This is Sugar
A worldwide effort to provide every child with equal opportunity for a quality education.
#technology #education #programming #olpc #sugarlabs #sugarizer
Boston, MA
At Sugar Labs, we make a collection of tools that learners use to explore, discover, create, and reflect. We are non-profit and led by volunteers. We distribute these tools freely and encourage our users to appropriate them, taking ownership and responsibility for their learning.
I found that most so-called portable OS offerings are well suited to student use in the classroom and at home. However, students not yet proficient with sophisticated computer use had a learning curve that slowed down their skills acquisition. The Sugar desktop is an ideal problem solver in getting technology and education on an equal footing for youngsters. The Sugar desktop is an ideal problem solver in getting technology and education on an equal footing for youngsters.
Jack M. Germain, Computer Technology WriterSugar Labs, a volunteer-driven, non-profit organization, had its origins in the One Laptop Per Child project and is now a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy. The mission of Sugar Labs is to support the Sugar community of users and developers and establish regional, autonomous "Sugar Labs" around the world to help learners "learn how to learn" by tailoring Sugar to local languages and curricula.
Sugar is both a desktop and a collection of Activities. Activities, as the name implies, are Apps that involve active engagement from the learner. Activities automatically save results to a journal, where reflections are recorded. Activity instances can be shared between learners; many support real-time collaboration.
This is Sugar
Sugar Neighbourhood. In the Sugar Neighborhood
view, learners see their friends clustered around their current Activities;
from this view they can join each other’s Activities. Sugar collaboration works
"peer to peer," in a classroom or under a tree; Sugar does not require the
Internet.
Sugar Journal. The Sugar Journal records
everything a learner does using Sugar. There is no need to remember
to click a Save Button. The focus is on the activity, not the computer.
The Journal is also a place for reflection, where learners and their
teachers can monitor progress.
What I would like from marketing is some mechanism for highlighting the powerful ideas in Sugar that seem to be lacking in most other systems so that even if a school decides to go with a different product/project, they put pressure on that project to provide tools, not apps, collaboration, transparency, self reflection and group critique, and responsibility on the shoulders of students and teachers to shape their own world.
Walter Bender, Founder of Sugar LabsBelow is a small selection from the hundreds of Activities available in the Sugar Activity Library:
Sugar on a Stick – The full Sugar environment – on any computer at any time – from a thumb drive. Learn about how to create a Sugar Stick.
Sugar on a Stick requires a thumb drive with at least 2GB storage and downloading ~650MB. Sugar on a Stick is available for free and does not permanently affect your computer.
GNU/Linux Install – The full Sugar environment – installed on a GNU/Linux computer.
Sugar is available as a desktop environment on GNU/Linux. Up to date packages are available for Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu and many other distros.
Sugar Runs Best on Computers.
Come back to www.sugarlabs.org on a computer to find how to get the full Sugar environment.
Sugarizer (alpha) – A taste of Sugar within your browser.
Sugarizer provides basic Sugar features and some Activities. Sugarizer works in any modern browser, on mobile, tablet or desktop.