[IAEP] [Marketing] OLPCorps: an opportunity for Sugar feedback

[John Watlington]

I don't know about a third, but it's worth a try.
For starters, it would have to be in Spanish.

wad

On Mar 19, 2009, at 8:05 AM, Sean DALY wrote:

> Thanks John
>
> Do you think a third of the teachers would be willing to fill out a
> webform like that?
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 1:01 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org>  
> wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 19, 2009, at 7:46 AM, Sean DALY wrote:
>>
>>> Actually I agree with Mel, we could obtain extremely useful first- 
>>> hand
>>> accounts which don't involve asking anyone what they like or not,  
>>> but
>>> simply watching what they do.
>>>
>>> To discover how Sugar is not serving its users, we need lots of raw
>>> field data. And to make good use of it, we need that data to be
>>> structured. This is the bread and butter of consumer market  
>>> surveys...
>>> just needs to be adjusted due to the young age and cultural
>>> differences of the users.
>>
>> May I suggest the olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org ?
>> There are thousands of teachers in South America already using Sugar.
>> Many more than OLPCCorps will provide...
>>
>>> Most kids I know get wise as every year passes and will try to  
>>> answer
>>> what is expected... so the trick is to talk about stuff that  
>>> interests
>>> them, and learn while they chat about it. Linguists are constantly
>>> faced with a similar problem: if you tell anyone they are to be
>>> interviewed by a linguist, s/he will put on the most educated accent
>>> they can muster; if you ask in a friendly way what their favorite
>>> football team is, or what kind of music they like, or about an
>>> important event in their life, you are guaranteed to get authentic
>>> linguistic results.
>>>
>>> A visiting OLPCorps student could tell us:
>>> * How do kids (& teachers) start their day with the XO - bright and
>>> early, or at a set time every day?
>>> * What Activities do they start with?
>>> * Which Activities do they spend time on in class? in free time?  
>>> What
>>> do they seem to like the most / the least?
>>> * When and where are the XOs charging (=Sugar downtime)?
>>> * Are the XOs always / sometimes / never, open and in use outside  
>>> of class
>>> time?
>>> * Is anyone left out (i.e. without an XO due to breakage)?
>>> * Are kids helping each other when they get stuck on something?
>>> * Are the XOs used in the evening?
>>>
>>>
>>> Questions to kids can reveal very interesting information, without
>>> asking for detailed criticism:
>>> * "Show me some photos you took or drawings you made" -> how do they
>>> search and retrieve them?
>>> * "When did you take that photo?" -> Are they concerned about having
>>> enough space for photos, do they delete old ones if they run low? Do
>>> they get the age from the Journal, or just remembering?
>>> * "Do you have brothers and sisters? Do you let them look at your
>>> computer?" -> Kids will never hesitate to talk about siblings and  
>>> the
>>> answer will reveal: Do the parents look at the computer too?
>>>
>>>
>>> We can spend a minimum of time and yet harvest incredible  
>>> information
>>> by making reporting easy:
>>> * standardize a little list like this
>>> * ask OLPCorps volunteers to look at the list and print it out  
>>> before
>>> departure, perhaps taking notes on the printed page during the short
>>> stay, but never in front of the kids
>>> * ask them to submit the little report upon return (or just before)
>>> through a friendly webform. Thank them!
>>>
>>>
>>> I am sure OLPC will already be doing something similar. Although the
>>> help these sickly students might bring to the sites might be  
>>> minimal,
>>> the help they can bring to the OLPC and Sugar projects as "eyes and
>>> ears" using homogenized reporting, leading to usable consolidated
>>> results, is a golden opportunity I think to better know how Sugar is
>>> being used across cultures.
>>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>> Sean
>>> Marketing Coordinator
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Bryan Berry  
>>> <bryan at olenepal.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I highly doubt that OLPCorps personnel will be useful to Sugarlabs.
>>>> Trying to work w/ them will just be a time sink.
>>>>
>>>> 1. Few of these folks will know anything about Sugar or really  
>>>> care,
>>>> otherwise they would already be active on the mailing lists.
>>>>
>>>> 2. They are going from microbe-free Europe/North America to central
>>>> Africa. I conservatively estimate that all of them will spend  
>>>> 1/3 to 1/2
>>>> of their stay in Central Africa sick w/ malaria or intestinal  
>>>> problems.
>>>> I don't mean to judge Africa harshly here, if they came to rural  
>>>> Nepal
>>>> they would spend at least 1 month sick.
>>>>
>>>> 3. I doubt very few of these people will be able to communicate
>>>> effectively w/ the locals. This is not a language issue but a  
>>>> cultural
>>>> one. If I go to a rural school and ask the locals how they like  
>>>> Sugar,
>>>> they always respond "Yes, yes, it is fantastic. No complaints"  
>>>> If my
>>>> colleague Rabi karmacharya goes, they give him a long list of
>>>> complaints. Locals know not to complain to foreigners, because  
>>>> telling
>>>> foreigners what they might not want to hear usually leads  
>>>> foreigners to
>>>> stop giving money.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:57 +0100, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 06:32, Mel Chua <mel at melchua.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I thought you folks might be interested in the conversation/ 
>>>>>> questions I
>>>>>> had with Paul Commons about the OLPCorps internship program  
>>>>>> tonight.
>>>>>> Paul's going to be moving discussions to the grassroots  
>>>>>> mailing list,
>>>>>> so
>>>>>> please reply to Paul on that list if you're interested in the  
>>>>>> program
>>>>>> itself or the workings of it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/grassroots/2009-March/ 
>>>>>> 001151.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What I /do/ want to discusson this list: given that all these  
>>>>>> pilots
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> all these student internship teams are going to be using  
>>>>>> Sugar, it
>>>>>> seems
>>>>>> like this is an awesome opportunity to...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) get some Sugar feedback love from teachers through the  
>>>>>> OLPCorps
>>>>>> teams
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2) seed Sugar-savvy groups of university students (who can do  
>>>>>> things
>>>>>> like deploy SoaS back home right away - there's nothing like a  
>>>>>> local
>>>>>> deployment to work with to keep you engaged)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 3) get some great Sugar use stories so we can hear about what  
>>>>>> our stuff
>>>>>> actually /does/ for kids.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What do you folks think? How can we make this happen?
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know that, but how we can help these groups of people  
>>>>> to use
>>>>> Sugar more successfully?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> Tomeu
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Bryan W. Berry
>>>> Technology Director
>>>> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>>>>
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>>
>>