| Sugar on a Stick adds ebook support |
Dec. 09, 2009
 Sugar Labs has revised the LiveUSB version of its education-focused "Sugar" Linux distribution. "Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry" offers simpler navigation, improved wireless networking, streamlined activities updating, better Gnash support for Adobe Flash, and activities designed for reading electronic books (ebooks), says the non-profit organization.
This summer Sugar Labs released its first LiveUSB version of the Fedora Linux-based Sugar Learning Platform, which is known for its use by One Laptop per Child (OLPC). The first LiveUSB version was called "Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry Learning Platform," and offered dozens of activities designed for K-12 students. While that initial version targeted educators for feedback, the new "Blueberry" version appears to be ready for a wider release.
Educational "EatBoom" Sugar activity using "Gnash" widgets
(Click to enlarge)
Sugar on a Stick can be loaded onto any 1GB or greater flash drive to reboot any Windows, Linux, or Mac PC or netbook without touching the existing installation, says Sugar Labs. Compared to the standard edition of Sugar, the Stick version uses compressed file systems to save space, as well as persistent overlay files to save changes and user files to the system.
New Physics activity |
The new version is said to offer a variety improvements in navigation, WiFi access, and keyboard configurations. It also uses an improved version of the Gnash Flash clone (pictured above), which now offers greater support for Adobe Flash content. New Sugar Activities included in the Stick version include Physics (pictured at right) and OOo4Kids, as well as several activities designed to find and display ebooks in PDF, EPUB, and DejaVu formats, says Sugar Labs.
The Read Etexts Activity offers a text-to-speech aid for disabled readers, while other activities enable children to create their own ebooks. Thousands of ebooks for children can be downloaded from sites like Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive Children’s Library, epubBooks.com, Feedbooks.com, and ManyBooks.net, says Sugar Labs.
OLPC XO-1, version 1.5
(Click for details) |
The full-sized, standard Sugar release, meanwhile, is still available for GNU/Linux distributions, and able to run under virtualization on Windows and Apple OS X. Sugar has primarily been deployed via the non-profit OLPC project, which helped spawn the netbook form-factor with its XO-1 mini-laptop (pictured at left). The organization sells the netbooks at a discounted price to developing governments, with the agreement that the computers be given away free to schoolchildren.
Sugar Labs broke away from OLPC last year and established itself as its own non-profit organization. For more details on Sugar on a Stick, Sugar, and OLPC, see our previous coverage, here.
A review of the new Blueberry release by Chuck Lawton at Wired praises it for its fast, easy installation process and wealth of activities. Lawton concludes that there has "never been a safer or more fun way to introduce your young children to computers."
Sugar Labs launches USB drive recycling program
Sugar Labs also announced that it has joined with USB duplicator firm Nexcopy to start a USB stick recycling program. Nexcopy will collect donated, previously used USB sticks, reload them with Sugar on a Stick, and forward them to Sugar Labs for distribution to schools, says the organization.
Stated Greg Morris, President of Nexcopy, "We believe the Sugar Learning Platform is clearly a step in the right direction for getting children involved with personal computers. Our objective is to give Sugar Labs the back-end equipment support needed to make this philanthropy successful and help with producing the large number of Sugar Sticks needed for global deployment."
Stated Walter Bender, Sugar Labs executive director, "In this holiday season, we wish to remind parents and teachers that e-books are not only for costly reader units for the well-to-do, but freely available as part of the open-access to knowledge movement to help children everywhere develop critical learning skills and to bridge the digital divide wherever it exists."
Availability
Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry is available now for free download at Sugar Labs, here, and more information on the USB stick recycling program should be here.
The Wired story on the release may be found here.
-- Eric Brown
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