Hi All, I'm not opposed to changing the GUI at the OS level. I can think of a dozen suggestions starting with that annoying "hot corners" thing. I also love a whole bunch of the design elements.
All I'm saying is that any change comes at a cost. A cost paid by the teachers, students and people who train more than the developers. The cost also increases with time. I want to make sure you take that in to consideration. I'm not talking about the time OLPC has spent training people. I'm talking about the time sys admins and technicians have spent training teachers in country. Dozens of people spent days doing teacher training in Uruguay and they said it took several days of training for the teachers to start feeling comfortable with the XO. I believe new teams of volunteers in Uruguay have recently been expanding the training. Nepal also started teacher training and they reported that it's a key variable to their success. I think I heard that Peru has started training a few hundred teachers too. I'm not sure about other deployments. If the teachers and trainers know what the changes are, they want them and are not concerned about having to re-learn or re-train, then its fine with me. My point is to keep the users in the loop. If you dictate changes without user input that doesn't foster collaboration and empowerment. Sounds like you have the users in the loop and you're covered. Great! You definitely did a lot of things right in the first pass. I'm sure you'll nail it again in the next revision. My only suggestion is that once you have a new design, you show it to some teachers and trainers before you lock it down. Even better give them a range of options and see which works best for them. There's a technical, economic, cultural, urban - rural, north - south divide that we have to span here. That comes to the fore in the GUI more than anywhere else (except maybe available actvities). Let's not lose our chance to make the design process a two way collaboration which bridges that divide. Thanks, Greg S -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Walter Bender Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:07 AM To: Tomeu Vizoso; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; devel@lists.laptop.org; Greg Smith (gregmsmi) Subject: Re: [sugar] Mini-Conference Proposal: Toolbars & Tabs Let me ad that these changes are motivated from feedback in the field. What we are trying to change are precisely the things that people are finding confusing or difficult. Let me further add that very little "teacher training" has in fact taken place. What we have instead concentrated on is working with teachers on how to best leverage to tool to enhance learning inside and outside of the classroom. The very features of the new interface are designed to facilitate more collaboration, which is *the* distinguishing feature of Sugar. -walter On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Perhaps, in the intervening decade, first-world computer users > have > convinced themselves that they cannot adapt, but they are > wrong. Humans > are very adaptable. A teacher who has learned one > version of Sugar will > not have to spend more than a few days or > hours with the new version > before understanding it. > > I'm sure they can adapt, but they need to be motivated to do so. What > could happen if we don't make sure these changes are well-received? I > think that's Gregorio's message. > > Tomeu > > > _______________________________________________ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > -- Walter Bender One Laptop per Child http://laptop.org _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel