[IAEP] My problem with your OUI is that I can't see what problem it is solving.

[mokurai at earthtreasury.org]

Excellent ideas. I look forward to seeing your concrete proposals, and how
they differ from what Sugar offers now, which I am still entirely unclear
on. I thought that Sugar was the linked set of rooms with indexing and
search facilities that you describe as your goal.

On Sat, September 15, 2012 8:41 pm, David Brown wrote:
> as i started sketching out a design of something a child could use with no
> training and no need for a guru "Help Desk" by the side, i realised that
> what i had would be equally useful for general use by anyone.
>
> so i changed its name to OUI (Obvious User Interface) - it uses the
> metaphor of a house of rooms within which named (and hence indexable) user
> activities take place, instead of a desktop with folders of files on it
> with an omnipotent file manager so you can mess up your data.
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/oui.pdf
>
> the metaphor is not a big deal in and of itself - it's just that OUI's
> conceptual structure makes it obvious to any user what they can do with
> the
> machine and how they can do it and where what they did before is; and it
> helps them organise and name and hence find the information they create
> themselves (their "works").   a teacher who wanted to monitor progress
> could just look at the child's works
>
> re diagram below, what i was thinking of was making OUI the sys ui.  [btw,
> whereas a sugar "activity" is a single app (and its record), a OUI
> "activity" is a named room (aka folder) containing artifacts (aka files)
> produced so far with various tools (aka apps) - the artifacts represent
> the
> current state of the activity].
>
>                user
>              /         \
>             /           \
>         sys ui     app ui    (each app has its own ui)
>            |          /       \
>            |         /         \
>           user mgt       app
>                 \               /
>                  \             /
>                       os           (eg gnome or fedora or android)
>
> Some screenshot mockups might help
>>
>
> to the user, OUI is just a menu - that's all you need!  every tool has its
> own particular screen.  the menu can be slid out in any room to  show all
> the tools and artifacts in that room and let you open side doors to the
> "Library" and "Internet and People" rooms.
>
> the Library, however, is a bit special:  there is still the problem that
> Dewey, Yahoo and Google all attacked - that of indexing a repository of
> information that other people have created in such a way that you can find
> what kind of thing you are looking for easily.  "kind of thing" is the key
> phrase here - you may no't know exactly what you want, you just know the
> kind of things you like, but you also need your interloctor (the machine)
> to make suggestions to you because there might be something there you
> would
> like, if only you knew what it was called.
>
> to my mind, Google has found the most practical approach even though it
> turns up more advertisements about where one can buy information than
> information itself (not to mention misinformation and disinformation) -
> but
> that's the nature of the socio-political-economic system mankind lives in
> and that's not going to change any time soon.
>
> so i figure it would be good to be able to do a Google search of one's own
> local data (particularly the tool collection) as well as having a
> hierarchical file structure so one can directly relocate frequently-used
> familiar things.
>
> indexing-wise, words are our keys to meaning, but the range of things in
> the real world is so vast and the range of the largest dictionary so small
> by comparison that ambiguity is inevitable: a rose by any other name would
> indeed smell as sweet, but there are all kinds of stinky things also
> called
> roses out there:
>
> "when i use a word", said Humpty-Dumpty in a scornful tone, "i use it to
> mean what I want it to mean - neither more nor less"
>
> - and that works well for personal hierarchical indexes!
>
> PS constructivism can be applied within a syllabus as well as outside of
> it.  i have no criticism of etoys, logo (aka turtle art) etc - quite the
> opposite! they are among the first tools i would put in a OUI Library for
> my own child to play with.   there are some pretty good apps
> elsewhere<http://www.papert.org/>too.  It's just the sugar interface
> to get to them and the other
> educational content that i think can be improved upon... and i reckon that
> the educational content should include stuff to directly support whatever
> particular syllabus a school is using, so the xo and what you can do with
> it becomes an integral part of the curriculum.
>
> Hosting the document as a wiki rather than a pdf would aid community
> input.
>>
>
> there is a wiki on OUI here:
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Design_Team/Proposals
> the OUI design document is located separately because (a) its easier for
> me
> to edit it with Libre Office than by using the wiki editor and (b) OUI is
> not just about xo; it could work on any platform
>
>
>
> On 13 September 2012 14:01, <forster at ozonline.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Hi David
>>
>> You have written a wide ranging piece which is difficult for me to
>> respond
>> to comprehensively, please permit me to respond to just a few points.
>>
>> 1) Working against school systems
>> Though Sugar/OLPC are unashamedly constructivist/constructionist, I
>> don't
>> think it is accurate to characterise them as "revolution (by working
>> against them [school systems])", although comments like that may have
>> been
>> made at times by some.
>>
>> Constructiv(n)ist learning takes place within schools and continues
>> outside of school. Many teachers and schools recognise its importance.
>> Wanting schools to change their emphasis from instruction to more
>> construction is evolutionary. Supporting the learning that takes place
>> outside of school is not working against schools, its complimentary.
>>
>> 2) How to prevent/stem infection ... manage money
>> This is the kind of stuff that the most constructionist Activities,
>> Etoys,
>> Scratch, TurtleArt, really excell at. Have a look at some of their
>> simulations. I am not sure what you are criticising here in OLPC/Sugar,
>> but
>> if its constructionism, I think the criticism is not well founded
>>
>> 3) Proposed OUI
>> I gather that you are not a supporter of the Home view and the tagged
>> Journal. I have some reservations myself. It is limited in things like
>> multiple file operations and mangling of file name extensions. The
>> inclusion of Gnome in OLPC images is a good thing and neutralises my
>> concerns about Sugar. Kids can migrate to Gnome once they become more
>> sophisticated users, somewhere around the upper primary lower secondary
>> years.
>>
>> I would like to see Sugar Activities able to run in Gnome and vice
>> versa.
>> As far as I know, TurtleArt is the only one that does both. There are
>> excellent Sugar Activities that should not be restricted to just the
>> Sugar
>> desktop.
>>
>> When it comes to desktop metaphors, I don't much care. Kids are much
>> less
>> concerned with metaphors than we are, they will take an operating system
>> as
>> is. My problem with your OUI is that I can't see what problem it is
>> solving. It may be better than the current Sugar desktop but I can't
>> tell.
>> Some screenshot mockups might help. Hosting the document as a wiki
>> rather
>> than a pdf would aid community input.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Tony
>>
>>
>> > i see that olpc is responding to consumer demand and putting android
>> as
>> > well as sugar on new xo3 machines.
>> >
>> > perhaps this will become gladiatorial combat in which one will die, or
>> > perhaps it is an opportunity for conjugation by their respective
>> developers
>> > to give birth to a new generation of interface that possesses the best
>> > features of each  ... it all depends on how the teams respond.
>> >
>> > presumably, the original intent of olpc was to facilitate education;
>> > education in the broadest sense.
>> >
>> > there are two strategies for that: evolution (by working with school
>> > systems) or revolution (by working against them).
>> >
>> > perhaps i am wrong, but it looks to me that sugar has followed the
>> latter
>> > route.  Papert's marvellous insights were seminal - and i seem to
>> recall
>> > that there was talk of a revolution in the classroom - but perhaps
>> that
>> was
>> > just the heady language of the 1960s at work?  the electronic
>> spreadsheet
>> > was another seminal development - and even more far-reaching, for it
>> was
>> > the one that sparked the personal computer revolution in the first
>> place,
>> > and one that has stood the test of time so far.
>> >
>> > economic/social revolution worked in France, but its ideals never made
>> it
>> > into USA political consciousness, except in the mouths of a few
>> sanguine
>> > commentators like Noam Chomsky and less sanguine ones like Michael
>> Moore.
>> >
>> > yet the computer revolution still hasn't made a major impact on
>> education -
>> > a minor one, to be sure, but the promise has yet to be fully realised.
>>  it
>> > is possible that the people who like making software, being computer
>> > enthusiasts, forget that the average Joe child in whatever country has
>> > other, more urgent, more visceral, more real-world needs than making
>> > machines dance?  like knowing how to prevent/stem infection.  like
>> knowing
>> > how to manage money.  etc etc.  computers could help them learn these
>> vital
>> > things, if only that was where the technocrats' motivations lay...
>> >
>> > in the long run, evolution is more persistent than revolution.
>> empires,
>> > having risen, eventually and fall.  but technology marches on and
>> drags
>> > humankind (sometimes kicking and screaming) into new ways of thinking
>> about
>> > things.
>> >
>> > an interface, like a human language, is a means to an end, but
>> > (particularly in a monopoly market) there is always the risk of it
>> becoming
>> > political territory, as with the Academie Francaise for example,
>> fighting
>> > off the linguistic invasion of "l'Anglish".
>> >
>> > but if evolution is truly inevitable, might it not be better to go
>> with
>> it
>> > than stick one's heels in against it?
>> >
>> > aside from the surface interface issues of whether one should point
>> with
>> a
>> > finger or a mouse, or type on a screen or a keyboard (typing isn't
>> going
>> to
>> > go away anytime soon as reliable AI aural comprehension is still a
>> long
>> way
>> > off) - there are deeper issues; issues about the "deep interface" -
>> issues
>> > about how the interface provides access to function.  Google has found
>> a
>> > pretty good way of providing access to data - now users need one for
>> > providing obvious access pathways to function too, to make machines
>> truly
>> > "user-friendly".
>> >
>> > and a means of facilitating collaboration:  if there is one still
>> green
>> > field waiting to be ploughed, it is the field of synchronous real-time
>> > collaborative creative activity extending beyond mere chat.  user
>> > collaboration takes place inside an application, but the screen
>> management
>> > and filesystem support engineering needs to provide the props for that
>> to
>> > occur smoothly, to assure data integrity, etc.  this is one of the
>> stated
>> > design goals of sugar; i don't know whether it is also a design goal
>> of
>> > android.
>> >
>> > below is one suggestion on how desktop and playground metaphors of
>> > android/linux and sugar respectively could coalesce and evolve, so
>> that
>> the
>> > user interface gets out of the user's way and becomes merely a means
>> to
>> the
>> > end of facilitating interaction with the real educational (or other
>> > functional) content instead of (as in the case of sugar) shouting
>> about
>> > itself in the user's face or (as in the case of linux) being awkwardly
>> > troublesome for the non-geek:
>> >
>> > https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/oui.pdf
>> > <div><span
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">i see
>> that olpc is responding to consumer demand and putting android as well
>> as
>> sugar on new xo3 machines.</span><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">
>> >
>> > <br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">perhaps
>> this will become gladiatorial combat in which one will die, or perhaps
>> it
>> is an opportunity for conjugation by their respective developers to give
>> birth to a new generation of interface that possesses the best features
>> of
>> each  ... it all depends on how the teams respond.</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">presumably,
>> the original intent of olpc was to facilitate education; education in
>> the
>> broadest sense.</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">there
>> are
>> two strategies for that: evolution (by working with school systems) or
>> revolution (by working against them).</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">perhaps
>> i
>> am wrong, but it looks to me that sugar has followed the latter route.
>>  Papert's marvellous insights were seminal - and i seem to recall that
>> there was talk of a revolution in the classroom - but perhaps that was
>> just
>> the heady language of the 1960s at work?  the electronic spreadsheet was
>> another seminal development - and even more far-reaching, for it was the
>> one that sparked the personal computer revolution in the first place,
>> and
>> one that has stood the test of time so far.</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">economic/social
>> revolution worked in France, but its ideals never made it into USA
>> political consciousness, except in the mouths of a few sanguine
>> commentators like Noam Chomsky and less sanguine ones like Michael
>> Moore. </div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">yet
>> the
>> computer revolution still hasn't made a major impact on education - a
>> minor
>> one, to be sure, but the promise has yet to be fully realised.  it is
>> possible that the people who like making software, being computer
>> enthusiasts, forget that the average Joe child in whatever country has
>> other, more urgent, more visceral, more real-world needs than making
>> machines dance?  like knowing how to prevent/stem infection.  like
>> knowing
>> how to manage money.  etc etc.  computers could help them learn these
>> vital
>> things, if only that was where the technocrats' motivations lay...</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">in the
>> long run, evolution is more persistent than revolution.  empires, having
>> risen, eventually and fall.  but technology marches on and drags
>> humankind
>> (sometimes kicking and screaming) into new ways of thinking about
>> things.</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">an
>> interface, like a human language, is a means to an end, but
>> (particularly
>> in a monopoly market) there is always the risk of it becoming political
>> territory, as with the Academie Francaise for example, fighting off the
>> linguistic invasion of "l'Anglish".</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">but if
>> evolution is truly inevitable, might it not be better to go with it than
>> stick one's heels in against it?</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">aside
>> from the surface interface issues of whether one should point with a
>> finger
>> or a mouse, or type on a screen or a keyboard (typing isn't going to go
>> away anytime soon as reliable AI aural comprehension is still a long way
>> off) - there are deeper issues; issues about the "deep interface" -
>> issues
>> about how the interface provides access to function.  Google has found a
>> pretty good way of providing access to data - now users need one for
>> providing obvious access pathways to function too, to make machines
>> truly
>> "user-friendly".</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">and a
>> means of facilitating collaboration:  if there is one still green field
>> waiting to be ploughed, it is the field of synchronous real-time
>> collaborative creative activity extending beyond mere chat.  user
>> collaboration takes place inside an application, but the screen
>> management
>> and filesystem support engineering needs to provide the props for that
>> to
>> occur smoothly, to assure data integrity, etc.  this is one of the
>> stated
>> design goals of sugar; i don't know whether it is also a design goal of
>> android.</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px">below
>> is
>> one suggestion on how desktop and playground metaphors of android/linux
>> and
>> sugar respectively could coalesce and evolve, so that the user interface
>> gets out of the user's way and becomes merely a means to the end of
>> facilitating interaction with the real educational (or other functional)
>> content instead of (as in the case of sugar) shouting about itself in
>> the
>> user's face or (as in the case of linux) being awkwardly troublesome for
>> the non-geek:</div>
>> >
>> > <div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><br></div><div
>> style="vertical-align:baseline;margin:0px;border:0px;padding:0px"><a
>> href="
>> https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/oui.pdf"
>> style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(102,17,204)"
>> target="_blank">https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/oui.pdf</a></div>
>> >
>> >
>> > </div>
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> > IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> website <http://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/home>
> +61(0)266537638
> +61(0)488471949
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


-- 
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks