Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[mokurai]

On Wed, June 15, 2011 7:45 pm, Steve Thomas wrote:
>1. I believe Carlos raises valid points

Definitely.

>2. We need specifics so we can prioritize and address them,

I asked Carlos to check over our existing documentation and tell us, and
in particular me, what is lacking. I await his answer, and invite anybody
else to do the same.

* http://booki.flossmanuals.net/ XO and Sugar manuals

* http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable Known problems, with
suggestions

* http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities#Native_Sugar_Activities
Specifics on core Sugar activities

> So:
>   1. Let's stop talking in generalities and about volunteer vs
>   corporate, we are what we are, so let's make the best of it
>   2. We should work with Carlos (who I find generally very helpful and
>   supportive and I firmly believe has a heart to help and that is
> why he made
>   the criticisms) to get a list of specific issues, so we can identify
> and
>   prioritize solutions.

+1

> Stephen
>
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Chris Leonard
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
>> > Chris,
>> >
>> > Since this seems to be something you have sincere passion about, would
>> you
>> > be willing to simply list/summarize specific points that you see that
>> > Carlos made so we can talk about them point by point to hopefully
>> arrive
>> > at a more succinct overall intention of his communication?
>>
>>
>> Kenneth,
>>
>> I do have a passion for Sugar / OLPC and perhaps that is why I
>> identify with the passion that I see in Carlos' message.  I would
>> reprise my comment that the discussion is best carried out *with*
>> Carlos and in Spanish on the lists he posted his message, but I will
>> give it a shot.  However, I will say that I cannot really speak to
>> Carlos concerns, that conversation should happen with Carlos.  I
>> intersperse my comments with his paragraphs below (prepending mine
>> with "cjl").
>>
>> Quoting from the English translation at
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1yBr2G7FF5Jr46ixt_THm1xQh08cyNJXx8KUy-WDZ1Xs
>>
>> First let's  acknowledge this as a potentially misleading starting
>> point as tone can easily be mangled by Google Translate.
>>
>> "I work since 1983,  using computers as an important tool to earn a
>> living.  While working, I had to learn DOS, Windows and Macintosh.  I
>> also learned Open Office, Google Docs and Etoys after retiring from
>> work."
>>
>> cjl - It is clear to me from this that Carlos has a lifetime of
>> expectations formed by the systems that he grew up using.  It is a
>> psychological phenomena that "violation of expectations" leads to
>> strong reactions.  I've worked as programmer on and off since the late
>> '70's.  Yes, I've booted computers from cassette tape, been paid to
>> program on IBM  punch cards, have used Wang 8 inch floppies and know
>> what a read-write ring looks like and does.  I know where he is coming
>> from.
>>
>> "I just cannot learn Sugar.  I ask for help when I find problems I
>> cannot resolve but I don´t seem to get answers that make any sense."
>>
>> cjl - In this I read frustration at the comnunications channels,
>> I can sympathize with this sentiment and imagine it must be amplified
>> for a native Spanish speaker.  In my opinion this is the crux of the
>> message that deserves further exploration of the exact issues and
>> engagement with a positive tone to seek improvements and where
>> possible remedies for the problems that plague Carlos and other users.
>>  This is the feedback we've been asking for, it is up to us to take
>> him seriously (as he should be) and draw him out on the details.
>> Sorry, it isn't filed in a bug-tracker with a patch, it will require a
>> conversation.
>>
>> "From what I hear at meetings, both in Uruguay and overseas, and from
>> what I read in lists,  I can assure I am not the only one having this
>> problem."
>>
>> cjl - No question he is right about this.  In fact the lack of
>> feedback from deployments is often bemoaned on the IAEP list.  It is
>> just a little amusing and slightly sad that when such feedback comes
>> (however poorly framed), the first response is to reject it,
>>
>> "I beg you excuse my ignorance.  If some ignorant like me doesn´t
>> speak clearly,  we will continue to waste our time for ever as well as
>> waste the precious time of children and adolescents and trying to
>> convince teachers they don´t know how to teach."
>>
>> "If you are ashamed of confessing you don´t know,  continuing in
>> ignorance is more of a shame."
>>
>> cjl - Here Carlos admits his own shortcomings (we all have them)
>> and asks for enlightnement.  This to me is a sign of intelligence,
>> admitting one's own limitations.
>>
>> "I said I learned to work with quite diverse computers and operating
>> systems and I just cannot get to learn Sugar.  Let´s try to find then,
>>  what does Sugar have different from DOS, Windows, Mac

Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[mokurai]

On Wed, June 15, 2011 3:25 pm, Valerie Taylor wrote:
> The concerns are much more technical that I was imagining.
>
> I'm really out there on the fringe. I took the liberty of going
> through the Sugar manual and leaving out anything that was too
> technical for a general overview. There is still a lot of useful and
> interesting information about Sugar, Activities and how these fit into
> teaching and learning, although there is lots more that could be said
> along these lines. This should help people who want to know about
> Sugar but aren't particularly interested in running it (yet) -
> educators, parents.  My apologies to all the contributors of the great
> information - others appreciate it.
>
> http://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Sugar_manual

Please put that up on the Replacing Textbooks server. Remixing is one of
the points of the program.

> ___
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>


-- 
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

___
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro

[mokurai]

On Wed, June 15, 2011 2:40 pm, Valerie Taylor wrote:
> As a new independent learner, there is no question that it is
> difficult to "learn Sugar" but why would someone want to? I want to
> because OLPC is on the right track toward the education that should
> have been researched, implemented and supported for the last 20 years.

At least 50. The great innovators and experimenters in computer education
worked in the late 1950s and the 1960s. I include Omar Khayyam [sic]
Moore, Ken Iverson, Doug Engelbart, Alan Kay, Seymour Papert, and the
rest. Everything since is commentary, and waiting for Moore's Law to catch
up.

> What is amazing is that those empowered to provide education to
> millions of the world's most needed children actually get this.

Some of us, anyway, ^_^ although the idea is definitely spreading.

> It is about priorities, passions and limited resources.

It is about doing something as soon as possible, not as soon as convenient.

> Most of the
> people who have contributed to date have been comfortable with the
> technology and wrote documentation for themselves and other
> like-minded users, and this has worked well to satisfy the needs of
> the primary audience - those implementing whole school XO adoptions.
> However, developing training and documentation for other audiences has
> not been provided for whatever reason.

There is documentation for teachers, and teacher training material, in
Spanish and Nepali that I would like to see translated to English and then
to dozens of other languages. I have been working on Discovering Discovery
at FLOSS Manuals and now in the Sugar Labs Replacing Textbooks program, on
our test server at

http://booki.treehouse.su/

FLOSS Manuals is in the process of translating its Sugar and OLPC manuals.
We could use more help.

> I doubt that this is the first time someone has indicated that they
> had a problem learning Sugar. Apparently little if anything has been
> done in the past to address these specific concerns. The interest in
> the current situation is encouraging. It is never too late to provide
> additional information for those who are interested enough to point
> out a need that is un-met.

There has been a substantial amount of grumbling without providing
specifics so that we can either change the software or the documentation,
as appropriate. Please send me your issues.

> Good start on a dialog to discover what is needed and what can be done
> / provided to make it easier for other interested audiences to "learn
> Sugar" as they understand it.

Thank you.

> ___
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>


-- 
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[mokurai]

On Wed, June 15, 2011 12:12 pm, Walter Bender wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Mikus Grinbergs  wrote:
>>> I Am talking about the problem about the incompatibility between the
>>> Sugarized programs vs the normal linux programs , like the games that
>>> the children wants.  There are thousands of programs in Linux that
>>> don't uses the "Journal", so there are useless.
>>
>> This seems to be the common thread between here and earlier posts:
>>
>>  "I know how to run program ZZZ on a non-Sugar system.  Why can't I
>>   (easily/simply) put it on a Sugar system (for a kid who wants it)?"
>>
>>> I don't have to be Einstein to know that if the same problem continues
>>> after more 3 or four years, it is not only  technical problem.
>>
>> This is true.  My personal comment is that I haven't noticed "to run
>> programs like ZZZ" as among the goals of the OLPC.
>>
>> [I might *want* to marry a particular celebrity - but that doesn't mean
>> that
>> that celebrity would have "to marry Mikus" as one of her goals.]
>>
>> Does it mean the end of the world if the kid can't run ZZZ inside Sugar?
>>
>> Paolo - if you do not see other people planning to implement a goal of
>> "to
>> run programs like ZZZ inside Sugar" - being upset at the existing
>> situation
>> does not help - try to figure out where in this situation changes might
>> be
>> feasible - then start beating on doors.
>>
>> mikus
>
> Mikus,
>
> Thanks for your summary. FWIW, I actually think it is important that
> Sugar plays well with the non-Sugar world, but it certainly wasn't an
> initial priority. There are a number of initiatives underway that will
> improve the situation; I mentioned a few in an early post, such as the
> ability to access and edit non-Sugar files directly from within the
> Sugar UI. Also, many, but not every, Sugar activities will run within
> both Sugar and the GNOME desktop.
>
> The eventual transition to GNOME 3.0 and PYGI will make a big
> difference in our ability to support more interoperability as well.
>
> All of that said, let me repeat an argument I made regarding the Sugar
> Journal during the EduJam summit last month: we developed the Journal
> not because we wanted to be incompatible with the rest of the world
> but because we wanted to address some pedagogical needs. Specifically,
> we want the children to have a place to reflect upon their work. The
> Journal is their portfolio. Reflection requires effort and some
> developers consider the prompts to write in the Journal as an
> annoyance. But when I ask those same developers if they think adding a
> commit message to their commits in git, they immediately understand
> the value. So some of the annoyance of the Journal is because we have
> not completely solved the UI issues (the good news is that Simon has
> some patches landing that fix some of these issues) but some of the
> annoyance is because we want to make the path of least resistance be
> one where the children are prompted to be reflective-- to write in
> their "lab notebooks" about what they are doing and why

This is the approach I take in Discovering Discovery, to an even greater
extent.

http://booki.treehouse.su/discovering-discovery/

> and to make
> presentations to their teachers, parents, and fellow students about
> their work. (The latter is facilitated by the new Portfolio activity.)

