[sugar] proposed addition to the Activities page templete

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 12:17 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why don't we add a new field in the Activities page template that
> indicates both whether or not an activity supports some form of
> collaboration and, if so, what is the supported number of
> collaborators. (The latter may, of course, be somewhat fuzzy depending
> upon the nature of the connection: via school server or "under a
> tree").

+1

> We could have a simple set of options (the numbers perhaps need tuning):
>
> A) no collaboration
> B) pair-wise collaboration
> C) small (3-4) group collaboration
> D) classroom (10-20) collaboration

And other possibilities. For N-player games, we have discussed having
two collaboration channels, one for in-game communications among
players, and one for comments by kibitzers. I don't know of any team
games in Sugar, where we might want to add a channel for each team.

> We could break down collaboration a bit further:
>
> sharing

I would like to see all Activities sharable in the sense that others
can at least watch what the primary user is doing. This would be
useful for any activity accessing content on the Web, where one XO can
download it and share it with others, instead of a whole class (for
example) downloading a Web page simultaneously when instructed by the
teacher. (Local caching on the school server will also help.)

We might want to go further, and allow a discussion channel for every
shared activity. Switching between a visual session and Chat will get
old real fast, unless we provide a way to (in effect) Tivo shared
sessions.

We have had a discussion about sharing Measure channels to simulate a
multi-channel digital oscilloscope. (I checked them out at Fry's a few
days ago. Nice.)

> interacting
> ???
>
> and we may want to comment on, for example, how many Type A
> collaborations can be supported at once.
>
> An example of:
>  A is Turtle Art
>  B is Distance
>  C is Write

There was a report of a test showing a fairly large number of
simultaneous users, so I think this may become a D.

>  D is Chat
>
> We'd need to do some serious QA to figure this out, but I think it
> would go a long ways towards giving people a sense of what they can
> expect in terms of a robust use of Sugar.

I think we should have a brainstorming session on the complete list of
activities, present and in development, to work out what we would like
to see. Would people prefer to do that by e-mail, chat, or Wiki page?

> -walter
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay