[IAEP] [support-gang] FW: [OLPC Bolivia] No logro aprender Sugar / I cannot learn Sugar

[Kevin Mark]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 12:11:44PM +0200, Christoph Derndorfer wrote:
> Am 15.06.2011 11:28, schrieb Kevin Mark:
d his ideas.
<snip>
> 
> Paolo Benini, another core volunteer from Montevideo, wrote up some more
> specific criticism - which is mainly focused on the Journal - on
o> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sur/2011-June/008474.html

I tried to use google translate to read it. He mentions kids trying to use WINE
to play game and trying to listen to music files. This is the kind of things
any kid would do. Its just having fun and mischief. There can certainly be an
attempt to provide them with ways to play music files, show them sites with OGG
music and maybe some of the sugar games. But I think that is more of a
social/teaching issue that can not be simply addressed with a technology
solution.

He also mentions the suggesting to use a usb stick (in a place where that is
not possible for many reasons). That I understand. He also talks about using
OO4kids with uses a non-sugar dialog box. That should be fixed with a
technological solution. I just dont know who will do it.  That would address
the inconsistence of learning the standards linux dialog box. I dont understand
the bit about creating attachments, I think I once used the object chooser to
attach a file. So it worked for me(tm).


> 
> 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 someone in the FLOSS community, I expected OLPC to educate the pilots about
the way we do things and to bring our tools (wiki, irc, ML, etc) to bear and
provide a place for all of the deployments to talk and exchange ideas. This did
happen but not enough and not quick enough and only a few are part of this
dialogue. There are more than 10 and maybe less than 100 pilots. It was only in
the last 2 yrs that we have had these great events like ceibaljam, edujam,
'realness' and other summits. Debian has a yearly conference to bring together
its stakeholder and hash out ideas in a meatspace. It helps alot. So I expect
these recent events to really accelerate activity and improve olpc, sugarlabs
and those deployments that can take part.

> 
> 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.
> 
I certainly appreciate any voice that want to express frustration so that folks
can listen and make these projects better for the kids who want to learn. I
read something by Karl Fogel that says that a project that does not have a
stream of bug reports is a dead project. So we need folks to keep those reports
coming. And help them direct these report from their local site to OLPC or
other developers. Finding the people, time and resources to fix that is another
story.  

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understand, v.:
	To reach a point, in your investigation of some subject, at which
	you cease to examine what is really present, and operate on the
	basis of your own internal model instead.