I would like to receive Portfolios of whatever people don't understand or
think works wrong, with detailed comments. We will incorporate them into
Sugar documentation and into the Replacing Textbooks curriculum.

> In any case, concrete feedback and criticism is welcome. Thanks.
>
> -walter
>>
>> ___
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> ___
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>


-- 
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

___
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Re: [IAEP] [Sur] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[mokurai]

On Wed, June 15, 2011 7:25 am, Walter Bender wrote:
> 2011/6/14 Luis Galindo :
>> En mi experiencia, trabajando en un Hogar de Niños, con niños que jamás
>> tocaron una computadora, no tuvimos ningún problema. Los niños empezaron
>> a
>> manejar Ubuntu (que es como cualquier sistema operativo del mercado: con
>> ventanas) y también Sugar, y no tuvieron el más mínimo problema, se
>> adecuaron perfectamente a los dos Sistemas Operativos. De hecho
>> actualmente
>> nos encontramos trabajando en un último juego en Scratch sobre
>> reciclaje, en
>> el cual tenemos que trabajar con Gimp y Scratch en Ubuntu, en la Xo con
>> Sugar y Scratch. con TuxPaint tanto en Ubuntu como en Sugar. creo que lo
>> bueno fue no cerrarnos en un solo sistema como se acostumbra a hacer (el
>> anti-creativo windows), y desde el principio trabajamos con una variedad
>> muy
>> grande de herramientas y sistemas operativos (la Xo con Gnome y Sugar,
>> Ubuntu y Sugar dentro de Ubuntu).
>>
>> Estos niños a la hora de trabajar con una Mac o con Windows, me imagino
>> (no
>> lo he comprobado todavía) que no tendrán problemas, van a explorar un
>> poco
>> el sistema y ya estarán acostumbrados a él.
>>
>> En lo personal Sugar me parece un gran proyecto, porque rompe con el
>> esquema
>> de que la computadora solo sirve para la "clase de computación" donde se
>> aprende Word, Excel y el peor Sistema Operativo en rendimiento: Windows.
>>
>> Además de esto, lo interesante de Sugar es el concepto de
>> constructivismo,
>> de construccionismo, de DIY, etc. La idea en el fondo es muy buena. Por
>> supuesto que tiene muchos problemas, que a medida que va evolucionando
>> el
>> sistema se van mejorando. Hace poco había un debate sobre el "Diario",
>> de
>> que hacer con él, sacarlo? dejarlo? que hacer con su sistema de
>> archivos?.
>
> FYI, there is a patch (that has not yet landed) to let you access
> $HOME/Documents directly from the "Diario". And a new version of
> "Edit" that lets you edit *any* file directly from Sugar. It should
> help improve the workflow between the worlds of Sugar and GNOME.
>
> regards.
>
> -walter

I have recommended that users install the Midnight Commander file manager
to use within Terminal.

sudo yum install mc

I also helped to write the FLOSS Manuals Introduction to the Command Line,
which should be translated into Spanish ASAP along with all of the Sugar
manuals.

>> Ese tipo de debate (y otros) va dirigido a mejorar Sugar, para que
>> sigamos
>> construyendo un gran Sistema Operativo destinado a la educación
>> exploradora e investigadora,

Ver

http://booki.treehouse.su/discovering-discovery/

>> y para no cerrarnos a pensar que la computadora sirve
>> únicamente para tareas conductivas, donde todo ya esta hecho, donde todo
>> ya esta pensado.
>>
>> Tenemos que seguir mejorando, y para eso están las críticas
>> constructivas y los debates :-), para seguir avanzando.
>>
>> Luis
>>
>> El 14 de junio de 2011 18:24, Alexandro Colorado 
>> escribió:
>>>
>>> Pues no se de que habla este articulo. Yo cuando agarre sugar lo maneje
>>> tan bien como quise, y eso que nunca lo habia visto mas que en
>>> screenshots.
>>> la verdad es muy facil.
>>>
>>> Le di la laptop a mi hermana menor y ella tampoco tubo problemas
>>> usandolo.
>>> Le entendio al diario rapidamente, y pudo recordar que habia.
>>>
>>> Ahora esto entra en los memes que siempre escucho. Que no tiene que ver
>>> con el mundo real. WTF?
>>> Primero el mundo real es un mundo de interfaces como ios que no es mas
>>> que
>>> una malla de iconos, de la misma forma como trabaja el sugar cuando
>>> corre
>>> sus programas solo que en vez de maya es un circulo.
>>> La pregunta clave es si realmente pueden enseniar con un SO tradicional
>>> (digamos windows). Yo vi como enseniaban computacion en USA con las Mac
>>> con
>>> las OS8/9 NeXTStep etc.
>>> La verdad es que el enseniar computacion no ha variado mucho.
>>> Usualmente
>>> es e-mecanografia. Y no estaba muy aplicada a las actividades de las
>>> materias como matematicas, gramatica, ciencias naturales/sociales.
>>> La excepcion era algunos juegos especialmente diseniados como "the
>>> other
>>> side" el cual es una dinamica de negociacion en una guerra mundial --
>>> algo
>>> similar al Risk. El UI del juego tampoco era algo que se asemejara al
>>> SO ya
>>> que... bueno, era un juego.
>>> La pregunta, es, que tan diferente es el abiword de sugar al Google
>>> Docs o
>>> OpenOffice.org como dice mi amgio Carlos? y tambien si ya probo la
>>> alternativa de OOo4Kids en la XO?
>>>
>>> 2011/6/14 

 >Carlos Rabassa wrote:
 >No logro aprender Sugar

 > >https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1eot88jPUrJgo2MWR7KNyHa8UqZjdTUOun6JH9A_7KBg

 --



 Concuerdo contigo, Carlos.  NO tengo nada que agregar, tu artículo lo
 dice todo. El problema es que nadie se anima a ponerle el cascab

Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[mokurai]

On Wed, June 15, 2011 6:11 am, Christoph Derndorfer wrote:
> Am 15.06.2011 11:28, schrieb Kevin Mark:
>> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 07:58:48PM -0700, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
>>> Hi Folks,
>>>
>>> This is a FYI... Carlos Rebassa, a Rap Ceibal volunteer many of us met
>>> in
>>> Uruguay has come up with a surprisingly critical complaint about Sugar.
>>>  He
>>> included a link to an English version, but did not send it to IAEP

I copied it to IAEP with my reply, asking for details so that we can help.

>>> or the
>>> Support Gang lists.  I have no idea what prompted his criticisms nor
>>> can I
>>> figure out exactly what they are.  Carlos is fluent in English. He
>>> lived in New
>>> York and sold Real Estate there for many years.  If any of you want to
>>> reply,
>>> you can send it to the olpc-sur list or directly to Carlos.
>>>
>>> Caryl
>>
>> He points out Apple as a top-down company and the FLOSS folks as
>> horizontal.
>> Its sort of might parallel Canonical vs Debian. Apple is more polished
>> because
>> it pays experts and does lots of user testing. I'm sure if
>> OLPC/Sugarlabs had
>> the same resources, it might do similar. I know that Sugar was pushed
>> out into
>> the world with less than perfect feedback where kids could be observed
>> in
>> school setting (or that is what I recall from the days of 656). And that
>> the
>> South American deployments are a valuable source of feedback. And as
>> soon as
>> that is added to Sugarlabs efforts, everyone will benefit.
>>
>> As to the idea that other OS's that are Office-focused and are made by
>> companies that have spent lot on user testing and design, again, that is
>> a luxury that OLPC/Sugarlabs did not have.

It is also false, in that the first offerings from Apple and Microsoft in
any area you can think of were in fact unbelievably bad from our current
point of view, and often deliberately crippled. Think of MSDOS or the
Apple ///, in particular. Windows did not gain any market acceptance until
Version 3.1. MacPaint and MacWrite had only monochrome graphics and bitmap
fonts (a considerable achievement at the time, but not a mass-market
product), and early Macs were deliberately designed so that hard drives
could not be added.

>> What they did produce was damn great
>> considering what they had to work with and it implemented an idea that
>> was new and revolutionary and targeted for kids.

I yield to nobody in my criticism of the actual flaws of XOs and Sugar
(though not the armchair fantasies of the professional naysayers), and I
agree with you 100%.

>> People often forget their first time using new user interfaces and how
>> they
>> stumbled with them until they got lots of help from other users or
>> teachers.
>> And the basic elements for Windows, Mac and Linux are reasonable similar
>> when
>> using it for office automation.

We in the Ubuntu community are going through this right now with the new
Unity UI, which was made the default with no warning to the general user
community.

>> I know it took a bit of time to get some of the elements and it might be
>> useful
>> to have a few video tutorials for both teachers and students for some of
>> the
>> more confusing elements of Sugar (which is being improved with the
>> valuable
>> feedback of many stateholder).

Please add any such information to

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable

so that we can use it in the Sugar manuals at FLOSS Manuals and
incorporate it into the Replacing Textbooks program.

>> I was not able to understand exactly what he was saying, he'd need to
>> produce a
>> lists of specific things that Sugarlabs could address.

As it turns out, you did understand what he said, but he gave no
specifics. I have asked him to compare his complaints with the existing
documentation and let us know what has not been answered so that we can
explain it or file bugs.

>> And I'm sure they'd like to add his ideas.

Correct.

> Paolo Benini, another core volunteer from Montevideo, wrote up some more
> specific criticism - which is mainly focused on the Journal - on
> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sur/2011-June/008474.html

I have to add that and a few other things I have become aware of to the
Journal section of The Undiscoverable, and to the Journal chapter of
Discovering Discovery at http://booki.treehouse.su/ .

> In my reply to him I said what I also said in my eduJAM! summary for
> OLPC News
> (http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/community/a_look_back_at_conozco_uruguay.html):
> We now seem to have a broad consensus among the community and developers
> that the Journal needs some serious love. Walter also spent a large part
> of one of his eduJAM! presentations on that topic. The coding sprint
> after the summit itself also dedicated quite a bit of time on the
> Journal and I pointed Paolo to the relevant notes on the wiki.
>
> More than the actual complaints itself I think this clearly shows that
> we absolutely need to improve our communication channels to enable t

Re: [IAEP] Journal prompts (was: Re: [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar)

[ana.cichero]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 6:58 PM, Christoph Derndorfer <
e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:

> Am 15.06.2011 18:12, schrieb Walter Bender:
> > All of that said, let me repeat an argument I made regarding the Sugar
> > Journal during the EduJam summit last month: we developed the Journal
> > not because we wanted to be incompatible with the rest of the world
> > but because we wanted to address some pedagogical needs. Specifically,
> > we want the children to have a place to reflect upon their work. The
> > Journal is their portfolio. Reflection requires effort and some
> > developers consider the prompts to write in the Journal as an
> > annoyance. But when I ask those same developers if they think adding a
> > commit message to their commits in git, they immediately understand
> > the value. So some of the annoyance of the Journal is because we have
> > not completely solved the UI issues (the good news is that Simon has
> > some patches landing that fix some of these issues) but some of the
> > annoyance is because we want to make the path of least resistance be
> > one where the children are prompted to be reflective-- to write in
> > their "lab notebooks" about what they are doing and why and to make
> > presentations to their teachers, parents, and fellow students about
> > their work. (The latter is facilitated by the new Portfolio activity.)
> >
> > In any case, concrete feedback and criticism is welcome. Thanks.
>

Not time no to follow this so!! interesting topic, would like to point some
suggestions.


   - To have visible one entrance per Activity -just the last one.


   - To get to the second last entrance of the same Activity, (let s say to
   the last 5) in an "older Journal" or kind of second screen, ( like facebook
   does, or a blog) .  The rest of the thing just accessibles by tags or
   conscious backup in an external media.


   - [OT] Sell and buy pendrives and cards ( I live in uruguay where sd
   cards are not expensive, nevertheless you go to a local shop and they don t
   even know what to sell to a ceibalita and we have around 1,5 laptop per
   person)


   - Let each Activity dialogue with Journal it s own way. It seems clear
   that an activity used for writing or drawing needs 10 times more space in
   Journal than one like Firefox, or any player or game.


   - Make an alternative browsing for elder people that feel uncomfortable
   with the Journal.  In other case Sugar is facing the non understanding that
   makes it look taxative and fortuite.


((I always thought that porfolio was the magic word for understanding
Journal...
It is known in Uruguay as as an "evaluation techinque" - i chose Portfolio
for my final work in "Evaluation of Education" at the 3erd year regular
course of the Uruguayan Professors Institute. I think primary teachers study
exactly the same it is not difficult to find experts on that technique.))


   -  "TÉCNICA DE PORTAFOLIO" is then the translation of the idea to our
   teacher's book and the spanish term was not  mentioned that before.

My opinions:
Kids dont care about keeping everything. The concept is to mind more about
the doing and less about the done. You focus on the process ( nothing that
teachers haven t read before)
The machine is then just a place to interact with Activitys and other kids.
It is not a PC and xo_s are not isolated from grown up or adminstrators
machines or other kind of backup ( internet conection or cards)
Sugar is nice, is strong and extremely simple

(Collaboration is a key issue. Other is the  using the ubuntu teacher' s
laptop as a server of the pupil' s xo_s  )
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 10:13 AM, Nicholas Doiron  wrote:
> Caryl, Mikus et al:
>
> These attitudes toward Sugar should not surprise us, especially anyone who
> has worked with XOs in Uruguay or the USA. When teachers find Linux programs
> such as TuxPaint, they cannot interact with the Journal and cannot save at
> all on Uruguay's unrooted Sugar.  This was one thing we heard loud and clear
> from Flor de Ceibo and other volunteers.
>
> Plan Ceibal is becoming more and more open to different platforms, including
> (less innovative) Intel Classmates and Kindles. For Sugar and OLPC to
> continue our education ideals and open technology in South America, we need
> to meet 'realness' needs, too.  When the majority of classes are using the
> Browse activity (did we hear something like 70-80% ? ) it sounds like it
> would be wise to discuss ChromeOS and browser-based applications, possibly
> using a modern browser such a Webkit.
>
> The more we identify Sugar as an entirely different way of schooling and
> technology, the harder it gets to incorporate it in conventional schools,
> using the programs that teachers want to use.  If your response is, "but
> teachers don't understand real education!!! " then stop making Sugar for
> schools and give it to likeminded parents.
>
> Regards,
>
> Nick Doiron
>
> ___
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> support-g...@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang
>
>

Good to have this conversation going once again. It shows that we all
haven't lost the will to question our own efforts. However, remember
that it is more important to see the children's point of view and
their workflow as opposed to Carlos' or Paolo's. True that there is
room for improvement, but what are the kids saying. Not just Uruguayan
kids, but others as well. I actually like the concept of a Journal so
much that I'd like for it to replace the file manager concept
altogether in GNOME :-)

The thing about incompatibility with other platforms is a matter of
scope. For instance, back when I used Windows (mid 90's), I didn't
care much about scope. I used to develop apps in Asymetrix Toolbook
and Visual Basic, but the moment I hit Linux and FOSS, I realized the
importance of scope and switched over to HTML and PHP etc. Someday
bulk of the apps will be based on HTML5 or some such thing and we
won't have to worry about Wine. We are getting there, but in the mean
time we have Wine and other solutions.

Whining is good, as long as it is followed by fixing :-) Its a
characteristic I truly appreciate of this project and its peoples.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Information Systems
Director, Campus Business Solutions
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
http://cbs.sfsu.edu/
http://is.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Chris Leonard]

This discussion properly resides on sugar-devel, ideally as a follow
on to this recent thread

http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2011-June/031865.html

cjl

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 8:09 PM, Nicholas Doiron  wrote:
> Mikus,
>
> My suggestion was Webkit because it has support and innovation in mobile and
> desktop browsers from both Google and Apple.  Browse is missing offline
> storage, semi-transparency, drag and drop, the interactive  and
>  tags, and other features which I know developers want, because I
> wanted them for the Map activity.  Even Internet Explorer has these now;
> it's time for our web browsing to evolve, too.
>
> Sugar should put the browser on the same level as the home screen or the
> Journal.  It's where most users begin their classroom activities and store
> their materials ( on a wiki, or school server, but accessed through Browse
> ).  Even in offline schools, we were looking at Wikipedia, media, books, and
> graphs in the browser.
>
> --
> Nick
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Mikus Grinbergs  wrote:
>>>
>>> When the majority of classes are using the
>>> Browse activity (did we hear something like 70-80% ? ) it sounds like it
>>> would be wise to discuss ChromeOS and browser-based applications,
>>> possibly
>>> using a modern browser such a Webkit.
>>
>> I seem to have heard that the current Browse Activity does not even have a
>> maintainer assigned to it.  That is a problem of resource availability
>> Would introducing (and deploying, and maintaining) something like ChromeOS
>> reduce the load on the resources available ?
>>
>> I myself run a whole suite of Browsers on my XOs.  For the websites I
>> normally visit, there is very little difference among these browsers (that
>> includes Browse).  In particular, I have found neither the Chrome browser
>> nor the Midori browser (which is Webkit based) to have better performance
>> than Browse (when Browse has a good Flash plugin installed).
>> [The joker is Opera - its performance varies - sometimes it's the best.]
>>
>> mikus
>>
>
>
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>
>
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Re: [IAEP] Journal prompts (was: Re: [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar)

[Walter Bender]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Christoph Derndorfer
 wrote:
> Am 15.06.2011 18:12, schrieb Walter Bender:
>> All of that said, let me repeat an argument I made regarding the Sugar
>> Journal during the EduJam summit last month: we developed the Journal
>> not because we wanted to be incompatible with the rest of the world
>> but because we wanted to address some pedagogical needs. Specifically,
>> we want the children to have a place to reflect upon their work. The
>> Journal is their portfolio. Reflection requires effort and some
>> developers consider the prompts to write in the Journal as an
>> annoyance. But when I ask those same developers if they think adding a
>> commit message to their commits in git, they immediately understand
>> the value. So some of the annoyance of the Journal is because we have
>> not completely solved the UI issues (the good news is that Simon has
>> some patches landing that fix some of these issues) but some of the
>> annoyance is because we want to make the path of least resistance be
>> one where the children are prompted to be reflective-- to write in
>> their "lab notebooks" about what they are doing and why and to make
>> presentations to their teachers, parents, and fellow students about
>> their work. (The latter is facilitated by the new Portfolio activity.)
>>
>> In any case, concrete feedback and criticism is welcome. Thanks.
>
> Hi Walter,
>
> I'm not sure whether this really counts as concrete enough feedback but
> I'll do my best.
>
> The very short version is that while I think that having a tool for
> reflection, annotations, metadata, whatever you want to call it makes
> sense yet I personally don't think that Journal prompts are the answer
> at this point in time.

