We're located in Haiti. Sorry I left that off. And before anyone asks :-) we're not part of the pilot that was scheduled to begin in Haiti last year. I briefly worked with them. As far as I can tell, after the last cabinet shuffle, the project has gone dormant. Officially, I don't know why. Unofficially, the new Minister of Education does not like anything started by the previous one. Or so it seems.
And thanks everyone for the responses. That was quite a few in such a short span of time. I am now quite sure I can make it happen. > This may not be so bad in a Montessori environment, where > children don't all work on the same topic together. So if some > children are using the traditional Montessori equipment, and some > the computer, you will no doubt find a balance. That's the plan. Use the computer as _just_ another montessori equipment/exercise. One problem is that while I have the computer expertise, I know next to nothing about education, and those who have that expertise are somewhat "afraid?" of the computer. Has there been any documented experience in a Montessori environment? It seems to me that there is a lot of soul searching but not much hard data. > > I will be interested to know what balance point the children come > to. It will no doubt vary by age and perhaps other factors. That > information would be worth an article in one of the Montessori > publications. I volunteer to write it if you and the teachers are > willing to collect the data. LOL! Get in line! But let's see what we can do. I certainly plan to document what I do on the computer side. -- Philippe ------ The trouble with common sense is that it is so uncommon. <Anonymous> On Friday 10 July 2009 12:48:18 Edward Cherlin wrote: > 2009/7/10 Philippe Clérié <phili...@gcal.net>: > > I am looking into implenting sugar for a Montessori school. > > Maria would be so pleased. +1 > > Where is your school? Is there a Sugar/XO user group nearby? > > > The > > current plan is to start with 10 to 20 (depending on budget) > > computers for a group of about 100 students from 6 to 13, and > > usage would be on a rotating basis by groups. > > > > At this stage, there is no plan to supply each child with a > > computer. On the other hand, if this implementation is > > reasonably successful then the school will probably recommend > > that parents buy computers for their children. > > I would suggest getting donations of 100 computers, and > providing Sugar on a Stick to every student. That way, they could > continue at home. Talk to any computer recycler about taking > systems with no hard drive, and to any Linux User Group that does > Installfests. > > > As things stand now what I was hoping to do is : > > > > - Install Sugar on each computer as the main OS. > > - Setup a server to hold the kids' home directories and provide > > other services as needed (routing and chat among other > > things...). > > > > I am familiar with the XO and I have downloaded Sugar on a > > Stick to try it out. > > > > My first problem with SaoS is that there is no easy way to > > install the OS on a hard disk. By easy, I mean something like > > a) boot the stick, b) click on install to hard disk, or > > something equivalent. > > That's the hard way. Use a package manager like Synaptic to > install Sugar. You will get more Activities that way. > > or > > yum install sugar (Fedora) > apt-get install sugar (Debian, Ubuntu) > > > (As a side note, SaoS includes none of the sound/music > > applications! That's a huge loss!) > > Jukebox is included but not selected as a Favorite. There is a > technical discussion going on about sound in SoaS. When it is > finished, you can expect to see more. > > > I looked at the distributions I use, Debian and Ubuntu, and at > > Fedora because Sugar is derived from it. All three seem to have > > small problems. > > If so, please check and if necessary file bug reports. We'll help > you. The only issue I am aware of is that Sugar is broken in > Ubuntu Jaunty. What problems do you see? > > > In addition it seems that they all require a sugar- > > emulator and it's not clear to me what is being emulated. > > It's just the name of the program that starts everything. It is > in a sense emulating an XO within a separate X session. But it > isn't the fake version of some original that we're hiding from > you. :) > > > I'm on a short schedule (only 4/6 weeks to procure and setup) > > so I am looking for quick answers to avoid blind alleys while > > doing the necessary research. > > > > Any comments/pointers welcome. Mostly I think what I'd like to > > know is whether what I'm thinking of is even possible. > > Specifically, is it possible > > There are some issues in configuring a school server that you > will need to ask about. We need the experts to write a procedure > for a reasonable configuration with Jabber and Moodle, and put it > into the Wiki. > > > and how difficult would it be to have share use of a computer > > with Sugar as the only desktop OS? > > It is of course possible. But it is like sharing one pencil among > five or ten students. You can't integrate it into a curriculum. > > This may not be so bad in a Montessori environment, where > children don't all work on the same topic together. So if some > children are using the traditional Montessori equipment, and some > the computer, you will no doubt find a balance. > > I will be interested to know what balance point the children come > to. It will no doubt vary by age and perhaps other factors. That > information would be worth an article in one of the Montessori > publications. I volunteer to write it if you and the teachers are > willing to collect the data. > > > Thanks in advance! > > > > Note: The hardware I am looking at is the HP Mini 110 Mi and > > the System76 Starling Netbook. > > More than adequate. > > > -- > > > > > > Philippe > > > > ------ > > The trouble with common sense is that it is so uncommon. > > <Anonymous> > > +1 _______________________________________________ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
