I have installed Sugar Labs’ sugar on a stick learning environment (called “sugar”) on an aged dell computer. This is the OS used on the one laptop per child dedicated machines. To boot this onto a windows machine requires a specially formatted USB stick and some patience.
The applications native to this environment, and the other applications that can be downloaded from Sugar Labs’ site, are influenced and/or created by Seymour Papert and his team.
They offer an alternative logic based intuitive learning environment, including Tam Tam, a suite of audio programs inspired by max/msp and ableton. It’s fun to play with, but a bit buggy, and the networking and interface capabilities are intriguing.
Particularly interesting are the online “community” views (left). When this view is activated a randomly placed display of icons shows who is online and using sugar, as well as what they’re up to. This would be a great functionality for future telematic music applications, showing users who is on the network and interested in making music.
