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

[Sean DALY]

And, we would want to avoid implying in any way that the teachers
would have their performance or professionalism judged based on the
answers. There could be understandable concerns there which
temporarily visiting students wouldn't have. Offset, however, by the
long experience and intimate knowledge of the students' habits.



On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 3:17 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org> wrote:
>
> 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
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>>
>>>
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