[IAEP] Teacher in Uruguay enchanted to see his ideas integrated, into global Sugar update

[Eben Eliason]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Greg Smith <gregsmitholpc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> On this:
>  > Perhaps you would be interested in http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6950.  I
>  > > think all these things would go together nicely.
>
> "Changed 2 months ago by gregorio
> milestone deleted Milestone Never Assigned deleted "
>
> When I started at OLPC one of the first things I did was clean up the
> roadmap in Trac. There were a handful of vague "may want to do it in the
> future" milestones. I deleted a few of those before I realized that it
> would also remove them from the bug IDs. That's why you see these messages.
>
> We do need to figure out where to put it on the roadmap and I'm not
> opposed to this idea.
>
> On the subject of gathering input from users its been a recurring theme
> of the lists and I have commented on it several times. Its an important
> problem which we must grapple with. Initially I thought "we need more
> input and information". Then in December I started to realize how much
> input is already available. I collected some of them on my talk page at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:Gregorio
>
> There are wikis, forums, moodles and other sites already full of
> suggestions and comments about the product. Aside from the ones on my
> talk page I can mention
> - Moodle out of Peru: http://www.innovavirtual.org/moodleperu/
> - Forum in Uruguay http://www.mediagala.com/rap/foro/
> - Our OLPC forum http://en.forum.laptop.org/
> and of course the olpc-sur list.

This is fantastic; was I among few who didn't know of their existence?
 I might be, but we could probably do a better job exposing this kind
of information.

> Also I understand that kids in Uruguay and elsewhere have been
> downloading this activity: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XoIRC and it has a
> default channel which has been very active. There is also a spanish IRC
> channel which has seen a lot of use.
>
> Even the question of which is the right tool to gather more suggestions
> is something we should ask people to suggest! If you want people to give
> input, its better to ask them what works best for them than to decide
> that yourself. I have been mulling over the best communication channels
> with Pablo out of Uruguay for 9 moths and we still don't have a
> definitive answer.
>
> For me, the question is not so much how do we gather more input as how
> do we respond to the input already expressed.

I think this misses a very crucial element, which is
locating/aggregating the data.  If there's no channel through which
the data can be collected, searched, or organized, we have little hope
of responding to it.  The main reason I think that something in the
realm of a "Suggestion Box" activity is needed is not *only* so that
kids and teachers have a place to express their thoughts, but just as
much so that their efforts can be collected and reviewed by all who
are interested, in a common place. (Which, in turn, should ensure that
their thoughts are more likely to effect change.)

> The requests do not generally come in like: I want a button on the
> right. The people using the XO are teaching or learning so the request
> is usually more like: its too slow make it faster or I need better tools
> to teach geometry. See the Sur list for some comments like  that.

This is true, of course.  It could lead to a lot of feedback, much of
it not succinct or strictly targeted, but at least we'd have it in a
place where all can find it.  If our biggest problem is sifting
through *too much* feedback, then we're in good shape.  Let's find a
way to put it all to good use!

- Eben

> After an intial suggestions, you need a further discussion befoe it gets
> to exactly what code needs to be written. In terms of how we engage that
> dialog, I wrote a brief explanation of how I think it should work at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Gregorio
>
> We're now engaged in the practice of it and we need that piece along
> with the theory to get it right.
>
> In terms of building in a "please fix it" button, I'm in favor of that.
> I think it should be an activity not a piece of the OS until we can
> prove the concept and show that we can collect good feedback, generate a
> meanigful dialog and most importantly respond in a constructive way to
> the requests.
>
> Lastly, if a user has asked for something which is documented and well
> defined and we think it should be built then go ahead and put it on the
> 9.1 page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0 I just ask that you sign it or
> put it on the talk page.
>
> To Christoph's original point. They already asked, now we need to
> deliver on that. How about starting with this one:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0#Touchpad
> or this one:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0#Longer_Battery_Life
>
> :-)
>
> I hope that's constructive. I want to see more feedback and more
> responsiveness to requests. My main point is that the ball is in our
> court. Once we find people to engage with the only way to get there is
> with a rich dialog where we learn about the users and they learn about
> building software.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg S
>
>
>
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