[IAEP] Adults and Sugar

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Albert Cahalan <acahalan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Caryl Bigenho writes:
>
>> One man sat in front of the XO for several minutes with a puzzled
>> look on his face.  Finally he asked, "Where is your file manager?"
>> I explained that he needed to forget everything he knew about
>> computers and just pretend he was a child again.  He got up in
>> disgust and left.
>
> He asked a simple question and you blew him off. Adults use
> communication to avoid wasting time.
>
> Had you tried to explain, you might have gotten better feedback.
> Of course, then you need to avoid being dismissive of the feedback.
>
>> Meanwhile, nearby, a little boy, about 8-years-old was happily
>> exploring Sugar.
>
> I'm sure he was, but "exploring" is not the same thing as being
> productive.

Why does it have to be about being productive, and not about
exploring? I deal with plenty of college students who all try to be
"productive", but never really learned to explore. Guess what? We have
become a sausage factory of sorts! Crank the handle and out comes
ground meat, ready to be packaged and sold. Critical thinkers? No.
Analytical? No. Monkey see, monkey do? All the time!

Seeing children in Khairat use the journal with ease removed any
doubts in my mind as to why Sugar doesn't have a file manager. These
kids don't even know what a "file" looks like! Why bother with a
metaphor that is as clear as mud for them?

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/