The prompts have been removed, so they are *not* the answer at this
point. The issue I was trying to raise was that there was a reason for
the Journal prompts and that rather than just eliminate an annoyance,
we should try to come up with a solution that still promotes the
positive aspects.

>
> Regarding the git-example you mentioned here and at eduJAM! I also think
> that the comparison doesn't really work. The main value of git's commit
> messages in my mind are:
>
> (a) as a record of changes so you know which version to revert to when
> things go awry
> (b) as a way to make other developers in collaborative projects aware of
> such changes in general

Well, I don't think these are too far off the mark, but the process of
writing a decent commit message is also a process of reflection. I
wasn't expecting the analogy to be perfect, but I did want to make the
point that as a community we see value in writing in our "lab
notebooks" and I am hoping that likewise we see the value in providing
the children a place to write about their work as well.

>
> As the Journal currently doesn't provide an accessible way to revert to
> older versions of the same entry use-case (a) isn't really available.

Although I have advocated git as a backend for the Journal, as you
correctly note, the Journal is not at present a versioning datastore.
But commit messages are not versioned in the same sense as the data.
There is a running log of messages, much more like a diary (or dare I
say it, lab notebook).

> Since collaboration is also very seldomly used today and even less on
> ongoing projects or activities which span days, weeks, or even months
> and additionally we don't have facilities to merge, fork, etc.
> collaborative Journal entries also (b) isn't available to Sugar users today.

Sounds like you'd like to work on the Sugar Bulletin Board project...
our long-dormant system for persistent collaboration. Never really got
off the ground, but we do have a key on the OLPC keyboard still
dedicated to it. But I am not sure what this has to do with writing
notes in the Journal?

>
> So what we seem to be left with at this point is a system which tries to
> force users to add comments or tags even though there is very little
> incentive or supportive mechanisms to actually do much with that metadata.

One of my favorite examples of using a computer is school is a 1-to-1
program at a middle school in Dorchester, MA. The kids spend five
minutes writing at the end of *every* class, including gym. Even if
they never use "that metadata", the act of reflecting is important.

We do have some tools/supportive mechanisms for using that metadata,
including the Portfolio activity. Have you tried it?

> Now one could argue that just because we don't have the other parts of
> the puzzle yet we should still try to get users acquainted with the
> general notion. Yet here I would say that there's a significant risk of
> conditioning people to simply do whatever it takes to get rid of the prompt.

I guess we disagree about the inherent value of writing notes.

>
> I don't have any data but would assume research into the effects of such
> forced decision making - whether it's Microsoft's classic "Ok or Cancel"
> metaphor or Andro

Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Steve Thomas]

   1. I believe Carlos raises valid points
   2. We need specifics so we can prioritize and address them, So:
  1. Let's stop talking in generalities and about volunteer vs
  corporate, we are what we are, so let's make the best of it
  2. We should work with Carlos (who I find generally very helpful and
  supportive and I firmly believe has a heart to help and that is
why he made
  the criticisms) to get a list of specific issues, so we can identify and
  prioritize solutions.

Stephen

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Chris Leonard wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
> > Chris,
> >
> > Since this seems to be something you have sincere passion about, would
> you
> > be willing to simply list/summarize specific points that you see that
> > Carlos made so we can talk about them point by point to hopefully arrive
> > at a more succinct overall intention of his communication?
>
>
> Kenneth,
>
> I do have a passion for Sugar / OLPC and perhaps that is why I
> identify with the passion that I see in Carlos' message.  I would
> reprise my comment that the discussion is best carried out *with*
> Carlos and in Spanish on the lists he posted his message, but I will
> give it a shot.  However, I will say that I cannot really speak to
> Carlos concerns, that conversation should happen with Carlos.  I
> intersperse my comments with his paragraphs below (prepending mine
> with "cjl").
>
> Quoting from the English translation at
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1yBr2G7FF5Jr46ixt_THm1xQh08cyNJXx8KUy-WDZ1Xs
>
> First let's  acknowledge this as a potentially misleading starting
> point as tone can easily be mangled by Google Translate.
>
> "I work since 1983,  using computers as an important tool to earn a
> living.  While working, I had to learn DOS, Windows and Macintosh.  I
> also learned Open Office, Google Docs and Etoys after retiring from
> work."
>
> cjl - It is clear to me from this that Carlos has a lifetime of
> expectations formed by the systems that he grew up using.  It is a
> psychological phenomena that "violation of expectations" leads to
> strong reactions.  I've worked as programmer on and off since the late
> '70's.  Yes, I've booted computers from cassette tape, been paid to
> program on IBM  punch cards, have used Wang 8 inch floppies and know
> what a read-write ring looks like and does.  I know where he is coming
> from.
>
> "I just cannot learn Sugar.  I ask for help when I find problems I
> cannot resolve but I don´t seem to get answers that make any sense."
>
> cjl - In this I read frustration at the comnunications channels,
> I can sympathize with this sentiment and imagine it must be amplified
> for a native Spanish speaker.  In my opinion this is the crux of the
> message that deserves further exploration of the exact issues and
> engagement with a positive tone to seek improvements and where
> possible remedies for the problems that plague Carlos and other users.
>  This is the feedback we've been asking for, it is up to us to take
> him seriously (as he should be) and draw him out on the details.
> Sorry, it isn't filed in a bug-tracker with a patch, it will require a
> conversation.
>
> "From what I hear at meetings, both in Uruguay and overseas, and from
> what I read in lists,  I can assure I am not the only one having this
> problem."
>
> cjl - No question he is right about this.  In fact the lack of
> feedback from deployments is often bemoaned on the IAEP list.  It is
> just a little amusing and slightly sad that when such feedback comes
> (however poorly framed), the first response is to reject it,
>
> "I beg you excuse my ignorance.  If some ignorant like me doesn´t
> speak clearly,  we will continue to waste our time for ever as well as
> waste the precious time of children and adolescents and trying to
> convince teachers they don´t know how to teach."
>
> "If you are ashamed of confessing you don´t know,  continuing in
> ignorance is more of a shame."
>
> cjl - Here Carlos admits his own shortcomings (we all have them)
> and asks for enlightnement.  This to me is a sign of intelligence,
> admitting one's own limitations.
>
> "I said I learned to work with quite diverse computers and operating
> systems and I just cannot get to learn Sugar.  Let´s try to find then,
>  what does Sugar have different from DOS, Windows, Macintosh, Open
> Office, Google Docs and Etoys."
>
> cjl - see earlier comment about "violation of expectations".
>
> "A characteristic common to all the systems I was able to learn and
> use with positive results is they work well.  They work well for
> common people like myself and for most people who need to know the
> basicas to be able to work,  adapting those programs to the specific
> problems of our jobs or further study.  That basic training,  enables
> us to face the challenges the real world presents to all who work
> and/or study."
>
> cjl - Here, I suspect that Carlos

Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Chris Leonard]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Since this seems to be something you have sincere passion about, would you
> be willing to simply list/summarize specific points that you see that
> Carlos made so we can talk about them point by point to hopefully arrive
> at a more succinct overall intention of his communication?


Kenneth,

I do have a passion for Sugar / OLPC and perhaps that is why I
identify with the passion that I see in Carlos' message.  I would
reprise my comment that the discussion is best carried out *with*
Carlos and in Spanish on the lists he posted his message, but I will
give it a shot.  However, I will say that I cannot really speak to
Carlos concerns, that conversation should happen with Carlos.  I
intersperse my comments with his paragraphs below (prepending mine
with "cjl").

Quoting from the English translation at
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1yBr2G7FF5Jr46ixt_THm1xQh08cyNJXx8KUy-WDZ1Xs

First let's  acknowledge this as a potentially misleading starting
point as tone can easily be mangled by Google Translate.

"I work since 1983,  using computers as an important tool to earn a
living.  While working, I had to learn DOS, Windows and Macintosh.  I
also learned Open Office, Google Docs and Etoys after retiring from
work."

 cjl - It is clear to me from this that Carlos has a lifetime of
expectations formed by the systems that he grew up using.  It is a
psychological phenomena that "violation of expectations" leads to
strong reactions.  I've worked as programmer on and off since the late
'70's.  Yes, I've booted computers from cassette tape, been paid to
program on IBM  punch cards, have used Wang 8 inch floppies and know
what a read-write ring looks like and does.  I know where he is coming
from.

"I just cannot learn Sugar.  I ask for help when I find problems I
cannot resolve but I don´t seem to get answers that make any sense."

 cjl - In this I read frustration at the comnunications channels,
I can sympathize with this sentiment and imagine it must be amplified
for a native Spanish speaker.  In my opinion this is the crux of the
message that deserves further exploration of the exact issues and
engagement with a positive tone to seek improvements and where
possible remedies for the problems that plague Carlos and other users.
 This is the feedback we've been asking for, it is up to us to take
him seriously (as he should be) and draw him out on the details.
Sorry, it isn't filed in a bug-tracker with a patch, it will require a
conversation.

"From what I hear at meetings, both in Uruguay and overseas, and from
what I read in lists,  I can assure I am not the only one having this
problem."

 cjl - No question he is right about this.  In fact the lack of
feedback from deployments is often bemoaned on the IAEP list.  It is
just a little amusing and slightly sad that when such feedback comes
(however poorly framed), the first response is to reject it,

"I beg you excuse my ignorance.  If some ignorant like me doesn´t
speak clearly,  we will continue to waste our time for ever as well as
waste the precious time of children and adolescents and trying to
convince teachers they don´t know how to teach."

