Deployment meetings/20090210
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Intros
m_stone> hi folks!
m_stone> tonya37: hello!
tonya37> m_stone hi, there is a meeting today?
m_stone> that's why I'm here. :)
tonya37> m_stone great
m_stone> unfortunately, all of the OLPC folks just locked themselves in a
room with a delegation from UY.
m_stone> so I suspect we won't be hearing too much from them.
m_stone> cjb: (though they could surprise me and prove me wrong!)
m_stone> tonya37: would you mind introducing yourself?
tonya37> m_stone I am Tony Anderson, I am working with OLENepal
m_stone> tonya37: great; a pleasure to see you again. :)
m_stone> aa, luar: awake?
m_stone> kristianpaul__, tarbo2: alive?
m_stone> wadeb|w, bjordan: around?
wadeb|w> m_stone: yep
m_stone> Lemon-Jade-09: hola!
luar> m_stone: hi! Awake but working :/ But I'm reading the IRC each
some minutes :)
smithbone> m_stone: I'm keepking an eye on the the meeting. ping me when
you think its a good time to bring up the MBC.
cjb> hi all
cjb> I'm afraid I'm in a meeting this week
m_stone> cjb: maybe you could speak near the end? (or write an addendum
for me to add to the minutes?)
m_stone> cjb: if your meeting runs late?
cjb> I think the meeting will run late
Nepal Updates
tonya37> m_stone: I had a chance to visit the Connexions 2009 Conference
last week. Shuttleworth Foundation is beginning to roll out a
complete k-12 curriculum call Siyavula on Connexions.
m_stone> tonya37: url?
tonya37> m_stone: http://cnx.org/news/rice-african-partnership-is-open-
education-blockbuster
m_stone> tonya37: thanks!
m_stone> tonya37: do you intend to continue tracking their progress?
tonya37> m_stone: yes
m_stone> tonya37: great. it would be really nice if you were able to
summarize their work, say, once a month, so that we learn about
opportunities to share with them as such opportunities arise.
tonya37> m_stone: ok. The plan is for science to be added to Connexions in
March. I should be able to update after I get to Nepal at the end
of the month.
m_stone> tonya37: good, that will be very helpful.
tonya37> wadeb|w another item. etextread has a karaoke/e-speak feature
which is not working. The activity currently depends on speech-
dispatch. It could either eliminate that dependency or speech-
dispatch (a daemon to allow multiple activities to share e-speak)
could be added.
wadeb|w> tonya37: ok, I will follow up with the author
wadeb|w> tonya37: what build are you guys on by the way?
tonya37> wadeb|w I believe a homebrew mix of 8.2.1.
tonya37> wadeb|w the important thing about OLENepal is that they are using
Firefox 3 in order to deliver Flash 'activities'.
wadeb|w> tonya37: yah, that's been annoying me :) see the 3rd item at
http://sugarlabs.org/go/ActivityTeam/TODO
wadeb|w> m_stone: top task list needs right now are help triaging
activities on SoaS and other distros. we could also use some
help collecting top requests from deployments
m_stone> wadeb|w: speaking of which.
wadeb|w> m_stone: actually the second item - collecting top requests from
deployments - should be the highest priority right now :)
wadeb|w> tonya37: a lot of discussion has gone around about fixing it but
I haven't seen a solution appear yet
wadeb|w> tonya37: IE, Firefox should not be needed to run Flash
tonya37> wadeb|w the other key parameter is that the new school year
starts in April 2009 - OLENepal is working on a freeze of 2/13.
wadeb|w> tonya37: good to know, maybe we can get those issues fixed for
you in time
Activity Team
m_stone> wadeb|w: have you gotten any helpful additions to your activity-
team's task list?
wadeb|w> m_stone: we are making progress, driven by the amazing efforts of
a few individuals :) alsroot has taken and completed Speak
collab which was on our high priority list, and Tony Anderson is
making progress on image quiz which is another one of our top
priorities. also, activities continue to be migrated.
wadeb|w> m_stone: my biggest looming task is writing to all the past
activity authors (morgs sent me a list he collected late last
year)
wadeb|w> m_stone: I'm also still working on Typing Turtle which is nearing
feature complete, been doing a lot of testing back and forth with
Nepal (who plan to ship it)
m_stone> wadeb|w: neat. there are probably other groups who will enjoy
Typing Turtle as it is completed. I'd love to help advertise it
here.
tonya37> wadeb: I should have put it on the list. SocialCalc desparately
needs to be able to save/restore spreadsheets.
wadeb|w> tonya37: it can't save and restore spreadsheets? yikes
tonya37> wadeb|w yea, verily
wadeb|w> ...I'm trying to track down the email address of the SocialCalc
devs right now
Modifying Activities
m_stone> several of the items we spent some time on last week which might
be relevant to you include:
m_stone> wadeb|w: we spent a long time talking about how to help Peruvian
teachers (and others surrounding them) communicate better among
themselves even though they have little connectivity.
m_stone> wadeb|w: walter suggested that we produce digests of olpc-sur and
distribute those via the UGELs (regional distribution centers)
m_stone> wadeb|w: we also talked a lot about both local activity creation
and adaptation of activities to meet new ends.
m_stone> wadeb|w: for example, caryl led a short conversation about "how
someone might make Conozco-Uruguay into Conozco-Peru?"
m_stone> wadeb|w: we talked about sneaker-net compatible blogging software
-- aa offered to work on edublog in order to make it work better
for Peru.
m_stone> wadeb|w: and walter hinted that Peruvian teachers had already
found imaginative ways to reuse existing activities.
m_stone> (in other parts of the world, we discussed how desperate Sierra
Leone is for materials which assist with literacy since the
literacy rate in their current pilot schools is apparently < 2%)
wadeb|w> m_stone: all that sounds great! we have a page going on SL
regarding how to modify activities. it might be of interest to
the deployments
wadeb|w> http://sugarlabs.org/go/Modifying_Activities
m_stone> wadeb|w: well, maybe we can help get it tested so that you get
some feedback on it...
m_stone> wadeb|w: for example, it would be great to get some sense of "how
much it helps" to advance work on environments like Pippy &
Develop vs. writing better tutorials or modifying existing
activities to be "user extensible" like Walter's recent TAP
examples.
wadeb|w> m_stone: digests of olpc-sur also sound awesome, the language
barrier is huge for me at least (1 yr spanish in high school :))
wadeb|w> m_stone: and I would love to hear what they are saying about
Sugar in their own words (or as close as possible)
wadeb|w> m_stone: let me investigate edublog for a sec
m_stone> wadeb|w: we should get
http://sugarlabs.org/go/Modifying_Activities translated and
distributed on-XO.
m_stone> wadeb|w: it's not going to do Peruvian teachers much good on the
wiki.
wadeb|w> m_stone: yeah, good idea :) maybe a library bundle could be
created from the current snapshot
Conozco Uruguay
wadeb|w> m_stone: perhaps we could ask the Conozco-Uruguay devs to
contribute a section?
m_stone> wadeb|w: we can ask. :)
wadeb|w> have you got contact info?
m_stone> aa, luar: who wrote conozco-uy? :)
aa> m_stone, wadeb|w: Gabriel Eirea wrote conozco uruguay
wadeb|w> aa: ok, thanks I have an email to write then
aa> he can be reached through sur or olpc-uruguay lists, or at geirea
at gmail
wadeb|w> aa: thanks
aa> welcome :)
m_stone> (yay networking!)
Finding Help in Sugar
m_stone> wadeb|w: re library bundles: maybe, but maybe activities could
grow a hints or a "help overlay"?
wadeb|w> m_stone: I've been cheerleading for a "Help" button in the
toolbar of most activities that launches Browse with a .html file
from the activity bundle
m_stone> wadeb|w: nice and simple. your idea is good to implement because
it's trivial.
wadeb|w> would have to be translated o/c, which could increase the amount
of translation per activity by a lot... but still better than
nothing
m_stone> wadeb|w: still, I think you should talk to eben, walter, and the
etoys folks. this might be another area in which sugar could
profitably distinguish itself from its competition.
wadeb|w> m_stone: agreed! ok, I'll follow up on it then.
m_stone> wadeb|w: for example, could scott's click-to-trans feature be
used to help get the help text in the right languages?
m_stone> (i.e. "how would I edit one of those help docs on an XO?")
wadeb|w> m_stone: sure, don't see why not. integrating it into hulahop
might be a job though
wadeb|w> m_stone: but yeah, offering the ability to translate locally
would be great
m_stone> wadeb|w: tiddlywiki! :)
wadeb|w> m_stone: yeah, it seems like we need some kind of a system. I'll
open up a discussion re: Sugar help
m_stone> wadeb|w: thanks v. much.
m_stone> wadeb|w: (though don't forget the hard work on the manuals)
wadeb|w> m_stone: do you know if we ship the manual? is that what goes in
the Help activity?
m_stone> wadeb|w: yes. on the other hand, I think that the chapters which
went into the XO manual are quite different from those which went
into the Sugar manual.
m_stone> perhaps encouraging PE and others to ship the Sugar manual as
well would be time well spent (if they don't already have it)?
Multi-Battery Charger
m_stone> smithbone: would now be good for the battery-charger pitch?
smithbone> In the near future (2 weeks) I'll have 20 Multi-battery chargers
to send out for people to mess with.
smithbone> I'm looking for sites that are interested in testing.
smithbone> And feedback on if this is some thing that they can integrate
into their plans.
tonya37> smithbone: please contact Bryan Berry (bryan@olenepal.org)
smithbone> tonya37: he's already on the list.
tonya37> smithbone: great
m_stone> smithbone: what qualifies a site?
smithbone> A site really boils down to either: poential for ordering lots
of them or somebody with advanced technical skills and lots of
batteries to charge
m_stone> smithbone: where should people go to register to participate? smithbone> m_stone: have them email me richard@laptop.org.
m_stone> smithbone: (seems like this is kinda similar to the contributers
program; just for less common hardware?)
smithbone> m_stone: yes. Contributors just with more specific conditions.
you need lots of batteries to charge. (and discharge)
m_stone> smithbone: okay, will do. thanks for the update.
smithbone> wadeb|w: The key thing is that I need is demand info.
smithbone> To make it work I have to either place large orders with my mfgs
or charge more.
m_stone> still, we won't know what's economical for folks until we ask...
m_stone> smithbone: anyway, thanks for trying to figure out something that
makes it easier to get batteries charged. :)
Rwanda + XSen?
m_stone> anyone else have questions that I can try to find answers for?
tonya37> m_stone: as a general question, it would be interesting to know
which deployments plan a schoolserver at each school and how they
plan to use them.
m_stone> hey folks. bjordan is sitting here chatting with me if anyone has
questions for him about deployments he's working with; etc.
m_stone> bjo: how about those XSen?
m_stone> (not sure yet, though it seems likely)
m_stone> (it's hard because rwanda's schools are _large_: 1K students at
school A, 2K at school B, ...)
tonya37> m_stone: Nepal is rolling out (this year) three classes per
school. This converts to about 100-150 XOs per school.
m_stone> bjo: is there a contact-person for Rwanda to whom such questions
can be directed?
m_stone> (not yet.)
tonya37> bjordan: also, whether the deployment plans to use Moodle, and if
so, how.
m_stone> tonya37: what sorts of hardware would be needed for Moodle to
scale to these numbers of users?
tonya37> m_stone: One guideline says 2gb per student for backing up their
data (4tb?). Ejabberd is another limiter - there is a large
memory cost per user.
tonya37> m_stone: multiple servers per school could be implemented by
separating the ssid of the wifi to partition students between
servers.
tonya37> m_stone: I don't think Moodle will be a bottleneck. It is
currently used with large numbers of users.
m_stone> tonya37: your point about backups is well taken though.
m_stone> 4tb/school gets expensive right quick.
tonya37> m_stone: I like the msi wind server (based on atom). Costs on
Newegg for a 1tb with 2gb memory - $205. Bryan is rightly
concerned that we understand cooling issues.
tonya37> m_stone: oops $205 with 160gb, 1tb is about $250.
m_stone> tonya37: neat recommendation; thanks!
