Sugar Digest
← Older revision
Revision as of 20:35, 25 March 2016
Line 5:
Line 5:
== Sugar Digest ==
== Sugar Digest ==
−
Ten days ago, my mentor and friend
Marvin Minsky
passed away
.
As
one of the co-
founders
of
the field
of
Artificial Intelligence
,
his passing has been widely covered by
the
press and
many
notable colleagues have blogged about his numerous intellectual
contributions. I
have little
to
add regarding
his
contributions to AI, although I had
the
pleasure
of
many conversations with him about
the
ideas he discusses in Society
of
Mind
and The
Emotion Machine
.
+
1. I promised to share the occasional
Marvin Minsky
story
.
I heard many that were new to me at his memorial service at MIT last week, one of which I'd like to share here. Cynthia Solomon,
one of the co-
inventors
of
Logo and co-author
of
the classic paper from 1971
,
[https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5836/AIM-248.pdf "Twenty Things to Do with a Computer"], was one of the speakers at the service. She recalled
the many contributions
Marvin made to Logo, the language, and to the pedagogy we associate with Seymour
.
What
I
didn't realize was the extent
to
which Marvin (and
his
students) were responsible for broadening
the
scope
of
computational thinking beyond
the
desktop. Cynthia shared some before and after slides
of
children using Logo in the late 1960s
and
early 1970s, after Marvin's influence had manifest itself.
The
excitement of using programming in the context of graphics, robotics, and music was palpable. We ad Sugar Labs are very much standing on Minsky's shoulders
.
−
Perhaps less well known are some of Marvin's writing on learning
.
He was a long-time colleague
of
Seymour Papert and made significant contributions to Logo and the core ideas of Construtionism.
(
He built one of the first Logo "turtles" and, along with Ed Fredkin, invented the digital synthesizer, which he interfaced to Logo
.
) While I was at One Laptop per Child
,
I commissioned him to write some [http://wiki
.
laptop.org/go/Marvin_Minsky_essays essays on learning]. Alas
, we will
never get to read
the
final four essays in
the
series
(
Future Essays
).
+
2
.
The application period for Google Summer
of
Code
(
GSoC) has ended
.
We have 62 applications this year
,
exceeding our total from last year
.
Over the next week
,
community mentors will vet the applications and
we will
apply for slots from Google based on both
the
quality of
the
applications
(
quite high from my sampling
)
and the ability of the community to support the summer interns. If you are interested in being a mentor, it is not too let. Please contact me
.
−
Spending time with Marvin was always a pleasure:
the
range of topics discussed, the challenging of every assumption and convention, the unquenchable curiosity, and the generosity with ideas, critique, and reflection is in my experience unmatched.
+
=== In
the
Community ===
−
I
promise to take
the
time
to
share some recollections from our time together over the coming months, beginning here with a scenario I saw repeated on numerous occasions
.
In the days of overhead projectors, when Marvin would give a lecture he would (I always presumed deliberately) drop his slides on the floor as he approached the projector
.
He'd then look down, pick one up seeming at random, put it on the projector, and then dive into a fascinating discourse, not necessarily on
topic
, but always well worth the time and attention of his audience. Marvin
was
always at his best when he was unleashed.
+
3. Devin Ulibarri and
I
had
the
opportunity
to
speak at [https://libreplanet
.
org/2016/ LibrePlanet]
.
Our
topic was
[https
:
//wiki
.
sugarlabs
.
org/images/c/c7/Education
-
needs
-
free
-
software
.
pdf "Education needs Free/Libre Software needs education
.
"
]
−
+
−
Marvin had a beautiful mind and a beautiful spirit. He is dearly missed.
+
−
+
−
1. A warm welcome to the new Sugar Labs oversight board
:
Walter Bender; Lionel Laské; Adam Holt; Sameer Verma; Claudia Urrea; Tony Anderson; and José Miguel García
.
We'll hold our first meeting this Friday at 16 UTC on irc
.
freenode.net #sugar. Please join us.
+
−
+
−
Many thanks to Daniel Francis, Gonzalo Odiard, and Chris Leonard whom have served many years on the oversight board and continue to make numerous contributions to the Sugar community.
+
−
+
−
2. Google Code
-
In is over and the mentor team has selected our two grand
-
prize winners: Piotr Antosz (from Poland) and Ezequiel Pereira Lopez (from Uruguay). While it is never an easy decision
-
- we had many strong contenders for the top two spots -- I am quite pleased with the decision as both Piotr and Ezequiel did great work and have deeply engaged with the community
.
Congratulations to both of them
.
And, again, thank you to all of the contestants and to the mentors.
+
−
+
−
3. One topic I hope to discuss on Friday is Google Summer of Code 2016. I've set up a preliminary page in the [[Summer_of_Code/2016|wiki
]
] to get the application process start (I am presuming that the oversight board will agree to participate again this year). Please add project suggests to the wiki.
+
−
+
−
=== In the Community ===
+
−
4. I just returned from [http
:
//e-school.kmutt.ac.th/constructionism2016/ Constructionism 2016], a "bi-annual gathering of researchers and practitioners of the constructionist learning philosophy
is
intended
to
be a place to showcase lessons learned, innovative
learning
tools, new case studies, and novel approaches that
has
been happening throughout the world." A number
of
Sugar Labs community members were there, including Cynthia Solomon, Claudia Urrea, and Devin Ulibarri. Devin and I spoke about Music Blocks and along with Cynthia and Claudia, we ran several workshops for children and teachers. Lots
of
great feedback and many new and renewed connections. (Our host, Khun Paron, has been an advocate for Sugar for almost a decade.) The entire conference was videotaped and will be posted online soon. Be sure
to
watch Cynthia's keynote address in which she reviewed the history
of
Constructionism, which has had a great influence on the design and development
of
Sugar
.
