[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: christoph at olpcnews.com