ICT4DChristophe Guéret (@cgueret)

The Sugar environmenthttp://bit.ly/ICT4D-Sugar

What to expect from this lecture

● Description of the education environment Sugar

● Explanation of the preparation of a teaching program

● Hands-on!

What is Sugar exactly ?

● Software for learning that promotes creativity, collaboration, reflection, and critical thinking

● The first learning interface based on both cognitive and social constructivism

Constructivism ?

● Engaging the learner in design, problem solving, collaborative work, integration of technology and creativity, interdisciplinary work, decision making and learning outside the classroom

Constructivism ?

● Project-based learning: a research topic, theme, issue or challenge that allows children to think critically, collaborate with peers, teachers and the community to express and form opinions

Everyone is a teacher and a learner

Regardless of age

Evaluation

● Better factors to measure the impact are○ problem-solving ability,○ critical thinking,○ use of multiple sources of information,○ reflection and communication skills

using multiple media,○ team and individual work,○ and self development

Activities

● A Sugar Activity combines the old concepts of “document” and “application” into a single object

● Activities can be easily shared between neighbouring computers

● Activity instanced are associated with the document they let the user work on

Collaborative editing of text

Designed for networks

Easy sharing of activity

● One click

● Works in○ Mesh○ Infrastructure

● P2P learning

Journal of activities

● Assessment tool

● Portfolio

● Index of content

● Distribution = Fedora base with Sugar, Gnome, and some activities

● Get packaged Sugar on○ http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki

● Customize with OSBuilder○ http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OS_Builder

● Different set of modules○ Glucose : everything needed to run Sugar○ Fructose : "default" activities

Packaging Sugar

Making new activities

Let's try to code something

● Quizz game about country size

● Design of the activity○ Pick a random set of countries○ Ask the user to click on the biggest○ Score a point if the response is good○ Repeat onto proposing another set

The final result

● Stay as much as possible 100% Python○ Avoid external system call○ Avoid uncommon python libraries (save space)

● Code the application as a desktop software and then wrap it

● Use the toolkit GTK+ and the UI designer Glade

General best practices (1/2)

General best practices (2/2)

● Suggested approach1. Design the interface2. Develop and test the desktop application3. Create the sugar activity and test on the PC4. Upload the code to Sugarlabs5. Package the activity6. Test on the XO7. Upload activity to Sugarlabs

● Use the documentation○ http://www.flossmanuals.net/make-your-own-sugar-

activities/ and http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/

Warning !

● Sugar is switching from GTK+ 2 to GTK+ 3○ Some (big) changes in the API○ Documentation you find may be outdated

● Sugar uses Python 2 (no switch to Python 3 in the near future)

● The example that follows uses the new APIs and Python 2

Step 1: create the interface

● Use the interface designer "Glade"

Output from Glade

● Don't forget to assign usable names to the objects you will reference in the code

● The result is an XML description of the interface

● Save the file as "GUI.glade" and put it in your project directory

Step 2: develop the application

● Create a file that contains the application code○ Place the result "Application.py" in your project

directory

● Create a file to instantiate the application as a desktop software○ Place the result "main.py" in your project directory

● Put the data "ranks.csv" in the project directory too

How do we get the data ?

● Query http://dbpedia.org/sparql :

prefix dbprop: <http://dbpedia.org/property/>prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>prefix dbpedia-owl: <http://dbpedia.org/ontology/>prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>

select distinct ?name ?rank where { ?city a dbpedia-owl:Country . ?city rdfs:label ?name. ?city dbprop:areaRank ?rank . filter (lang(?name) = "en"). filter (datatype(?rank) = xsd:int).} order by ?name

Test the application

● python2 main.py

Step 3 : wrap in a Sugar activity

● Need to extend a class called "Activity"

● Implement the methods○ "__init__" to create the application (mandatory)○ "read_file" to read the Journal entry○ "write_file" to write to the Journal entry

● Create a directory "activity" with the icon of the activity and a metadata file

Step 3 : wrap in a Sugar activity

● Add the following files to your directory○ setup.py : installation bundle (generic)○ Activity.py : contain the wrapping class○ activity/activity-icon.svg : icon○ activity/activity.info : metadata about the activity

Step 3 : do some testing

● Install Sugar on your development system○ Packages for Debian, Fedora, Archlinux○ Use sugar-build http://sugarlabs.

org/~dnarvaez/sugar-docs/

● Link the activity to your installation○ python2 setup.py dev

Testing on the emulator

● Launch "sugar-emulator" then click on icon

Step 4 : upload code to sugarlabs

● git.sugarlabs.org

Step 5 : package the activity

● Create the package○ python2 setup.py dist_xo

● Tag the current version of the source code○ git tag -m "Release 1" v1 HEAD○ git push --tags

● The result is a file "Quiz-1.xo" in the "dist" directory

Step 6 : test on the XO

● Put the activity on a stick

● Place the stick on the XO and either○ Use the Journal browser to open the stick, browse to

the file, and execute the installer○ Open the terminal activity and execute

■ sudo -u olpc sugar-install-bundle Quiz-1.xo

● If you don't have an XO, test on SoaS○ http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick

Step 7 : upload to activities portal

● http://activities.sugarlabs.org