"If you are ashamed of confessing you don´t know,  continuing in
ignorance is more of a shame."

 cjl - Here Carlos admits his own shortcomings (we all have them)
and asks for enlightnement.  This to me is a sign of intelligence,
admitting one's own limitations.

"I said I learned to work with quite diverse computers and operating
systems and I just cannot get to learn Sugar.  Let´s try to find then,
 what does Sugar have different from DOS, Windows, Macintosh, Open
Office, Google Docs and Etoys."

 cjl - see earlier comment about "violation of expectations".

"A characteristic common to all the systems I was able to learn and
use with positive results is they work well.  They work well for
common people like myself and for most people who need to know the
basicas to be able to work,  adapting those programs to the specific
problems of our jobs or further study.  That basic training,  enables
us to face the challenges the real world presents to all who work
and/or study."

 cjl - Here, I suspect that Carlos is confusing the Sugar Learning
environment with the workplace tools he is familiar with.  This is
understandable, this confusion with the goals of Sugar exists widely
and can be hard to overcome.  Apparently OLPC has lost deployment
opportunities because an XO cannot be used to provide vocational
training in Microsoft Office.  Int4erestingly, even the smallest steps
to allow Windows to run on an XO by tweaking the open firmware
produced vehement reactions within the community.

 cjl - To paraphrase the Haggadah (the Jewish service for the
Passover meal) it is incumbent on us to ask and answer the question:
"Why is this OS different from all other OSes?"

"In a few words,  my opinion is Sugar does not work.  Those who t

[IAEP] Journal prompts (was: Re: [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar)

[Christoph Derndorfer]

Am 15.06.2011 18:12, schrieb Walter Bender:
> All of that said, let me repeat an argument I made regarding the Sugar
> Journal during the EduJam summit last month: we developed the Journal
> not because we wanted to be incompatible with the rest of the world
> but because we wanted to address some pedagogical needs. Specifically,
> we want the children to have a place to reflect upon their work. The
> Journal is their portfolio. Reflection requires effort and some
> developers consider the prompts to write in the Journal as an
> annoyance. But when I ask those same developers if they think adding a
> commit message to their commits in git, they immediately understand
> the value. So some of the annoyance of the Journal is because we have
> not completely solved the UI issues (the good news is that Simon has
> some patches landing that fix some of these issues) but some of the
> annoyance is because we want to make the path of least resistance be
> one where the children are prompted to be reflective-- to write in
> their "lab notebooks" about what they are doing and why and to make
> presentations to their teachers, parents, and fellow students about
> their work. (The latter is facilitated by the new Portfolio activity.)
> 
> In any case, concrete feedback and criticism is welcome. Thanks.

Hi Walter,

I'm not sure whether this really counts as concrete enough feedback but
I'll do my best.

The very short version is that while I think that having a tool for
reflection, annotations, metadata, whatever you want to call it makes
sense yet I personally don't think that Journal prompts are the answer
at this point in time.

Regarding the git-example you mentioned here and at eduJAM! I also think
that the comparison doesn't really work. The main value of git's commit
messages in my mind are:

(a) as a record of changes so you know which version to revert to when
things go awry
(b) as a way to make other developers in collaborative projects aware of
such changes in general

As the Journal currently doesn't provide an accessible way to revert to
older versions of the same entry use-case (a) isn't really available.
Since collaboration is also very seldomly used today and even less on
ongoing projects or activities which span days, weeks, or even months
and additionally we don't have facilities to merge, fork, etc.
collaborative Journal entries also (b) isn't available to Sugar users today.

So what we seem to be left with at this point is a system which tries to
force users to add comments or tags even though there is very little
incentive or supportive mechanisms to actually do much with that metadata.

Now one could argue that just because we don't have the other parts of
the puzzle yet we should still try to get users acquainted with the
general notion. Yet here I would say that there's a significant risk of
conditioning people to simply do whatever it takes to get rid of the prompt.

I don't have any data but would assume research into the effects of such
forced decision making - whether it's Microsoft's classic "Ok or Cancel"
metaphor or Android's App permission system - exists and probably shows
that people click whatever gets them back to what they really wanted to
do as quickly as possible. So from that point of view it seems to make
more sense to wait until tangible benefits are available to users before
confronting them with the prompt.

One somewhat intermediary approach which seems concrete and actionable
here even in the short term (and regardless of whether we have mandatory
prompts or not!) is to use some sort of automatic suggestions for
Journal entries. A very simplistic example would be to copy the
behaviour of traditional office solutions and suggest the first few
words of a Write session as the Journal entry's title.

A more invasive solution would be to take a note from how you can access
a Journal entry and its metadata (though only tags at the moment) when
viewing photos within the Record activity. People like Gary C will
likely have a more fact based opinion here but to me it seems that
offering the ability to add information to a Journal entry while you're
actually working on it is a good option (again regardless of whether you
force prompts upon closure or not).

Last but not least and on a more abstract and philosophical level I
think that Sugar should create possibilities and both implicitly and
explicitly encourage certain behaviour without forcing it on users.
Would we like to see collaboration between users? Yes. Do we make all
activities show up in the neighborhood the moment they're launched? No.
Would we like to see children dive into the source code? Yes. Do we make
them read libabiword man pages before starting Write? No.

More than anything it is about showing Sugar's users the value and power
of tools like naming, tagging and comments. Including relevant
information in teacher training and general support materials such as
the Help activity could probably also go a long way he

Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Mikus Grinbergs]

When the majority of classes are using the
Browse activity (did we hear something like 70-80% ? ) it sounds like it
would be wise to discuss ChromeOS and browser-based applications, possibly
using a modern browser such a Webkit.


I seem to have heard that the current Browse Activity does not even have 
a maintainer assigned to it.  That is a problem of resource availability 
  Would introducing (and deploying, and maintaining) something like 
ChromeOS reduce the load on the resources available ?


I myself run a whole suite of Browsers on my XOs.  For the websites I 
normally visit, there is very little difference among these browsers 
(that includes Browse).  In particular, I have found neither the Chrome 
browser nor the Midori browser (which is Webkit based) to have better 
performance than Browse (when Browse has a good Flash plugin installed).

[The joker is Opera - its performance varies - sometimes it's the best.]

mikus

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[IAEP] "Narrative Interfaces" at OLPC

[C. Scott Ananian]

I just posted an announcement for some invited talks we're having at
OLPC's new offices this Friday:
  http://cananian.livejournal.com/64747.html
It will all be live-streamed at:
  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cscottnet
 --scott

-- 
      ( http://cscott.net )
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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 15.06.2011, at 14:03, Chris Ball wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Jun 15 2011, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>>> Maybe it's just me but I replied how I felt as I read what was written.
>>> So, I still want to know what his purpose is for spending time with the
>>> olpc? Based on what I read, he sees the apple as our competitor. I could
>>> have done without the apple promo.
>> 
>> Well, Sugar as installed on the XO is much less polished and versatile
>> than most other operating systems in wider use. Carlos simply compared
>> Sugar to the OS most familiar to him. His point would still be mostly
>> valid had he compared it to $YOUR_FAVORITE_OS.
> 
> Well, not really.  Consider:
> 
>   Let's imagine now that Debian directors decide to save money by
>   firing all the great programmers they employ, dedicated to write
>   their operating systems.  Let´s imagine they decide that a group of
>   volunteers, worldwide, with a horizontal organization without chiefs,
>   is the latest model in modern business management.  What would
>   happen?  How much longer would Debian survive?  Days?  Hours?

Hehe, too general, indeed. Try reading it with Ubuntu for Debian though?

In any case, that wasn't even the major point. Debian is more polished and 
versatile than Sugar on the XO, wouldn't you agree?

- Bert -


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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Chris Ball]

Hi,

On Wed, Jun 15 2011, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>> Maybe it's just me but I replied how I felt as I read what was written.
>> So, I still want to know what his purpose is for spending time with the
>> olpc? Based on what I read, he sees the apple as our competitor. I could
>> have done without the apple promo.
>
> Well, Sugar as installed on the XO is much less polished and versatile
> than most other operating systems in wider use. Carlos simply compared
> Sugar to the OS most familiar to him. His point would still be mostly
> valid had he compared it to $YOUR_FAVORITE_OS.

Well, not really.  Consider:

   Let's imagine now that Debian directors decide to save money by
   firing all the great programmers they employ, dedicated to write
   their operating systems.  Let´s imagine they decide that a group of
   volunteers, worldwide, with a horizontal organization without chiefs,
   is the latest model in modern business management.  What would
   happen?  How much longer would Debian survive?  Days?  Hours?

...

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball  
One Laptop Per Child
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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 15.06.2011, at 13:16, Kenneth Wyrick wrote:

> Oh! Ok I get that, now. Also, view my comments as a gut level response as
> a newbie to this project who is looking for specific constructive dialog
> instead of generalities that are easily thrown around.
> 
> Maybe it's just me but I replied how I felt as I read what was written.
> So, I still want to know what his purpose is for spending time with the
> olpc? Based on what I read, he sees the apple as our competitor. I could
> have done without the apple promo.

Well, Sugar as installed on the XO is much less polished and versatile than 
most other operating systems in wider use. Carlos simply compared Sugar to the 
OS most familiar to him. His point would still be mostly valid had he compared 
it to $YOUR_FAVORITE_OS.

- Bert -

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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Kenneth Wyrick]

Chris,

Since this seems to be something you have sincere passion about, would you
be willing to simply list/summarize specific points that you see that
Carlos made so we can talk about them point by point to hopefully arrive
at a more succinct overall intention of his communication?


On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
> Oh! Ok I get that, now. Also, view my comments as a gut level response
> as
> a newbie to this project who is looking for specific constructive dialog
> instead of generalities that are easily thrown around.
>
> Maybe it's just me but I replied how I felt as I read what was written.
> So, I still want to know what his purpose is for spending time with the
> olpc? Based on what I read, he sees the apple as our competitor. I could
> have done without the apple promo.

I can't claim to speak to Carlos's concerns.   My comment was more
about the reaction to his posting than to his posting itself.  My
point was that his critique should not be dismissed out-of-hand, but
needs to be explored in more depth, ideally in his native language and
on the lists where he originally posted it.

We have all had to be "talked off the ledge" at one point or another
with Sugar or OLPC frustrations.  Often the important thing to bring
someone back into the fold is just to let them know that tthey have
been heard and to validate their frustrations (to the extent you can).
 It is my impression that the prodigals who return to the family often
make the most dedicated volunteers, it just takes some patience and
understanding to hear them out and really get to the root of their
concerns.

cjl



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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Chris Leonard]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
> Oh! Ok I get that, now. Also, view my comments as a gut level response as
> a newbie to this project who is looking for specific constructive dialog
> instead of generalities that are easily thrown around.
>
> Maybe it's just me but I replied how I felt as I read what was written.
> So, I still want to know what his purpose is for spending time with the
> olpc? Based on what I read, he sees the apple as our competitor. I could
> have done without the apple promo.

I can't claim to speak to Carlos's concerns.   My comment was more
about the reaction to his posting than to his posting itself.  My
point was that his critique should not be dismissed out-of-hand, but
needs to be explored in more depth, ideally in his native language and
on the lists where he originally posted it.

We have all had to be "talked off the ledge" at one point or another
with Sugar or OLPC frustrations.  Often the important thing to bring
someone back into the fold is just to let them know that tthey have
been heard and to validate their frustrations (to the extent you can).
 It is my impression that the prodigals who return to the family often
make the most dedicated volunteers, it just takes some patience and
understanding to hear them out and really get to the root of their
concerns.

cjl
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Re: [IAEP] Concrete feedback

[Gonzalo Odiard]

There are a option to sort by size, by creation date and by modification
date.

Gonzalo

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:

> I'm glad to see all the entries which tells me what they clicked on and if
> they didn't create anything then I'm curious to know why. maybe for long
> term use there could be a way to sort entries based on size of the entries
> or something like that which would put the files with no content near the
> bottom.
>
> i like having an option to log everything or filter the list.
>
> You are showing one of the more commons problems when we talk about the
> Journal.
> Many times, bugs in activities are perceived like bugs in the Journal.
> If one activity is not well sugarized, is a problem in the activity and
> must
> solved.
> And from a long time, the default way wen you open one activity, is open
> the
> last instance.
> This is not the right solution, because is not useful for all the
> activities,
> but solve the issue with Browse, Terminal, etc.
> About massive operations, you can see the work from tch about multiple
> selection operations.
>
> Gonzalo
>
>
>
> > *Concrete Feedback:*
> >
> > The journal is always full of garbage, hundreds of empty entries:  *is
> > there a possibility to "CLEAN" the JOurnal?,* or much better, that the
> > programs won't write empty entries?
> >
> > Empty entry = when a kid opens "Browse", and he closes 10 seconds later,
> > it
> > is useless that entry.
> >
> > If the kid uses "Write" for more than 15 minutes, probably he wrote
> > something useful.
> >
> > For example , If the kid opens "Write" but he don't write anything, that
> > entry would not be save on the journal.
> >
> > ANother example: Programs that are not well "sugarized", they save lots
> > and
> > lots of useless entries on the journal.
> >
> > The problem is not the space, those entries don't occupy nothing. The
> > problem is the amount of entries.
> > *
> > TOO MUCH INFORMATION = NO INFORMATION*
> >
> >
> 
> >
> >
> > Paolo Benini
> > Montevideo
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
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> >
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>
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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Kenneth Wyrick]

Oh! Ok I get that, now. Also, view my comments as a gut level response as
a newbie to this project who is looking for specific constructive dialog
instead of generalities that are easily thrown around.

Maybe it's just me but I replied how I felt as I read what was written.
So, I still want to know what his purpose is for spending time with the
olpc? Based on what I read, he sees the apple as our competitor. I could
have done without the apple promo.

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 10:40 AM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
> i see an apple guy trying to down FLOSS in it's truest form. the olpc is
> a
> key human access to experiencing ingenuity at it's finest...it starts
> with
> self

Don't shoot the messenger.  Carlos is a prolific contributor to our
Spanish localization effort and his critique is worthy of
consideration.  Please read beyond the framing of it in the context of
commercial packages and look for the meat of his concerns.  To do
otherwise is to dismiss genuine insight from someone with extensive
deployment experience.  This is not a bomb thrown by an outsider, but
a genuine plea for improvement from an insider.

cjl
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Re: [IAEP] Concrete feedback

[Kenneth Wyrick]

I'm glad to see all the entries which tells me what they clicked on and if
they didn't create anything then I'm curious to know why. maybe for long
term use there could be a way to sort entries based on size of the entries
or something like that which would put the files with no content near the
bottom.

i like having an option to log everything or filter the list.

You are showing one of the more commons problems when we talk about the
Journal.
Many times, bugs in activities are perceived like bugs in the Journal.
If one activity is not well sugarized, is a problem in the activity and
must
solved.
And from a long time, the default way wen you open one activity, is open
the
last instance.
This is not the right solution, because is not useful for all the
activities,
but solve the issue with Browse, Terminal, etc.
About massive operations, you can see the work from tch about multiple
selection operations.

Gonzalo



> *Concrete Feedback:*
>
> The journal is always full of garbage, hundreds of empty entries:  *is
> there a possibility to "CLEAN" the JOurnal?,* or much better, that the
> programs won't write empty entries?
>
> Empty entry = when a kid opens "Browse", and he closes 10 seconds later,
> it
> is useless that entry.
>
> If the kid uses "Write" for more than 15 minutes, probably he wrote
> something useful.
>
> For example , If the kid opens "Write" but he don't write anything, that
> entry would not be save on the journal.
>
> ANother example: Programs that are not well "sugarized", they save lots
> and
> lots of useless entries on the journal.
>
> The problem is not the space, those entries don't occupy nothing. The
> problem is the amount of entries.
> *
> TOO MUCH INFORMATION = NO INFORMATION*
>
> 
>
>
> Paolo Benini
> Montevideo
>
>
>
>
> ___
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> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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Re: [IAEP] Concrete feedback

[Gonzalo Odiard]

You are showing one of the more commons problems when we talk about the
Journal.
Many times, bugs in activities are perceived like bugs in the Journal.
If one activity is not well sugarized, is a problem in the activity and must
solved.
And from a long time, the default way wen you open one activity, is open the
last instance.
This is not the right solution, because is not useful for all the
activities,
but solve the issue with Browse, Terminal, etc.
About massive operations, you can see the work from tch about multiple
selection operations.

Gonzalo



> *Concrete Feedback:*
>
> The journal is always full of garbage, hundreds of empty entries:  *is
> there a possibility to "CLEAN" the JOurnal?,* or much better, that the
> programs won't write empty entries?
>
> Empty entry = when a kid opens "Browse", and he closes 10 seconds later, it
> is useless that entry.
>
> If the kid uses "Write" for more than 15 minutes, probably he wrote
> something useful.
>
> For example , If the kid opens "Write" but he don't write anything, that
> entry would not be save on the journal.
>
> ANother example: Programs that are not well "sugarized", they save lots and
> lots of useless entries on the journal.
>
> The problem is not the space, those entries don't occupy nothing. The
> problem is the amount of entries.
> *
> TOO MUCH INFORMATION = NO INFORMATION*
>
> 
>
>
> Paolo Benini
> Montevideo
>
>
>
>
> ___
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Valerie Taylor]

The concerns are much more technical that I was imagining.

I'm really out there on the fringe. I took the liberty of going
through the Sugar manual and leaving out anything that was too
technical for a general overview. There is still a lot of useful and
interesting information about Sugar, Activities and how these fit into
teaching and learning, although there is lots more that could be said
along these lines. This should help people who want to know about
Sugar but aren't particularly interested in running it (yet) -
educators, parents.  My apologies to all the contributors of the great
information - others appreciate it.

http://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Sugar_manual
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[IAEP] Concrete feedback

[nanonano]

/>Walter Bender wrote:
>The eventual transition to GNOME 3.0 and PYGI will make a big 
difference in our ability to support more interoperability as well.

-/


This is a very good news, Thanks, Walter!


---
/
>Walter Bender wrote:
>In any case, /concrete feedback/ and criticism is welcome.
-/

*Concrete Feedback:*

The journal is always full of garbage, hundreds of empty entries:  *is 
there a possibility to "CLEAN" the JOurnal?,* or much better, that the 
programs won't write empty entries?


Empty entry = when a kid opens "Browse", and he closes 10 seconds later, 
it is useless that entry.


If the kid uses "Write" for more than 15 minutes, probably he wrote 
something useful.


For example , If the kid opens "Write" but he don't write anything, that 
entry would not be save on the journal.


ANother example: Programs that are not well "sugarized", they save lots 
and lots of useless entries on the journal.


The problem is not the space, those entries don't occupy nothing. The 
problem is the amount of entries.

_
TOO MUCH INFORMATION = NO INFORMATION_



Paolo Benini
Montevideo



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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro

[Valerie Taylor]

As a new independent learner, there is no question that it is
difficult to "learn Sugar" but why would someone want to? I want to
because OLPC is on the right track toward the education that should
have been researched, implemented and supported for the last 20 years.
What is amazing is that those empowered to provide education to
millions of the world's most needed children actually get this.

It is about priorities, passions and limited resources. Most of the
people who have contributed to date have been comfortable with the
technology and wrote documentation for themselves and other
like-minded users, and this has worked well to satisfy the needs of
the primary audience - those implementing whole school XO adoptions.
However, developing training and documentation for other audiences has
not been provided for whatever reason.

I doubt that this is the first time someone has indicated that they
had a problem learning Sugar. Apparently little if anything has been
done in the past to address these specific concerns. The interest in
the current situation is encouraging. It is never too late to provide
additional information for those who are interested enough to point
out a need that is un-met.

Good start on a dialog to discover what is needed and what can be done
/ provided to make it easier for other interested audiences to "learn
Sugar" as they understand it.
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Walter Bender]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Mikus Grinbergs  wrote:
>> I Am talking about the problem about the incompatibility between the
>> Sugarized programs vs the normal linux programs , like the games that
>> the children wants.  There are thousands of programs in Linux that
>> don't uses the "Journal", so there are useless.
>
> This seems to be the common thread between here and earlier posts:
>
>  "I know how to run program ZZZ on a non-Sugar system.  Why can't I
>   (easily/simply) put it on a Sugar system (for a kid who wants it)?"
>
>> I don't have to be Einstein to know that if the same problem continues
>> after more 3 or four years, it is not only  technical problem.
>
> This is true.  My personal comment is that I haven't noticed "to run
> programs like ZZZ" as among the goals of the OLPC.
>
> [I might *want* to marry a particular celebrity - but that doesn't mean that
> that celebrity would have "to marry Mikus" as one of her goals.]
>
> Does it mean the end of the world if the kid can't run ZZZ inside Sugar?
>
> Paolo - if you do not see other people planning to implement a goal of "to
> run programs like ZZZ inside Sugar" - being upset at the existing situation
> does not help - try to figure out where in this situation changes might be
> feasible - then start beating on doors.
>
> mikus

Mikus,

Thanks for your summary. FWIW, I actually think it is important that
Sugar plays well with the non-Sugar world, but it certainly wasn't an
initial priority. There are a number of initiatives underway that will
improve the situation; I mentioned a few in an early post, such as the
ability to access and edit non-Sugar files directly from within the
Sugar UI. Also, many, but not every, Sugar activities will run within
both Sugar and the GNOME desktop.

The eventual transition to GNOME 3.0 and PYGI will make a big
difference in our ability to support more interoperability as well.

All of that said, let me repeat an argument I made regarding the Sugar
Journal during the EduJam summit last month: we developed the Journal
not because we wanted to be incompatible with the rest of the world
but because we wanted to address some pedagogical needs. Specifically,
we want the children to have a place to reflect upon their work. The
Journal is their portfolio. Reflection requires effort and some
developers consider the prompts to write in the Journal as an
annoyance. But when I ask those same developers if they think adding a
commit message to their commits in git, they immediately understand
the value. So some of the annoyance of the Journal is because we have
not completely solved the UI issues (the good news is that Simon has
some patches landing that fix some of these issues) but some of the
annoyance is because we want to make the path of least resistance be
one where the children are prompted to be reflective-- to write in
their "lab notebooks" about what they are doing and why and to make
presentations to their teachers, parents, and fellow students about
their work. (The latter is facilitated by the new Portfolio activity.)

In any case, concrete feedback and criticism is welcome. Thanks.

-walter
>
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Mikus Grinbergs]

I Am talking about the problem about the incompatibility between the
Sugarized programs vs the normal linux programs , like the games that
the children wants.  There are thousands of programs in Linux that
don't uses the "Journal", so there are useless.


This seems to be the common thread between here and earlier posts:

  "I know how to run program ZZZ on a non-Sugar system.  Why can't I
   (easily/simply) put it on a Sugar system (for a kid who wants it)?"


I don't have to be Einstein to know that if the same problem continues
after more 3 or four years, it is not only  technical problem.


This is true.  My personal comment is that I haven't noticed "to run 
programs like ZZZ" as among the goals of the OLPC.


[I might *want* to marry a particular celebrity - but that doesn't mean 
that that celebrity would have "to marry Mikus" as one of her goals.]


Does it mean the end of the world if the kid can't run ZZZ inside Sugar?

Paolo - if you do not see other people planning to implement a goal of 
"to run programs like ZZZ inside Sugar" - being upset at the existing 
situation does not help - try to figure out where in this situation 
changes might be feasible - then start beating on doors.


mikus

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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Chris Leonard]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 10:40 AM, Kenneth Wyrick  wrote:
> i see an apple guy trying to down FLOSS in it's truest form. the olpc is a
> key human access to experiencing ingenuity at it's finest...it starts with
> self

Don't shoot the messenger.  Carlos is a prolific contributor to our
Spanish localization effort and his critique is worthy of
consideration.  Please read beyond the framing of it in the context of
commercial packages and look for the meat of his concerns.  To do
otherwise is to dismiss genuine insight from someone with extensive
deployment experience.  This is not a bomb thrown by an outsider, but
a genuine plea for improvement from an insider.

cjl
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Re: [IAEP] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar why would YOU want to?

[Kenneth Wyrick]

i see an apple guy trying to down FLOSS in it's truest form. the olpc is a
key human access to experiencing ingenuity at it's finest...it starts with
self

where apple starts with i and thinks it;s a pod business to make money
with good products that they are now making more affordable accessible
small visual calculator gadgets that track and communication our every
movement without choice

i'd like to know what about the stability of fedora are you referring to
as not being so good?

i'd like to hear what your intentional use or even interest in olpc is
other than using our mailing list to try and crush our efforts to futher
your mac attack on humanity? you might as well be a mac henry the step
child of mc donalds uncle...

Hi Folks,
This is a FYI... Carlos Rebassa, a Rap Ceibal volunteer many of us met in
Uruguay has come up with a surprisingly critical complaint about Sugar.
He included a link to an English version, but did not send it to IAEP or
the Support Gang lists.  I have no idea what prompted his criticisms nor
can I figure out exactly what they are.  Carlos is fluent in English. He
lived in New York and sold Real Estate there for many years.  If any of
you want to reply, you can send it to the olpc-sur list or directly to
Carlos.
Caryl

From: car...@mac.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:31:49 -0300
To: america-lat...@squeakland.org; squeakl...@squeakland.org;
olpc-...@lists.laptop.org; olpcp...@gmail.com;
olpc-boli...@lists.laptop.org; somosazu...@lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar



No logro aprender
Sugarhttps://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1eot88jPUrJgo2MWR7KNyHa8UqZjdTUOun6JH9A_7KBg
I cannot learn Sugar
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1yBr2G7FF5Jr46ixt_THm1xQh08cyNJXx8KUy-WDZ1Xs


Carlos RabassaVoluntarioRed de Apoyo al Plan CeibalMontevideo, Uruguay





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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[nanonano]

/>Kevin Mark wrote:
>He also talks about using OO4kids with uses a non-sugar dialog box.
>That should be fixed with a technological solution.
---
/


Hi, Kevin:

The problem that I was Talking about on the other e-mail, is about the 
Journal, it's really absurd that I am complaining about the same thing 
for more than three Years and the things are the same like in 2008



Your are saying that the Journal problem is only a "technological 
thing", and you said to solve it only with a "technological solution".


No.

It is not only technological , I don't have to be Einstein to know that 
if the same problem continues  after more 3 or four years, it is not 
only  technical problem.


If your are a Car maker, and you make a car that are lack of one wheel, 
yo can not anwer after 3 years of production " /it is a technological 
thing, someone will solve it"/


--

I Am talking about the problem about the incompatibility between the 
Sugarized programs vs the normal linux programs , like the games that 
the children wants.  There are thousands of programs in Linux that don't 
uses the "JOurnal", so there are useless.


The solutions it is not saying "/well, sugarize and 'journalize' those 
programs/".


*In 2007 or 2008 that was a good answer, but after 4 years it is only a 
joke*


ANother answers that now sounds like a joke are:  "/use a pendrive/". or 
"/change the activity by your self/". We heard those answeas years ago I 
we didn't complain, there was a good answer. but after years and 
years .



It is absurd that the children in Uruguay  has to install Wine (a 
windows emulator) so they can play their games and download the music. 
It's almost a joke, because the children can install lots and lots of 
games on Wine, much more games that they can install in Sugar! And in 
wine they uses the Directory system of the windows, with no problems.



It is really absurd to say to Children: "/you don't have to download 
music with wine, use the OGG version of the songs/".. That anwer is 
really Out of this world, that answer means that the author of the 
answer never sit down behind a child with an XO.


A person that pretends that a Child will use Ogg because is "legal".. 
has his mind in another galaxy. Before talking about Ogg, please see how 
many songs are in Mp3 and how many in ogg (on the internet)


*The people (adults or childre) don't even know that "legally" they 
can't hear an MP3* with his Mp3 player, because that 20 dollars Mp3 
Player didn't paid the Mp3 Licence!


Nobody even knows that the Mp3 format is not free! So it is absurd to 
tell to a children about usin OGG instead of mp3.


*_It is absurd to tell a children to MODIFY A PROGRAM in SUGAR_*.. please

-


A technical problem that you can not solve in 3  or 4 years.. it s no 
more technical, the problem is bigger.



In 2008 I Heard the same exactly ansewrs like yours, Kevin, answers like 
"/ok, we will solve that technical problem, don't worry/".



For example: if all my students don't pass the year... the problem it's 
not the children.. the problem is the teacher, or the sistem.


-

I have lots of other complaints , this problem about the JOurnal is only 
the tip of the iceberg.



Sorry for my very bad English
thanks


Paolo Benini
Rap-Ceibal -   Montevideo

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[IAEP] [SLOBS]: revisiting the licensing text on the wiki

[Walter Bender]

As per our discussion at the last SLOBs meeting, I took a crack at
rewriting the Licensing page in the wiki. Please take a look and
comment/edit so that we can formally adopt new language at the next
meeting.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Licensing

regards.

-walter

-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Kevin Mark]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 12:11:44PM +0200, Christoph Derndorfer wrote:
> Am 15.06.2011 11:28, schrieb Kevin Mark:
d his ideas.

> 
> Paolo Benini, another core volunteer from Montevideo, wrote up some more
> specific criticism - which is mainly focused on the Journal - on
o> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sur/2011-June/008474.html

I tried to use google translate to read it. He mentions kids trying to use WINE
to play game and trying to listen to music files. This is the kind of things
any kid would do. Its just having fun and mischief. There can certainly be an
attempt to provide them with ways to play music files, show them sites with OGG
music and maybe some of the sugar games. But I think that is more of a
social/teaching issue that can not be simply addressed with a technology
solution.

He also mentions the suggesting to use a usb stick (in a place where that is
not possible for many reasons). That I understand. He also talks about using
OO4kids with uses a non-sugar dialog box. That should be fixed with a
technological solution. I just dont know who will do it.  That would address
the inconsistence of learning the standards linux dialog box. I dont understand
the bit about creating attachments, I think I once used the object chooser to
attach a file. So it worked for me(tm).


> 
> In my reply to him I said what I also said in my eduJAM! summary for
> OLPC News
> (http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/community/a_look_back_at_conozco_uruguay.html):
> We now seem to have a broad consensus among the community and developers
> that the Journal needs some serious love. Walter also spent a large part
> of one of his eduJAM! presentations on that topic. The coding sprint
> after the summit itself also dedicated quite a bit of time on the
> Journal and I pointed Paolo to the relevant notes on the wiki.
> 
> More than the actual complaints itself I think this clearly shows that
> we absolutely need to improve our communication channels to enable this
> kind of vital feedback from people close to deployments to reach the
> wider community. As C Scott mentioned in a different context many months
> ago it's not just about just hearing these types of comments but
> actually listening to and subsequently acting on them.

As someone in the FLOSS community, I expected OLPC to educate the pilots about
the way we do things and to bring our tools (wiki, irc, ML, etc) to bear and
provide a place for all of the deployments to talk and exchange ideas. This did
happen but not enough and not quick enough and only a few are part of this
dialogue. There are more than 10 and maybe less than 100 pilots. It was only in
the last 2 yrs that we have had these great events like ceibaljam, edujam,
'realness' and other summits. Debian has a yearly conference to bring together
its stakeholder and hash out ideas in a meatspace. It helps alot. So I expect
these recent events to really accelerate activity and improve olpc, sugarlabs
and those deployments that can take part.

> 
> As a global community the frustration evident in the messages by Carlos
> and Paolo, undoubtably two of the most dedicated volunteers we have,
> should really give us something to think about. Particularly because at
> the end of the day it's their local work - more than anything we do
> thousands of kilometers away - which will decide what kind of impact
> Plan Ceibal will have in Uruguay over the long run.
> 
I certainly appreciate any voice that want to express frustration so that folks
can listen and make these projects better for the kids who want to learn. I
read something by Karl Fogel that says that a project that does not have a
stream of bug reports is a dead project. So we need folks to keep those reports
coming. And help them direct these report from their local site to OLPC or
other developers. Finding the people, time and resources to fix that is another
story.  

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understand, v.:
To reach a point, in your investigation of some subject, at which
you cease to examine what is really present, and operate on the
basis of your own internal model instead.
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Christoph Derndorfer]

Am 15.06.2011 11:28, schrieb Kevin Mark:
> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 07:58:48PM -0700, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>> This is a FYI... Carlos Rebassa, a Rap Ceibal volunteer many of us met in
>> Uruguay has come up with a surprisingly critical complaint about Sugar.  He
>> included a link to an English version, but did not send it to IAEP or the
>> Support Gang lists.  I have no idea what prompted his criticisms nor can I
>> figure out exactly what they are.  Carlos is fluent in English. He lived in 
>> New
>> York and sold Real Estate there for many years.  If any of you want to reply,
>> you can send it to the olpc-sur list or directly to Carlos.
>>
>> Caryl
> 
> He points out Apple as a top-down company and the FLOSS folks as horizontal.
> Its sort of might parallel Canonical vs Debian. Apple is more polished because
> it pays experts and does lots of user testing. I'm sure if OLPC/Sugarlabs had
> the same resources, it might do similar. I know that Sugar was pushed out into
> the world with less than perfect feedback where kids could be observed in
> school setting (or that is what I recall from the days of 656). And that the
> South American deployments are a valuable source of feedback. And as soon as
> that is added to Sugarlabs efforts, everyone will benefit.
> 
> As to the idea that other OS's that are Office-focused and are made by
> companies that have spent lot on user testing and design, again, that is a
> luxury that OLPC/Sugarlabs did not have. What they did produce was damn great
> considering what they had to work with and it implemented an idea that was new
> and revolutionary and targeted for kids.
> 
> People often forget their first time using new user interfaces and how they
> stumbled with them until they got lots of help from other users or teachers.
> And the basic elements for Windows, Mac and Linux are reasonable similar when
> using it for office automation.
> 
> I know it took a bit of time to get some of the elements and it might be 
> useful
> to have a few video tutorials for both teachers and students for some of the
> more confusing elements of Sugar (which is being improved with the valuable
> feedback of many stateholder). 
> 
> I was not able to understand exactly what he was saying, he'd need to produce 
> a
> lists of specific things that Sugarlabs could address. And I'm sure they'd 
> like
> to add his ideas.

Paolo Benini, another core volunteer from Montevideo, wrote up some more
specific criticism - which is mainly focused on the Journal - on
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sur/2011-June/008474.html

In my reply to him I said what I also said in my eduJAM! summary for
OLPC News
(http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/community/a_look_back_at_conozco_uruguay.html):
We now seem to have a broad consensus among the community and developers
that the Journal needs some serious love. Walter also spent a large part
of one of his eduJAM! presentations on that topic. The coding sprint
after the summit itself also dedicated quite a bit of time on the
Journal and I pointed Paolo to the relevant notes on the wiki.

More than the actual complaints itself I think this clearly shows that
we absolutely need to improve our communication channels to enable this
kind of vital feedback from people close to deployments to reach the
wider community. As C Scott mentioned in a different context many months
ago it's not just about just hearing these types of comments but
actually listening to and subsequently acting on them.

As a global community the frustration evident in the messages by Carlos
and Paolo, undoubtably two of the most dedicated volunteers we have,
should really give us something to think about. Particularly because at
the end of the day it's their local work - more than anything we do
thousands of kilometers away - which will decide what kind of impact
Plan Ceibal will have in Uruguay over the long run.

Cheers,
Christoph

-- 
Christoph Derndorfer
co-editor, www.olpcnews.com
e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com
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Re: [IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Kevin Mark]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 07:58:48PM -0700, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> This is a FYI... Carlos Rebassa, a Rap Ceibal volunteer many of us met in
> Uruguay has come up with a surprisingly critical complaint about Sugar.  He
> included a link to an English version, but did not send it to IAEP or the
> Support Gang lists.  I have no idea what prompted his criticisms nor can I
> figure out exactly what they are.  Carlos is fluent in English. He lived in 
> New
> York and sold Real Estate there for many years.  If any of you want to reply,
> you can send it to the olpc-sur list or directly to Carlos.
> 
> Caryl

He points out Apple as a top-down company and the FLOSS folks as horizontal.
Its sort of might parallel Canonical vs Debian. Apple is more polished because
it pays experts and does lots of user testing. I'm sure if OLPC/Sugarlabs had
the same resources, it might do similar. I know that Sugar was pushed out into
the world with less than perfect feedback where kids could be observed in
school setting (or that is what I recall from the days of 656). And that the
South American deployments are a valuable source of feedback. And as soon as
that is added to Sugarlabs efforts, everyone will benefit.

As to the idea that other OS's that are Office-focused and are made by
companies that have spent lot on user testing and design, again, that is a
luxury that OLPC/Sugarlabs did not have. What they did produce was damn great
considering what they had to work with and it implemented an idea that was new
and revolutionary and targeted for kids.

People often forget their first time using new user interfaces and how they
stumbled with them until they got lots of help from other users or teachers.
And the basic elements for Windows, Mac and Linux are reasonable similar when
using it for office automation.

I know it took a bit of time to get some of the elements and it might be useful
to have a few video tutorials for both teachers and students for some of the
more confusing elements of Sugar (which is being improved with the valuable
feedback of many stateholder). 

I was not able to understand exactly what he was saying, he'd need to produce a
lists of specific things that Sugarlabs could address. And I'm sure they'd like
to add his ideas.

-- 
|  .''`.  == Debian GNU/Linux ==.| http://kevix.myopenid.com..|
| : :' : The Universal OS| mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/.|
| `. `'   http://www.debian.org/.| http://counter.li.org [#238656]|
|___`-Unless I ask to be CCd,.assume I am subscribed._|

We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which
people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products.
Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual
and emotional feelings.  It might taste good or clever, but in the long run,
it's not going to do anything for you.
-- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984
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