I am interested in using the Beagle Board to develop computer and
Linux education material and associated infrastructure. I have been
an educator for much of my life and am working with a friend who is
still teaching. I realize this group is mostly focused on technical
issues but would appreciate it if anyone who reads this would help to
connect me with people of similar interests.
Thanks - Neal
Hi...
I work in education and also hack about on the Beagle and other
similar devices. I have an interest in bringing these two things
together.
Regards,
John.
One project that might interest you is Sugar on Beagle. Sugar is the user interface that was originally developed by olpc for use on the XO.
Bernie, one of the Sugar Labs developers, has been porting Sugar to the Beagle Board via the Openembedded tool chain. Our interest is in making Sugar available on embedded devices for use in educational projects.
Thanks
david
Pramode C.E wrote:
I am interested in using the Beagle Board to develop computer and
Linux education material and associated infrastructure. I have been
an educator for much of my life and am working with a friend who is
still teaching. I realize this group is mostly focused on technical
issues but would appreciate it if anyone who reads this would help to
connect me with people of similar interests.I too have similar interests!
I think we should start a Wiki on this somewhere. If it can't be on
beagleboard.org then I'm happy to provide one under my domain. I prefer the
former just for cohesion with the rest of the Beagleboard community, but the
latter isn't a problem for me--- I have to maintain a co-lo presence anyway.
Some comments I'd like to see include:
* what exactly constitutes "linux education" and "linux education material"?
* where is Beagleboard well-adapted (and not so much) to these activities?
* what, exactly, do you want to teach? and how?
After teaching embedded systems for 15 years, I have definite answers on all the
above--- and I'm happy to share them somewhere. But I have a hunch that mine
would be just a small subset of the whole spectrum of possibilities and I'd like
to entertain them all.
The timing on this interest arising is very good, and I want to keep things
moving. The world desperately needs embedded education, and I think Beagleboard
can be an interesting contributor if we work together.
b.g.
Pramode C.E wrote:
I am interested in using the Beagle Board to develop computer and
Linux education material and associated infrastructure. I have been
an educator for much of my life and am working with a friend who is
still teaching. I realize this group is mostly focused on technical
issues but would appreciate it if anyone who reads this would help to
connect me with people of similar interests.I too have similar interests!
I think we should start a Wiki on this somewhere. If it can’t be on
beagleboard.org then I’m happy to provide one under my domain. I prefer the
former just for cohesion with the rest of the Beagleboard community, but the
latter isn’t a problem for me— I have to maintain a co-lo presence anyway.
Three options are:
self hosting - greatest autonomy -least ability to leverage existing communities
host at BeagleBoard.com - less autonomy - ability to leverage beagleboard development community
host at Sugar Labs - least autonomy - greater ability to leverage the passion created by OLPC and Sugar Labs to grow an embedded community around the beagle board.
Which ever infrastructure you prefer, Jason and I can help setup.
Some comments I’d like to see include:
- what exactly constitutes “linux education” and “linux education material”?
At Sugar Labs we are focused on collaboratively developing a open learning platform geared towards early childhood education. At this point we are working creating a breadth of distribution channels for Sugar.
- where is Beagleboard well-adapted (and not so much) to these activities?
This is what we would like to find out.
- what, exactly, do you want to teach? and how?
It this point our interest is in determining how embedded systems designers and manufacturers can create learning products around Sugar.
After teaching embedded systems for 15 years, I have definite answers on all the
above— and I’m happy to share them somewhere. But I have a hunch that mine
would be just a small subset of the whole spectrum of possibilities and I’d like
to entertain them all.The timing on this interest arising is very good, and I want to keep things
moving. The world desperately needs embedded education, and I think Beagleboard
can be an interesting contributor if we work together.
I will step aside now in case you want to move this thread towards teaching embedded computing rather using embedded computers teach:)
thanks
david
I believe teaching embedded computing and using embedded computers to
teach are highly related. Hands-on is the best way to learn embedded,
so having the embedded device do the teaching is a strong desire from
my perspective. Certainly there are many different levels of students
and using something like Sugar to teach students about embedded design
is targeting a novice with a relatively complex system (rather than
coding directly at the u-boot sort of level in C). I'm very curious
if this approach can work by being made solid and complete enough and
I'm inclined to help make it work.
Does something like Sugar put too much in between the student and the
hardware, or does it provide a solid foundation upon which the student
can explore and learn to reproduce and extend?
Wow! There does seem to be lots of interest. I have some definite,
reasonably thought out ideas about how to proceed. I came to the
Beagle Board via OLPC and Sugar Labs contact. What we are talking
about is, it appears to me, what the people who started the OLPC
effort had in mind. The XO-1 can be used to get people started in
using the computer as a tool and then one can move into more
sophisticated concepts. A related idea is to use small versions of
Linux on obsolete PC's. Again, I do have some ideas and would be more
than happy to discuss them in whatever format people think is best.
Neal
Guys:
Does something like Sugar put too much in between the student and the
hardware, or does it provide a solid foundation upon which the student
can explore and learn to reproduce and extend?
It all depends on what your teaching goals and objectives are.
For mine, Sugar puts waaaaaaay too much between the student and the hardware.
But that doesn't mean that Sugar isn't useful somewhere else.
b.g.
I think we should start a Wiki on this somewhere. If it can't
be on
beagleboard.org then I'm happy to provide one under my
domain. I prefer the
former just for cohesion with the rest of the Beagleboard
community, but the
latter isn't a problem for me--- I have to maintain a co-lo
presence anyway.
Wherever it is hosted, let's get it started - maybe, beagleboard.org
itself might be the best place!
I think we have sufficient interest here to start a beagleboard-edu
mailing list - we can then move the discussion over there!
Regards,
Pramode
http://blog.fosstronics.com
Pramode C.E wrote:
I think we should start a Wiki on this somewhere. If it can't
be on
beagleboard.org then I'm happy to provide one under my
domain. I prefer the
former just for cohesion with the rest of the Beagleboard
community, but the
latter isn't a problem for me--- I have to maintain a co-lo
presence anyway.Wherever it is hosted, let's get it started - maybe, beagleboard.org
itself might be the best place!
I agree. Jason, can you set that up?
b.g.