[Sugar-devel] L-earning

[Charles Cossé]

Dear Sugar-dev community,

Hello, my name is Charles Cosse and I'm writing to you from Las Cruces, New
Mexico. I've just traced through Sugarizer-related emails since 2013
<http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2013-June/thread.html#43440>
in preparation to write to you here. I also worked with Lionel to develop
a Sugarizer activity
<http://dev.sugarizer.org/activities/ColorMyWorld.activity/index.html> and
presented some other Sugarizer activities
<https://flic.kr/s/aHskVJBdxB> at PyCon
2017 in Portland <https://flic.kr/y/2GSVF7K> a couple weeks ago, ported to
a credit-earning platform <http://netdispenser.github.io>.

Basically, I've developed this system that's pretty foolproof and motivates
kids to make a strong effort during computer activities. It's a
Raspberry-Pi3 AccessPoint and CreditMeter, all-in-one. There's also a
central, whitelisted credit-earning website. Otherwise, kids are
firewalled-in until they use their hard-earned credits to gain full
internet access. It's nothing profound, but it does work extremely well
and thus should have value for other parents / families out there.
Keyword: value.

As a parent I would have subscribed $10/mo for such capability as provided
by this platform. And as an activity developer I would have gladly
accepted $5 of that to fund more development. But hey! It's just
Sugar(izer) Labs with a "gimmick" in the middle which (1) motivates kids
and (2) provides incentives for new and continued development. In short, it
could be a new kind of fuel. Maybe even a little green router someday?

The main connection to Sugar Labs (Sugarizer) is that all of those
Sugarizer apps (present and future) could be dual-purposed to work with the
credit-earning subscription system with good effects all around, i.e. value
to parent, compensation to developer, education to kids, community
interaction. Web apps just need some concept of a goal or a score to reach
in order to earn some configured amount of internet time (credits 1 credit
= 1 second). I've done this with a few apps now and it's
straightforward.

My motivation is to see this eco-system-around-a-credit-meter concept
actually work. I want to be one of the developers vying for part of those
subscriptions. I believe this is one possible way to realize more of the
vast ocean of unrealized potential w.r.t. education software out there.

Would there be any interest among members of this list?

Best regards from New Mexico,
Charles

[Walter Bender]

No sure what you are asking.

-walter

Post by Charles Cossé
Dear Sugar-dev community,
Hello, my name is Charles Cosse and I'm writing to you from Las Cruces,
New Mexico. I've just traced through Sugarizer-related emails since 2013
<http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2013-June/thread.html#43440>
in preparation to write to you here. I also worked with Lionel to develop
a Sugarizer activity
<http://dev.sugarizer.org/activities/ColorMyWorld.activity/index.html>
and presented some other Sugarizer activities
<https://flic.kr/s/aHskVJBdxB> at PyCon 2017 in Portland
<https://flic.kr/y/2GSVF7K> a couple weeks ago, ported to a credit-earning
platform <http://netdispenser.github.io>.
Basically, I've developed this system that's pretty foolproof and
motivates kids to make a strong effort during computer activities. It's a
Raspberry-Pi3 AccessPoint and CreditMeter, all-in-one. There's also a
central, whitelisted credit-earning website. Otherwise, kids are
firewalled-in until they use their hard-earned credits to gain full
internet access. It's nothing profound, but it does work extremely well
and thus should have value for other parents / families out there.
Keyword: value.
As a parent I would have subscribed $10/mo for such capability as provided
by this platform. And as an activity developer I would have gladly
accepted $5 of that to fund more development. But hey! It's just
Sugar(izer) Labs with a "gimmick" in the middle which (1) motivates kids
and (2) provides incentives for new and continued development. In short, it
could be a new kind of fuel. Maybe even a little green router someday?
The main connection to Sugar Labs (Sugarizer) is that all of those
Sugarizer apps (present and future) could be dual-purposed to work with the
credit-earning subscription system with good effects all around, i.e. value
to parent, compensation to developer, education to kids, community
interaction. Web apps just need some concept of a goal or a score to reach
in order to earn some configured amount of internet time (credits 1 credit
= 1 second). I've done this with a few apps now and it's
straightforward.
My motivation is to see this eco-system-around-a-credit-meter concept
actually work. I want to be one of the developers vying for part of those
subscriptions. I believe this is one possible way to realize more of the
vast ocean of unrealized potential w.r.t. education software out there.
Would there be any interest among members of this list?
Best regards from New Mexico,
Charles
_______________________________________________
Sugar-devel mailing list
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel

[Charles Cossé]

Post by Walter Bender
No sure what you are asking.

I was going to try to gauge your interest before asking if Sugar-Labs would
like to adopt the project? Nobody else has one.

-Charles

[James Cameron]

Several reparsing attempts later and I think this is a plan for
monetisation of learners? But not really sure; the text doesn't flow
for me, concepts are merged; unclear separation between motivation,
actions and outcome. All blended. Perhaps it needs an advocate to
rephrase.

[Charles Cossé]

Hi Walter, James, All,

Post by James Cameron
Several reparsing attempts later and I think this is a plan for
monetisation of learners? But not really sure;

It is a plan to stimulate development of free education software and
provide a valuable tool for parents, at the same time. You've got
Sugarizer, for example -- everything is freely available. Now imagine an
additional lightweight service which allowed parents to configure
activities (and rewards), to queue-them-up for their kids, and which talked
to their router at home for the purpose of performing a credit transfer.
For that special service you charge $10/month, and let the
parent-subscriber distribute that amount among activity developers of their
choice, thereby stimulating free education software development and
possibly ongoing user-developer feedback cycles. It also has potential for
education research.

Post by James Cameron
unclear separation between motivation,
actions and outcome. All blended.

Motivation: I've discovered that using internet access as a currency
results in effective learning. Furthermore, using a self-serve kiosk-type
system takes you, the parent, out of the picture and kids develop a
bird-birdfeeder relationship with the system, returning to earn more
credits when they need to. As an education software developer, this means
that kids are getting more out of my software because they are focused on
completing the objective. Indeed, in this scheme learning is just a
side-effect to the kids' objective of earning online time, but learning
occurs just the same. That's actually a potential research area right
there. My motivation is that I believe this creates opportunities to
advance free education software by not only compensating developers, but by
providing a type of physical "glue" (i.e. the Raspberry-Pi credit meter /
router) between the user and developer communities -- something to come
together around. I put this project on ice a couple years ago when I was
working abroad. I still think that it's a good idea and thus find myself
working on it again. I had a poster slot at PyCon in which I officially
began to reach out to people again, and there was a lot of interest. I
needed more credit-earning activities for the PyCon demo so I wrapped a
bunch from Sugarizer in iframes and it made the demo look much better. I
collected almost 100 emails of interested people. My goal is to stimulate
creation of more software, and all of it would work with Sugarizer, and
vice versa.

Action: I believe that this experiment and Sugar-Labs could benefit each
other tremendously. Thus might as well start by offering it for adoption.

Outcome: An engine for free education software fueled by involved parents

google group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/netdispenser>
(everyone invited)
github pages website <http://netdispenser.github.io>
white paper
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ymiI-l-yJZko1_N2LfPypsMm2XKnwBK5g7TZB9gEOtk/edit?usp=sharing>
presentation
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18iCCO1HyCC7xMkfivN0mkTNyGs1eFdCnoFX34mVrmFY/edit?usp=sharing>
(old)

I haven't added too much here, but I hope it helps to clarify things
nonetheless.
-Charles

[James Cameron]

Post by Charles Cossé
Hi Walter, James, All,

Thanks for the explanation links, I've had a better look now.

Post by Charles Cossé
Several reparsing attempts later and I think this is a plan for
monetisation of learners?  But not really sure;
It is a plan to stimulate development of free education software and
provide a valuable tool for parents, at the same time.  You've got
Sugarizer, for example -- everything is freely available.  Now
imagine an additional lightweight service which allowed parents to
configure activities (and rewards), to queue-them-up for their kids,
and which talked to their router at home for the purpose of
performing a credit transfer.

So the credit-transfer is in a different currency and market to the
service charge. Makes more sense now, I was conflating them before.

Not a monetisation of learners, but a monetisation of parents.

Post by Charles Cossé
For that special service you charge $10/month, and let the
parent-subscriber distribute that amount among activity developers
of their choice, thereby stimulating free education software
development and possibly ongoing user-developer feedback cycles.  It
also has potential for education research.

So to paraphrase, provide a paid service using open source software
that blocks internet access for children until they have used open
source applications that the parents deem worthy of use, and the
duration of use will determine the time the internet service is
unblocked.

Kind of like "you can't go out to play until you've done your
homework". Intrafamilial trading of access rights.

And the point of control is a WiFi access point.

Nothing about how to handle uncontrolled WiFi access points?

Post by Charles Cossé
unclear separation between motivation,
actions and outcome.  All blended. 
Motivation: I've discovered that using internet access as a currency
results in effective learning.  Furthermore, using a self-serve
kiosk-type system takes you, the parent, out of the picture and kids
develop a bird-birdfeeder relationship with the system, returning to
earn more credits when they need to.  As an education software
developer, this means that kids are getting more out of my software
because they are focused on completing the objective.  Indeed, in
this scheme learning is just a side-effect to the kids' objective of
earning online time, but learning occurs just the same.  That's
actually a potential research area right there. My motivation is
that I believe this creates opportunities to advance free education
software by not only compensating developers, but by providing a
type of physical "glue" (i.e. the Raspberry-Pi credit meter /
router) between the user and developer communities -- something to
come together around.  I put this project on ice a couple years ago
when I was working abroad.  I still think that it's a good idea and
thus find myself working on it again.  I had a poster slot at PyCon
in which I officially began to reach out to people again, and there
was a lot of interest.  I needed more credit-earning activities for
the PyCon demo so I wrapped a bunch from Sugarizer in iframes and it
made the demo look much better.  I collected almost 100 emails of
interested people.  My goal is to stimulate creation of more
software, and all of it would work with Sugarizer, and vice versa. 

I see.

This will benefit inattentive or time-poor parents who would rather
use hardware and software to control their children's social
behaviours.

Attentive or time-rich parents will be sufficiently involved in their
children that they can exert control socially, and won't need paid
service.

So your best bet will be to target this service at inattentive and
time-poor parents.

But only those parents living in houses sufficiently spread apart that
WiFi can be controlled. Remote, rural, and suburban.

And only those parents who can recognise when an uncontrolled WiFi
access point appears; like a prepaid phone hotspot loaned by a friend.

Post by Charles Cossé
Action:  I believe that this experiment and Sugar-Labs could benefit
each other tremendously.  Thus might as well start by offering it
for adoption.

I'm not a member of Sugar Labs, though I am very involved as a
developer.

You don't need any permission to do what you plan; the GPLv3 and
Apache 2.0 licenses of Sugar and Sugarizer respectively permit that
usage; to create a derivative which counts elapsed time of use and
reports to a central site. We already have elapsed time of use code
in Sugar.

But can you be more specific about what the costs are to Sugar Labs?

My guess is;

- distraction of an already small base of volunteers,

- additional non-core usage scenarios making code and documentation
complex,

- monetary conflicts of interest for developers who might otherwise be
more involved.

Post by Charles Cossé
Outcome: An engine for free education software fueled by involved parents

Parents won't perceive this as a free education software thing if they
have to pay for it, so I don't see any point in your promoting to them
the concept of free education software or the license of the software.

Rather, it seems you have two different groups to market to; parents,
and developers. Marketing with the same message to both is confusing.

Post by Charles Cossé
google group (everyone invited)
github pages website
white paper
presentation (old)
I haven't added too much here, but I hope it helps to clarify things
nonetheless. 
-Charles

[Charles Cossé]

Post by James Cameron

Post by Charles Cossé
Hi Walter, James, All,

Thanks for the explanation links, I've had a better look now.

Post by Charles Cossé
Several reparsing attempts later and I think this is a plan for
monetisation of learners? But not really sure;
It is a plan to stimulate development of free education software and
provide a valuable tool for parents, at the same time. You've got
Sugarizer, for example -- everything is freely available. Now
imagine an additional lightweight service which allowed parents to
configure activities (and rewards), to queue-them-up for their kids,
and which talked to their router at home for the purpose of
performing a credit transfer.

So the credit-transfer is in a different currency and market to the
service charge. Makes more sense now, I was conflating them before.

Right, credits are just an integer in a database. I've always used 1
credit = 1 second, 1800/hhr.

Post by James Cameron
Not a monetisation of learners, but a monetisation of parents.

Post by Charles Cossé
For that special service you charge $10/month, and let the
parent-subscriber distribute that amount among activity developers
of their choice, thereby stimulating free education software
development and possibly ongoing user-developer feedback cycles. It
also has potential for education research.

So to paraphrase, provide a paid service using open source software
that blocks internet access for children until they have used open
source applications that the parents deem worthy of use, and the
duration of use will determine the time the internet service is
unblocked.

Subtle but important qualification here: It's not duration of use which
determines getting the reward. Rather, it's completion of goal, and kids
learn quickly that they get online faster if they make an effort, in effect
minimizing the time spent on the activity while maximizing their own
effectiveness in the name of expediency.

Post by James Cameron
Kind of like "you can't go out to play until you've done your
homework". Intrafamilial trading of access rights.

Right, and there's an interface for parent to add credits manually, say in
exchange for doing the dishes or breaking rocks :)

Post by James Cameron
And the point of control is a WiFi access point.
Nothing about how to handle uncontrolled WiFi access points?

No, it hasn't really been a problem in my experience. Things like data
plans I consider parental issues.

Post by James Cameron

Post by Charles Cossé
unclear separation between motivation,
actions and outcome. All blended.
Motivation: I've discovered that using internet access as a currency
results in effective learning. Furthermore, using a self-serve
kiosk-type system takes you, the parent, out of the picture and kids
develop a bird-birdfeeder relationship with the system, returning to
earn more credits when they need to. As an education software
developer, this means that kids are getting more out of my software
because they are focused on completing the objective. Indeed, in
this scheme learning is just a side-effect to the kids' objective of
earning online time, but learning occurs just the same. That's
actually a potential research area right there. My motivation is
that I believe this creates opportunities to advance free education
software by not only compensating developers, but by providing a
type of physical "glue" (i.e. the Raspberry-Pi credit meter /
router) between the user and developer communities -- something to
come together around. I put this project on ice a couple years ago
when I was working abroad. I still think that it's a good idea and
thus find myself working on it again. I had a poster slot at PyCon
in which I officially began to reach out to people again, and there
was a lot of interest. I needed more credit-earning activities for
the PyCon demo so I wrapped a bunch from Sugarizer in iframes and it
made the demo look much better. I collected almost 100 emails of
interested people. My goal is to stimulate creation of more
software, and all of it would work with Sugarizer, and vice versa.

I see.
This will benefit inattentive or time-poor parents who would rather
use hardware and software to control their children's social
behaviours.

Actually, I developed it not because I'm time-poor and inattentive, but
because it's difficult to teach your own kids, firstly, and then nobody can
micro-manage everyone's online time, but a simple credit-meter system can.
This takes the drama out of supplementing your childrens' educations. It
enables a parent to spend quality time enjoying their children's company
instead of all the tension and rebeliousness which can arise when a parent
tries to teach their kids.

