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diff --git a/source/about_sugar.markdown b/source/about_sugar.markdown deleted file mode 100644 index 1b8ba5a..0000000 --- a/source/about_sugar.markdown +++ /dev/null @@ -1,160 +0,0 @@ -% About Sugar -% -% - -What is Sugar? -============== - -*"We like to think that a child's play is unconstrained—but when -children appear to feel joyous and free, this may merely hide from their -minds their purposefulness; you can see this more clearly when you -attempt to drag them away from their chosen tasks. For they are -exploring their worlds to see what's there, making explanations of what -those things are, and imagining what else could be; exploring, -explaining and learning are among a child's most purposeful urges and -goals. The playfulness of childhood is the most demanding teacher we -have. Never again in those children's lives will anything drive them to -work so hard." —Marvin Minsky, The Emotion Machine* - -Sugar is a learning platform that reinvents how computers are used for -education. Collaboration, reflection, and discovery are integrated -directly into the user interface. Sugar promotes "studio thinking [^1]" -and "reflective practice [^2]". Through Sugar's clarity of design, -children and teachers have the opportunity to use computers on their own -terms. Students can reshape, reinvent, and reapply both software and -content into powerful learning activities. Sugar's focus on sharing, -criticism, and exploration is grounded in the culture of free and -open-source software (FOSS). - - Sugar facilitates -sharing and collaboration. Children can write documents, share books and -pictures, or make music together with ease. - - There -are no files, folders, or applications. Children interact with -Activities. Activities includes an application, data, and history of the -interaction that can be used to resume and reflect on the child's work. - - Everything is saved -automatically. It is our goal that you will never lose your work. -Documents will eventually be synced with a network server, adding -additional protection. - - A Journal is used -for accessing data. The Journal is a diary of things that you make and -actions you take. It is a place to reflect upon your work. - - Sugar is free and -open-source software. Sugar is licensed under the GNU GPL; updates will -always respect the freedom of its users. - -Note to parents and teachers The Sugar Philosophy -================================================= - -Information is about nouns. Learning is about verbs. The Sugar user -interface differs from traditional user interfaces in that it is based -on both cognitive and social constructivism. We believe that learners -should engage in exploration and collaboration. The Sugar platform is -based on three defining human principles. These are the pillars of user -experience for learning: - -- Everyone is a teacher and a learner. -- Humans are social beings. -- Humans are expressive. - -Two principles define the Sugar platform: - -- You learn through doing, so if you want to learn more, you want to - do more. -- Love is a better master than duty—you want people to engage in - things that are authentic to them, things that they love. Internal - motivation almost always trumps external motivations. - -Three experiences characterize the Sugar platform: - -- Sharing: The Sugar interface always shows the presence of other - learners. Collaboration is a first-order experience. Students and - teachers dialog with each other, support each other, critique each - other, and share ideas. -- Reflecting: Sugar uses a "Journal" to record each learner's - activity. The Journal serves as a place for reflection and - assessment of progress. -- Discovering: Sugar can accommodate a wide variety of users, with - different levels of skill in terms of reading, language, and - different levels of experience with computing. It is easy to - approach, yet it doesn't put an upper bound on personal expression. - One can peel away layers and go deeper and deeper, with no - restrictions. - -Sugar is written in Python, an easy-to-learn interpreted language [^3]. -This allows the direct appropriation of ideas in whatever realm the -learner is exploring; music, browsing, reading, writing, programming, or -graphics. The student can go further. They are not going to hit a wall. -They can, at every level, engage with and affect the very tools they are -using for their personal expression. - -Throughout this manual we have added brief "Note to parents and -teachers" sections which explains the philosophy behind the Sugar -platform. We hope these sections help you guide your children and -students through the learning process. - -Sugar Labs -========== - -Sugar was designed for One Laptop per Child (OLPC), as part of an effort -to provide an opportunity for a quality education to every children -through the distribution of connected laptop computers, our most -powerful tools for expression. Sugar is the user interface used on the -OLPC XO laptop. - -Sugar Labs is a non-profit foundation whose mission is to produce, -distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning platform. Sugar -Labs supports the community of educators and software developers who -want to extend the platform and who have been creating Sugar Activities. -Sugar is a community project. It is available under the open-source GNU -General Public License (GPL) and free to anyone who wants to use or -extend it. - -:author: - -> © Walter Bender 2006, 2008 -> -> adam hyde 2006, 2007, 2008 -> -> David Farning 2008 -> -> Emily Kaplan 2008 -> -> Janet Swisher 2008 -> -> Luke Faraone 2008 -> -> Rita Freudenberg 2008 -> -> Rob Mason 2008 - -[^1]: Studio thinking is a term used to describe how visual arts - teachers teach and what visual arts students learn. The term is - detailed in Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts - Education. Studio thinking includes "studio structures": - demonstrations, projects, and critiques; as well as "studio habits - of mind": develop craft, engage and persist, envision, express, - observe, reflect, stretch and explore, and understand.the art world. - In the context of Sugar, studio thinking is applied not just to the - arts, but to all disciplines. - -[^2]: Reflective practice is a concept introduced by Donald Schön in his - book The Reflective Practitioner. Reflective practice involves - students applying their own experiences to practice while being - mentored by domain experts. In the context of Sugar, the expert - could be a teacher, a parent, a community member, or a fellow - student. - -[^3]: An interpreted language is a programming language whose - instructions are interpreted "on the fly" (or compiled to a virtual - machine code) as opposed to precompiled. The significant of - interpreted languages to the Sugar platform include: platform - independence, ease of debugging, ready access to source code, and - small program size. Python is a general-purpose, high-level - programming language. It emphasizes code readability and features a - minimalist syntax and comprehensive standard library. |