+
<blockquote>ABSTRACT
:
The bad news
is
that educational technology has largely failed
to
deliver on its promise. Its focus on efficiency rather than on
learning has
resulted in a further reinforcement
of
education as a system
of
instruction
to
curricula rather than one
of
student-driven construction
of
knowledge
.
−
5. Music Blocks
is
a fork the Turtle Blocks program
that
we began last year during GSoC. Our goal
is
for Music Blocks
to
be an open
-
ended
,
yet musically relevant tool—one that invites learners to explore fundamental musical concepts that are both intrinsic to music yet transcendent
of a
specific discipline
.
+
The good news
is that
Free/Libre Software
is
the starting point towards a solution&emdash;not just because it tends
to
focus on putting powerful tools into the hands of its end
-
users
,
but also because Free/Libre Software espouses a culture
of
doing and sharing in
a
context of critique, reflection, and personal responsibility
.
−
The
structure
of
our workshops included the concept of a "Power Piece"
.
A power piece is a melody or a song
that is
taught because it is powerful and becomes more powerful as it is taught. Children took phrases
of
some familiar music as a basis of exploring and manipulating
the
music through programming
.
+
In this session, we will review some tangible ways in which Free/Libre Software is having and can have a positive impact on education and some things we can and should be doing better. We will then discuss strategies for advocating for Free/Libre Software in education systems both in the US and globally.
The
next generation
of
computer users are in school today
.
We need to ensure
that
the next generation
is
empowered to take advantage
of the
opportunities afforded by Free/Libre Software
.
</blockquote>
−
As a result of feedback from
the
workshops
,
I have made a number of improvements to [https://walterbender
.
github.io/musicblocks Music Blocks]. It is much more robust and internally consistent. Please do try it (there is
a
[https://github.com/walterbender/musicblocks/blob/master/guide/README.md Guide] for getting started) and give me additional feedback
.
+
Unlike
the
session on Free/Libre Software at EdFoo
,
which was sparsely attended, there was standing-room only for our session
.
The recording should be on line within
a
few weeks
.
−
By coincidence, I subsequently read in Stephen Wolfram's [http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/01/farewell-marvin-minsky-19272016/ blog about Marvin Minsky] that "Marvin immediately launched into talking about how programming languages are the only ones
that
people are expected
to
learn to write before they can read. He said he’d been trying to convince Seymour Papert that
the
best way
to
teach programming was
to
start by showing people good code
.
He gave the example of teaching
music
by giving people ''Eine kleine Nachtmusik''
,
and asking them
to
transpose it to a different rhythm and see what bugs occur
.
"
+
It occured to me afterwards
that
one simple call
to
action would be for every member of
the
Free/Libre Software community
to
adopt a teacher (or be open
to
being adopted, e
.
g., Devin, a
music
teacher
,
has adopted me). We need
to
make our voices heard
.
−
Papert did speak
of
the need for guidance
, both
in the programming environment itself
and
in the teacher’s facilitating a child
's
exploration of it. Power Pieces introduce rich musical ideas that can be studied, analyzed, transformed, and re-imagined, they are ripe for open-ended explorations as part of workshops
.
+
4. David Crossland, whom I had the pleasure
of
meeting at LibrePlanet
,
has been busy recruiting GSoC students to write a Sugar Font Editor activity (a project that has long been on
both
my
and
Gonzalo Odiard
's
wish list)
.
−
During the workshops (and at the conference) Devin
and I
both stood
on
our "soap boxes" in support
of
Free
/
Libre Software
.
Using computers and programming software to run on computers
is
a powerful means
to
drive learning. Free Software raises
the
ceiling by enabling student contributions to the design
, the
documentation, and the code itself
.
+
David said out loud what many of us have been thinking: our wiki is a mess. He has issued a call to action to do some gardening. Specifically, he
and I
will be leading a two-day sprint
on
the weekend
of
May 14
/
15 in the Boston area (USA)
.
The goal
is to
begin cleaning up
the
wiki content and other parts of Sugar Labs web properties
,
making them ready for
the
GSoC project to start
.
−
Tip of the hat
to
Sawaros Thanapornsangsuth
,
who translated Music Blocks into Thai for our workshops
.
+
If you'd like
to
participate
,
in person or remotely, please let Walter know. The final time and location details (most likely somewhere on the MIT campus) will be shared on the IAEP list nearer the time
.
=== Tech Talk ===
=== Tech Talk ===
−
6
.
The
Sugar Labs systems team has been
busy
upgrading our servers.
Thanks to their efforts we have had very little down time in
the
past few years
.
+
5
.
Many thanks to Samuel Cantero, a member of the
Sugar Labs systems team
, who
has been
quietly maintaining and
upgrading our servers
behind the scenes
.
He recently fixed
the
breakage with our Trac system; our Wordpress instance; and some problems with the Sugar Activity portal. (Tip of the hat to alsroot for his help regarding ASLO as well)
.
=== Sugar Labs ===
=== Sugar Labs ===
−
7
. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet].
+
6
. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet].
== Community News archive ==
== Community News archive ==