various groups about Sugar and Sugar Labs. At some levels this is a
Re: [IAEP] Fwd: Sugar Ambassadors
I volunteer to help organize this, and to be the Ambassador to several groups, including state governments, textbook writers, and education researchers. The reason is that I am doing those things already. I am in contact with Gov. Pat Quinn's office in Illinois; Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hamilton at Stanford; and the people and organizations listed on the [[Creating textbooks]] page, among others. Some of us expect to have some announcements over the summer. Let's start thinking about the stakeholders we need to bring into the process. o Teachers o Ed. schools o Politicians o School Boards o Students o Parents o Textbook authors and publishers o Software developers o Subject-matter experts o Curriculum developers as individuals and organizations, in each case. Who else? On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 1:58 PM, David Farningdfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: Hey all, Below is a thread on Sugar ambassadors from last week. I meant to send it to iaep with a few follow on cc's. Looks like I left off iaep. david -- Forwarded message -- From: David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org Date: Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:59 PM Subject: Sugar Ambassadors To: Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com, Caroline Meeks carol...@solutiongrove.com, Walter Bender wal...@sugarlabs.org We have hinted around the edges several times about the importance of an ambassadors program for Sugar Labs. The basic idea behind the ambassadors programs is to help people such as Caryl feel like they have what they need to effectively communicate to various groups about Sugar and Sugar Labs. At some levels this is a marketing issue but at other levels, this is a community building issue. I am willing to get the program started. I would like to hand it off to someone with actual social skills as soon as possible. At the OLPCFrance day of SugarCamp, I was much more comfortable sitting upstairs with Scott Meeks and Gary Martin than talking and mingling. We can start by collecting a list of interesting events and a set of inspiring resources. From there we can organically let the natural 'ambassadors' learn what works for their local events and share those best practices with each other. Should we roll this into the marketing team for now and split off when we get to big for the marketers to handle us? Yep, that is a challenge:) david ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin) ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Fwd: Sugar Ambassadors
On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Sean DALYsdaly...@gmail.com wrote: I appreciate the Fedora Ambassadors concept as I understand it but I am not sure it's the best approach for Sugar Labs... it seems to me more oriented towards contributor recruitment... the fedora press page for example invites journalists to get involved, which is on-topic for contributor recruitment but is misses by a mile the fact that journalists, analysts and bloggers cannot get involved in *anything* they cover due to conflict of interest; the best one should hope for is a fair shake. Fedora ambassadors focus on contributor recruitment because that is Fedora's primary goal. A community of strong contributors working towards a shared mission, make fedora awesome is their goal. Events such as FOSDEM, FOSS VT, LinuxTag, FOSS ED, NECC DC are an amazingly efficient way to change influential minds, but they are expensive to go to and difficult to attend when there are so few of us. We seem to have an Events Calendar (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Events#Sugar_Labs_Events), but I'm not sure it's in use... it would be the logical departure point for in-person recruitment efforts. Yep, not enough people to properly tend the calendar much less attend the events. Now, I certainly agree that contributor recruitment is key for us and I think every team could use more hands, but I would venture that we need to choose another priority: getting feedback from schools where we are and getting into schools where we aren't. In particular, we need teacher-contributors to bridge the wide gap between our development efforts and classrooms with Learners. I have been monitoring the varied OLPC project field studies for some time and I am struck by a nearly universal aspect: the study authors don't invest the time necessary to learn how to use Sugar and so miss its benefits (most studies don't even cite Sugar). Time after time we hear about kids at school chatting on their mesh network, taking and swapping photos, writing together... and the difficulties of teachers to cover learning subjects. The evidence seems to indicate that teachers are slower at learning than grownups (there's truth in that; my 4-year old son completed 8 mazes in a row yesterday with no assistance, more than I ever have), but I would suggest there is another factor: there is no defined teacher computer in the OLPC architecture aside from an XO. I don't mean an XS school server as I understand it, but a bigger screen/keyboard machine running Sugar on the teacher's desk. With increased authority status, an admin for Learners? It's open to debate given Sugar's theoretical underpinnings, but my personal feeling is that providing teachers with tools (say, deactivating video filming in the class when work needs to get done, reactivating after) will have a positive impact on teacher buy-in and recommendations. This by the way is right in line with the nascent Education Team (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team)... its mission is to reach out to teachers and to assist those doing so; I say our best ambassadors will be on that team... ideally, technically adept teachers talking to other teachers... because the Sugar-GNU/Linux stack, not being preinstalled, does require some technical hurdle-jumping. SoaS is designed to reduce these technical barriers and will succeed its ambitious goals as its relatedsupport materials become available, but non-XO preinstalled Sugar is not on the horizon yet and until then, teachers need helpers. So... although marketing does cover all aspects of communication (from booth swag, to sales points flyers, from publicist work with journalists to the Learner-GUI interaction experience), and as marketers we will always be thinking of branding and strategy, I think the way forward is to build on the Education team... start by recruiting a teacher to coordinate it... and take it from there. I'd be interested in participating in those meetings, but I feel a teacher will have far more credibility explaining Sugar to other teachers than marketers (or developers or... :-) will. And how do we recruit that teacher? It looks like we have come full circle to 'contributor who contributes by identifying and engaging other smart and passionate contributors.' I guess we could put ambassadors inside the human resources team:) david By the way this could be a handle to contact K-8 bloggers... tell them that Sugar Labs seeks a teacher coordinator and ask them the best way to go about finding one? Finally, I want to mention the snowball effect... it will become far easier to recruit contributors as Sugar becomes more widespread. We are on track to do that, with great code and a coherent marketing message. Sean. On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 10:58 PM, David Farningdfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: Hey all, Below is a thread on Sugar ambassadors from last week. I meant to send it to iaep with
