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What is a "Distribution"?
SUGAR is an award-winning desktop environment for children 5 to 12 originally designed for the non-profit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project. Today, Sugar is used by nearly one-million children worldwide 25 languages in over 40 countries. Unlike other desktop environments, Sugar does not use the “desktop”, “folder”, and “window” metaphor. Instead, Sugar’s default full-screen activities require users to focus on one program at a time. Sugar also has a unique feature called the journal, which automatically saves the every program session and allows them to use an interface to pull their past works by date, activity used or file type.
SUGAR contains hundreds of “activities” (or small educational programs) as well as a built-in collaboration system where students can chat and work on activities together. Through SUGAR, there is an emphasis on learning through doing and debugging: more engaged learners are able to tackle authentic programs.
OLPC Canada headed by The Belinda Stronach Foundation utilizes the SUGAR learning platform, with specific Aboriginal content. ELDER is currently working to see if this content can be transferred to Sugar on a Stick, a usb stick with a loadable sugar environment so that community schools with computers can have access without an XO laptop. To learn more about SUGAR, please visit: http://www.sugarlabs.org/ To learn more about OLPC Canada, please visit www.olpccanada.com |