m_stone> tonya37: bjordan and I were just discussing how valuable it is to
benefit from the experience of "people who have broken the trail"
like you've done in nepal.
m_stone> tonya37: he said he'll try to get his contacts to publish some
details so that more benefits of this nature can be extracted.
tonya37> m_stone: I think we should all share this info - no point in
several people out there with machetes.
m_stone> tonya37: that's why we're here. :) after all -- what better time
than the very beginning to avoid obvious mistakes!
tonya37> m_stone: speaking from 30,000 feet. I think the issue of server
is very important. Much of the Sugar/Activity discussion does not
assume a server is available. Moodle offers off-the-shelf
solutions to a number of problems - but can't be used if there is
no server
m_stone> tonya37: as you say -- it's not a decision to be made lightly.
Hesperian
mick_laptop> i was just talking to wadeb|w in #sugar about a particular issue
that i have and he said that i should plead my case here
mick_laptop> basically my problem is that i can't find the right person/people
to talk to about putting the WTND book from Hesperian onto the xo
laptops in deployment
mick_laptop> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hesperian
mick_laptop> i talked to some medical professionals (who are actually family
members of mine) who setup hospitals in developing countries
(Cambodia and Afganistan being two that they mentioned) -- they
had expressed their concerns about making it a download
mick_laptop> they had said that for security reasons it should come on the
laptops that are deployed
mick_laptop> if anyone has a second to talk about this, it would be much
appreciated
aa> mick_laptop: I believe you should build a library bundle as those
at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Library_grid
aa> (never done so myself)
aa> I believe they can be accesed through the browse homepage
aa> m_stone: maybe you know more about this
aa> the library bundle can probably be included in the image with a
customization key
aa> mick_laptop: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Customization_key
mick_laptop> ok, lets say i make the bundle - how would the deployments know
about it?
aa> I guess talking to whoever makes the content decisions at the
deployments you're targeting
m_stone> mick_laptop: ironically, my mom was the person who introduced
OLPC and Hesperian... two years ago?
mick_laptop> m_stone: really? hmm, cool
mick_laptop> tell her thanks for me :)
m_stone> will do. she'll be pleased that someone is finally pushing to get
the darn books shipped. :)
mick_laptop> m_stone: i'm jsut still not sure what the best way will be :-/
m_stone> mick_laptop: well, what form of content are you working with at
the moment?
m_stone> the html pages? the indesign document? the pdfs?
mick_laptop> the content isn't the issue
mick_laptop> pdfs -- the other 2 were really bad ideas
mick_laptop> i will just do a pdfmerge
mick_laptop> that way there will not be any issues w/ formatting or keeping
them up to date
mick_laptop> since hesperian releases them as pdfs (chapter by chapter though)
m_stone> mick_laptop: okay, in that case, aa's suggestion is a fine one.
mick_laptop> m_stone: ok, after i make the .xol (i take it that they should be
bundled as such?) and i do the Library Grid thing (haven't gotten
too deep into that) then i should contact the deployments
individually? (like say i bundle the spanish version, then i get
in touch w/ the Uruguay deployment etc.)
aa> mick_laptop: or find people in the deployments willing to help
you
aa> mick_laptop: I would be glad to talk to LATU or ANEP here in
Uruguay
mick_laptop> aa: thank you so much; any help would be greatly appreciated
mick_laptop> also, does anyone know a olpc wiki admin?
mick_laptop> i've asked in a few channels to be able to add something to a
page (which is protected)
mick_laptop> it is the one regarding developer keys
aa> mick_laptop: try _sj_ at #olpc-content
mick_laptop> i'd like to add a section of what to do if Browse freezes (I'm
not the onlyone with that issue)
mick_laptop> aa: re: hesperian? i talked to _sj_ already -- sleeping last that
i checked
aa> re: finding a wiki admin :)
mick_laptop> sj was the "community contact" w/ hesperian before afaik
mick_laptop> oh, heh
mick_laptop> like i said, sleeping :)
mick_laptop> i might just make the changes and /msg _sj_
mick_laptop> aa: know anyone else who might be an admin?
aa> mick_laptop:
http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=sy
sop
mick_laptop> thanks