Sugar goes mainstream… on a stick

A recent publicity push and a number of public demonstrations of Sugar on a Stick (which recently released its Strawberry edition) have attracted many interested new developers and a lot of intrigued parents and teachers.  I’ve seen it mentioned on digitial library lists and public education channels, in contexts that wouldn’t normally be discussing laptops or computers.

Sean Daly writes about a recent round of feedback from a local community of children and parents.  Chat and Maze seem the most immediately attractive to this community of computer-savvy children.  Some comments of interest:

The principals were interested in jabber collaboration which they had never heard of.

One mom expressed frustration that dropdown menu choices found by mouse rollover could not be validated with the Enter key.

Several parents and a teacher asked about translation tools.

Some parents who had already heard of OLPC asked where the crank was. [still!]

It’s worth a read.