Post by James Cameron
Attentive or time-rich parents will be sufficiently involved in their
children that they can exert control socially, and won't need paid
service.

So I predict that the opposite will be true. This is a tool for involved
parents.

Post by James Cameron

Post by Charles Cossé
Action: I believe that this experiment and Sugar-Labs could benefit
each other tremendously. Thus might as well start by offering it
for adoption.

I'm not a member of Sugar Labs, though I am very involved as a
developer.

And what incentives exist for developers of free education software?
I can think of altruism and showcasing one's abilities. At least having
an incentive to develop free education software should not hurt anyone's
ongoing efforts to stimulate new development.

Post by James Cameron
You don't need any permission to do what you plan; the GPLv3 and
Apache 2.0 licenses of Sugar and Sugarizer respectively permit that
usage; to create a derivative which counts elapsed time of use and
reports to a central site. We already have elapsed time of use code
in Sugar.

Indeed, but I see opportunities and benefits to Sugar-labs, and probably
even
greater benefits to the project as the results of a hypothetical adoption.

Post by James Cameron
But can you be more specific about what the costs are to Sugar Labs?
My guess is;
- distraction of an already small base of volunteers,

I would propose to try to do it without any such disruptions.

Post by James Cameron
- additional non-core usage scenarios making code and documentation
complex,

Well a prototype exists and the documentation was not complex :)

Post by James Cameron
- monetary conflicts of interest for developers who might otherwise be
more involved.

I don't understand "might otherwise be more involved". Involved with other
Sugar-labs stuff? Like the lure of money stealing-away the people who
normally
take care of Sugar-labs?

Post by James Cameron

Post by Charles Cossé
Outcome: An engine for free education software fueled by involved parents

Parents won't perceive this as a free education software thing if they
have to pay for it, so I don't see any point in your promoting to them
the concept of free education software or the license of the software.

Well, we are all sworn advocates of free education software, and for that
I think we are obliged to preach its virtues. The "free" in Free Software
is
not "free" as in $0, that's easily explained. What they'd be paying for
is
directly to improve the software which they are using to educate their
kids.

Post by James Cameron
Rather, it seems you have two different groups to market to; parents,
and developers. Marketing with the same message to both is confusing.

Indeed there are two distinct groups. The system evolved with me because
I'm a member of both groups. I'm talking to different parent groups to find
early adopters as well as create a "demand" for more activities. I'm also
looking at new hardware alternatives despite the fact that I love the RPi3.

The first time I heard my kids begging me for more math it was music to my
ears. The second time I implemented a "repeatable" flag so they didn't
have to keep asking my permission. Another nice thing about the system
was coming home after work and both kids were always full of interesting
things to talk about, i.e. the interesting things which I'd pasted-together
using
a proto-activity called the ArticleReader, for them to read.

Kahn Academy is wonderful, and so many other resources. But while you
can lead a child to quality educational resources, you can't make them care.
That's the unique capability that could belong to Sugar-labs, in one
scenario.

-Charles

[Martin Dengler]

Post by James Cameron

Post by Charles Cossé
Motivation: I've discovered that using internet access as a currency
results in effective learning.

This will benefit inattentive or time-poor parents who would rather
use hardware and software to control their children's social
behaviours.
Attentive or time-rich parents will be sufficiently involved in their
children that they can exert control socially, and won't need paid
service.

In the limit, yes, but a lot of parents are in between the time-poor and
time-rich extremes you mention; they may often have to prioritise what they
devote their attention to or exercise control over.

Also, a third credit-earning category of "build up enough credit and the
internet becomes accessible [until parents say it's time to stop / dinner /
etc.]" maps almost exactly to your "do your homework before you play on the
internet" use case, and strikes a different balance between parental and
automated supervision.

Post by James Cameron
So your best bet will be to target this service at inattentive and
time-poor parents.
But only those parents living in houses sufficiently spread apart that
WiFi can be controlled. Remote, rural, and suburban.

WiFi in urban areas is often not very open, so even in many urban areas this
WiFi-metering can be effective.

Post by James Cameron
And only those parents who can recognise when an uncontrolled WiFi
access point appears; like a prepaid phone hotspot loaned by a friend.

True, but that's probably part of a "threat model" most parents/buyers would
understand to be not covered by their internet-metering service.

Post by James Cameron

Post by Charles Cossé
-Charles

--
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/

Martin

[Walter Bender]

"I've discovered that using internet access as a currency results in
effective learning."

Do you have some documentation regarding this assertion? I find it suspect.

I am not sure that the nature of most Sugar Activities maps well to this
model: most are tool-oriented as opposed to a specific set of tasks or
achievements that can be marked as completed. Curious as to how we could
map their use onto your model of measurement.

regards.

-walter

[Walter Bender]

FWIW, Nolan Bushnell, of Atari and Chucky Cheese fame, recently resurfaced
a model whereby you pay kids cash to go to school (it is common in Central
America to pay parents to let their kids go to school). Seems there is some
potential synergy.

-walter

Post by Walter Bender
"I've discovered that using internet access as a currency results in
effective learning."
Do you have some documentation regarding this assertion? I find it suspect.
I am not sure that the nature of most Sugar Activities maps well to this
model: most are tool-oriented as opposed to a specific set of tasks or
achievements that can be marked as completed. Curious as to how we could
map their use onto your model of measurement.
regards.
-walter
--
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>

[Charles Cossé]

Post by Walter Bender
"I've discovered that using internet access as a currency results in
effective learning."
Do you have some documentation regarding this assertion? I find it suspect.

No documentation, but I'd say plenty of potential for future publications
and research.

Historically, the idea of a credit-meter came second. I was still at work
and my kids were home from school. I would send them emails with links to
articles I wanted them to read. One day I saw my daughter's email account
and all of my emails were unread. Imagine that :) So I made this
JavaScript app which took an input file (pasted-together Wikipedia article,
according to my own formatting conventions, for example) and parsed it back
to the kid 1x paragraph at a time, first in complete form, then with a
configurable percentage of words from the passage replaced with drop-down
selections. So it's a "paragraph reconstruction" exercise. That app
ensured that they read carefully. The effectiveness depends on the app, in
general, not the currency. So I had an effective app but they weren't
getting the most out of it, because it was a burden and they were being
used as guinea pigs again, etc. Anyway, it wasn't much of mental leap from
that point to conceive of a credit meter. Particularly because the app was
html and the immediate first thing that happens is they pop another tab and
start doing something else. Watching that happen, after so much hard work,
resulted in credit-meter v0.1 within hours. And that did prove to be the
magic, missing ingredient. Using it the first time after building v0.1 did
feel like a scientific discovery. Maybe something analogous to breaking
the speed of sound in an aircraft, where there's violent shaking in the
build-up and then the threshold is crossed and everything is smooth ... the
self-serve kiosk takes over and you're suddenly not at the center of any
study-related drama anymore.

Post by Walter Bender
I am not sure that the nature of most Sugar Activities maps well to this
model: most are tool-oriented as opposed to a specific set of tasks or
achievements that can be marked as completed. Curious as to how we could
map their use onto your model of measurement.

For sure, I see that too. I would certainly find a way to implement a goal
with the Gears Activity, and several others. Maybe not all Sugar
Activities can incorporate easily the concept of a goal, but going forward,
all ideas for credit-earning activities that I can think of seem like they
would also be suitable for use in the greater Sugarizer environment, so
there's that. And with a working incentive system and careful "marketing"
who knows? It could work really well and lead to all kinds of interesting
new software.

-Charles

Post by Walter Bender
regards.
-walter
--
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>

[James Cameron]

You might also integrate with Internet-in-a-box and count pageviews
and video playouts toward the learner credit. That way when internet
access is blocked, educational content remains available locally.