Re: [Sugar-devel] "Howtos" within Sugar Activities
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Bastien wrote: > Gonzalo Odiard writes: > >> We are thinking in include a minimal help, like Implode activity >> or TurtleArt are doing, But with this minimal help, the TurtleArt po >> and locale directory >> are much bigger than all the other data in the activity. > > IMHO having elementary documentation within some core Activities > is worth the storage space. I applaud the idea, but I think the roadblock is not the issue of on-line vs off-line access. We need to actually author the material. Then we can distribute it in many ways. One idea from the early days of Sugar that never got implemented is that the children could author help and share it with there classmates in the mesh. Plus, we don't have much in terms of facilities for teachers to share their lessons and experiences -- what works and what doesn't. I don't think we need to provide kids (or teachers) much re how to use most activities. Where they need the help is how to use the activities for learning. IMHO, that should be the focus. regards. -walter > > -- > Bastien > ___ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] "Howtos" within Sugar Activities
Gonzalo Odiard writes: > We are thinking in include a minimal help, like Implode activity > or TurtleArt are doing, But with this minimal help, the TurtleArt po > and locale directory > are much bigger than all the other data in the activity. IMHO having elementary documentation within some core Activities is worth the storage space. -- Bastien ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] "Howtos" within Sugar Activities
I would state Sugar's agenda like this: 1. expose kids to powerful ideas 2. provide meaningful activities for these ideas 3. give access to reusable code for these activities Learning is everywhere in this: learning about ideas, learning about activities, learning about code. Documentation stands between (1) and (2) for pedagogical howtos and between (2) and (3) for technical howtos. I'm talking about pedagogical howtos (not "lessons", just content that helps unfold the power behind learning ideas.) Stealing from Eisenhower method, I would say that providing reusable code is important and providing documentation for powerful ideas is urgent -- teachers keep asking it. How much of XO storage is dedicated to providing source code? How much of XO storage is dedicated to providing pedagogical howtos? Most kids are offline. The purpose of the Help activity is exactly this: provide offline help for general issues about Sugar and the XO. Online-based lessons will not fix the issue of providing offline hints on how to use an activity, unless there is a plan to include this online content in the activity... Abacus is a good example: having a simple howto in a how/ directory would be nice. Even for us, lucky connected chaps, most applications come with offline documentation... I'm done with my last 2cts :) -- Bastien ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] "Howtos" within Sugar Activities (was: Potential volunteer offering technical writing)
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 6:23 AM, Gonzalo Odiard wrote: > The problem with this is localization. > If we want achieve all the activities translated to all the needed > languages > (more than 110 active languages in pootle at this moment) > you can see including manuals/howtos in the activities we will have a space > problem. > We are thinking in include a minimal help, like Implode activity > or TurtleArt are doing, But with this minimal help, the TurtleArt po and > locale directory > are much bigger than all the other data in the activity. Also, by including even simple help strings, the burden on the translator when from a few hundred single-word strings to many many long sentences. Even so, the real explanations are found in the wiki. I took a different approach in Turtle Confusion: I added hints in the form of short programs in the help. Not sure how to scale that approach. -walter > > Gonzalo > > On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Bastien wrote: >> >> I have read all the interesting input regarding refreshing the Help >> activity and collectively writing up new Sugar lessons. >> >> One simple idea: why not try to put "howtos" *within* Sugar Activities? >> >> For example, the Turtle Art activity would have such a folder: >> >> how/general-tutorial.txt >> how/drawing-a-square.txt >> how/playing-with-variables.txt >> how/... >> >> Plain text would be nice, as it could be later exported to HTML and >> displayed within Sugar when required. Plain text is also easier to >> handle wrt translation. >> >> There has been a lot of discussion about accessing the "source" and >> I see this "how/" folder something that we could feed with powerful >> ideas, sitting between the source code and the activity. >> >> Also, it would help solving one of the biggest problem: having someone >> who is in charge of maintaining this documentation. >> >> FWIW, I have updated the FLOSS/DOCS presentation in which I summarize >> the background ideas and motivations for this proposal: >> >> http://lumiere.ens.fr/~guerry/the-four-letters-word-of-floss-docs.html >> >> Thanks, >> >> -- >> Bastien >> ___ >> Sugar-devel mailing list >> sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > > > ___ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] "Howtos" within Sugar Activities (was: Potential volunteer offering technical writing)
The problem with this is localization. If we want achieve all the activities translated to all the needed languages (more than 110 active languages in pootle at this moment) you can see including manuals/howtos in the activities we will have a space problem. We are thinking in include a minimal help, like Implode activity or TurtleArt are doing, But with this minimal help, the TurtleArt po and locale directory are much bigger than all the other data in the activity. Gonzalo On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Bastien wrote: > I have read all the interesting input regarding refreshing the Help > activity and collectively writing up new Sugar lessons. > > One simple idea: why not try to put "howtos" *within* Sugar Activities? > > For example, the Turtle Art activity would have such a folder: > > how/general-tutorial.txt > how/drawing-a-square.txt > how/playing-with-variables.txt > how/... > > Plain text would be nice, as it could be later exported to HTML and > displayed within Sugar when required. Plain text is also easier to > handle wrt translation. > > There has been a lot of discussion about accessing the "source" and > I see this "how/" folder something that we could feed with powerful > ideas, sitting between the source code and the activity. > > Also, it would help solving one of the biggest problem: having someone > who is in charge of maintaining this documentation. > > FWIW, I have updated the FLOSS/DOCS presentation in which I summarize > the background ideas and motivations for this proposal: > > http://lumiere.ens.fr/~guerry/the-four-letters-word-of-floss-docs.html > > Thanks, > > -- > Bastien > ___ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
