[IAEP] GPA Class Notes August 5

[Walter Bender]

I am not sure that voting is necessary. Reporting of any sort is the
number-one priority.

-walter

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 4:36 AM, Tomeu Vizoso<tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 23:28, Greg Smith<gregsmithpm at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi David,
>>
>> That would be a big help. I am way behind reading the list and working on bugs.
>>
>> I appreciate any help you can give filing bugs based on the reports.
>> GPA in the keyword field will let me query them later.
>>
>> I plan to do a full clean up of all GPA found issues some time in the
>> last two weeks of August.
>>
>> In terms of the next Sugar release, can anyone help me identify
>> features or bug fixes which address issues raised at GPA? e.g. are
>> there any use cases or work flows which will be improved by the new
>> Toolbar?
>
> Any thoughts about how we could let each deployment express their
> urgency for bugs and features? Would be kind of similar to voting, but
> it should be clear which deployments voted for a given ticket.
>
> This could help prioritizing, may motivate volunteers, may help
> further involving deployments, etc
>
> Regards,
>
> Tomeu
>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Greg S
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:56 PM, David Farning<dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>>> Greg,
>>>
>>> How have you been doing turning these reports in bug reports for the
>>> development side of the project?  If you would like, I can start
>>> working through your reports turning them into bug reports with a
>>> keyword such as GPA.
>>>
>>> david
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Greg Smith<gregsmithpm at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Here are my notes from the last class at Gardner public school on August 5.
>>>>
>>>> Caroline, Bill, Anurag and I had a class with 9 x 3rd graders.
>>>> Caroline led the class.
>>>>
>>>> Caroline introduced the class and saying we could not finish making
>>>> the games but we would try to make the computer talk and the kids
>>>> would take the USB sticks home today.
>>>>
>>>> She asked who has computers at home and everyone raised their hand.
>>>> Then she asked what was the "coolest" thing they had done and what was
>>>> the most challenging. Three kids answered:
>>>> 1 -
>>>> coolest: making your own memorize game
>>>> most challenging: playing Conozco Uruguay in Spanish as some kids
>>>> didn't know Spanish
>>>>
>>>> 2 -
>>>> Coolest: painting your own pictures.
>>>> Most challenging: getting pictures from the internet
>>>>
>>>> 3 -
>>>> coolest and most challenging were the same: playing maze game.
>>>>
>>>> Caroline then showed the kdis how to put a CD in and the USB stick
>>>> then reboot to bring up sugar. Kids went to the computers and that
>>>> went well. 4/5 kids got the USB in OK. 1/5 had trouble connecting it
>>>> and asked for help.
>>>>
>>>> Back on the carpet Caroline explained the Home list view and how you
>>>> can flag activities there to show in the Home circle view. Then she
>>>> asked the kids to try that and to try playing some of the games. She
>>>> showed the physics game and the kids "oohed" at that.
>>>>
>>>> Many kids had trouble finding the list view, understanding how to
>>>> click the star to pick activities and most difficult was to get back
>>>> to circle home view. See UI comments at the end for more, in short
>>>> they usually missed the need to click on the dot within circle icon in
>>>> the upper right from the Home|List view.
>>>>
>>>> Several kids really wanted to play Maze but the scale was wrong and
>>>> they couldn't. Same problem for Physics. In both cases, a part of the
>>>> app was off screen. We definitely need a "screen resolution" option.
>>>>
>>>> They tried Speak. In most cases they didn't hear it (possibly more
>>>> debugging data later from the team). It worked for one or two kids and
>>>> for one it was crashing the OS and needing reboot after working a
>>>> while.
>>>>
>>>> We showed them Mama media stick builder, cartoon builder, solitaire
>>>> bounce a bunch of other games. They seemed to like them but often ran
>>>> out of patience or wanted to be shown what to do. Some kids decided to
>>>> try to chat. They needed instructions on how to connect with each
>>>> other (more below) but liked that once it was up.
>>>>
>>>> Back on the carpet, Caroline explained how to go to Sugar activities
>>>> page and download new activities with the Implode game as an example.
>>>>
>>>> Kids really wanted to play Scary Maze
>>>> (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=scary+maze+game+3&aq=0&oq=scary+maze+game+&aqi=g10&fp=flbC24gbdiA)
>>>> but we said that wasn't available. I tried it via Flash later and it
>>>> worked fine but I wasn't sure its really kid appropriate. I realized
>>>> that they probably like it because of the adrenalin rush at being
>>>> scared when you make a small mistake. I think Nintendo 64, Game Boy
>>>> and other popular younger kid games also benefit from provoking the
>>>> adrenalin response. I think Sugar could use more adrenalin provoking
>>>> games....
>>>>
>>>> Many kids needed help launching Browse and finding the sugar home
>>>> page. BTW often they ask for help because someone is there to help. If
>>>> no one was there they would probably soldier on themselves.
>>>>
>>>> On activities page they tried to find Pacman to no avail. We also
>>>> found Gcompris maze games which they liked. Implode,Gcompris chess,
>>>> and bounce were also popular.
>>>>
>>>> Caroline then exhorted them to wait until the computer shuts down
>>>> before taking out USB. Then they each took a boot helper CD and USB
>>>> stick and the class was over.
>>>>
>>>> We debriefed mostly on UI suggestions and areas which were hard for
>>>> the kids. Not order comments:
>>>>
>>>> - Drop down menus don't show fast enough. In general kids need some
>>>> kind of feedback on each click on when waiting (e.g. hour glass
>>>> cursor). This was most apparent when trying to shut down activities
>>>> because too many are running. I watched a kid do this by opening the
>>>> frame, clicking on the activity, waiting for the drop down, choosing
>>>> stop from that, then clicking the check mark in the Name This Journal
>>>> entry popup. He had about 6 activities open and it took him about 10
>>>> minutes to close them, mostly because he kept looking at what the next
>>>> kid over was doing while he waited for the menu to show. Also, the
>>>> check box to close Journal naming dialog was not obvious and in
>>>> general not needed. Possible improvement would be to make that an "X"
>>>> and to not even show it when someone closes from the frame or home
>>>> view and the activity has not changed since the last save/keep.
>>>>
>>>> - When downloading new activities the count down was not always enough
>>>> feedback that the computer is "working". Also, if you don't click "OK"
>>>> and just download another file next, the original OK dialog/bar stays
>>>> there waiting until its gets its OK click.
>>>>
>>>> - Bill mentioned that the names of "things" often includes the file
>>>> name or other data when it would be better to see a more human useful
>>>> name. One example is when they opened Turtle Art examples they read
>>>> the name nnnn.sa by pronouncing the extension. Seems related also to
>>>> my comment about how hard it is to find journal entries because the
>>>> full URL is listed first.
>>>>
>>>> - Maze and physics were to big to fit on the screen. Not sure if that
>>>> is a problem of the actitvity itself, but a screen resolution changing
>>>> tool would be useful. This is important on SoaS when it wasn't so hot
>>>> on XO.
>>>>
>>>> - Gcompris chess didn't save/keep when clicking the stop button.
>>>>
>>>> - When trying to chat kids instinct was to have both kids open chat.
>>>> The way you must do it is to have one open chat then choose share with
>>>> my neighborhood. Kids needed to be shown where share with my
>>>> neighborhood drop down is. Most kids I saw clicked on the text "share
>>>> with". Its not clear enough that the oblong oval (rounded rectangle?)
>>>> next to that is a drop down list. They needed to be reminded to go to
>>>> the Neighborhood view. Once there they often clicked on the XO icon
>>>> above the chat icon. You need to click on the chat icon itself and
>>>> that's a consistent misconception. One kid asked for "emoticons" and
>>>> other images to put in the chat. Caroline thought that it would be
>>>> wise to allow kids to open chat then see what other chats are shared
>>>> or available from within the activity.
>>>>
>>>> - Activities search tool on Sugar home page was a little troublesome
>>>> in two main ways: 1) hard to go back to start a new search after
>>>> digging a few clicks in. Back button works but would be nice to have a
>>>> "new search" link. 2) Hard to see a a list of all activities. Search
>>>> with blank text does it but not sure any kids would try that. Also, we
>>>> believe that there are some activities on OLPC wiki which are not on
>>>> the Sugar list (e.g. pacman and some eToys examples).
>>>>
>>>> - Switching from list view to circle view was not clear. Here's the
>>>> click order as it stands now:
>>>> 1 -- Start at home|circle
>>>> 2 -- Click list view
>>>> 3 -- star/select activities
>>>> 4 -- Click circle view icon
>>>>
>>>> Its step 4 that's problematic. Instinct when on list view and wanting
>>>> to see the circle is to click the dot within circle icon (F3). That
>>>> just leaves you at List|Home view. Most everyone ran in to this.
>>>> Another challenge is that the icons for switching from list <-> circle
>>>> are in the upper right corner. So you often hit the frame which has a
>>>> nice circle icon on it (=F3). In general, way too many UI elements are
>>>> right near the corner which pops up the frame.
>>>>
>>>> - Kids consistently couldn't find the stop button. Either because it
>>>> was on a different tab or because the icon doesn't ring true.
>>>>
>>>> That's it! Thanks a lot to Caroline et al for the chance to see the SW
>>>> in action.
>>>>
>>>> I hope developers don't get too take it badly that there are lots of
>>>> "suggestions" or complaints. In general the SW is great, things go
>>>> well and its an awesome project. I just focus on continuous
>>>> improvement but ts nit meant as criticism.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Greg S
>>>>
>>>> BTW I am 1 - 2 weeks behind on reading the lists. CC me directly as
>>>> needed and I hope to catch up a little before the end of August.
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>
>
>
> --
> «Sugar Labs is anyone who participates in improving and using Sugar.
> What Sugar Labs does is determined by the participants.» - David
> Farning
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org