[Sugar-devel] GPA School Visit report for Tuesday July 14

[Dave Bauer]

Analyze activity is on http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities direct
download http://dev.laptop.org/~edsiper/bundles/Analyze-8.xo

Dave

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Greg Smith<gregsmithpm at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'm sending this to the devel instead of the IAEP list as it contains
> a number of technical/UI design comments that I think need developer
> follow up.
>
> Feel free to forward to other lists, blogs etc. as appropriate.
>
> Notes:
>
> I joined the team (Anurag, Caroline, and Bill) as the class of 22 x
> 2nd graders was leaving. This was their third class with Sugar/Turtle
> Art. They do it twice a week.
>
> As I got there I noticed a kid had unplugged their USB before full
> shut down and they were frantically trying to plug it back in while
> errors scrolled on the screen. Still not sure if they lost data (will
> check tomorrow on kid who made the same mistake last week). Is there
> anything we can do to ensure that all data is written/saved ASAP on
> clicking Shut down from the menu?
>
> The team told me that they worked with Turtle Art to load a map of the
> Charles River and to add tags to it showing where the GPA school is
> located. They said that some kids "got it" and some did not. Here's
> the warm/cold post class coments:
> Caroline
> Warm:
> More than half the glass got the idea of negative numbers and the gird
> (aka cartesian coordinates for placing turtle). A few got the idea of
> "putting together a program".
>
> Cold:
> There was a large variance in kids who go it and those who didn't.
> Those who didn't understand got frustrated and they lost participation
> of about 1/3 of the class as a result.
>
> Bill
> Warm: A group of kids zero'd in quickly on the ideas of positive and negative.
>
> Cold: One USB was bad and that kid lost the flow and didn't catch up.
>
> Neutral:
> One girl finished right away and then didn't know what to do. Caroline
> said a few of the kids really looked like they could be programmers.
>
> Anurag
> Warm:
> All kids seem to be retaining what they learned in previous classes.
> Like how to put the turtle in the corner with Set (x,y). Lots of
> improvement from last week as a result like using show text, color,
> size.
>
> Lots of kids understood that 0,0 is in the center and that helped them
> find positions.
>
> Cold:
> Some kids lost focus because they didn;t understanbd the required
> order of operation in Turtle art (more below). Some built things then
> built other unattached programs which therefore didn't work together
> (e.g. show on the map then an un atached show text program somewhere
> else on the palette). Not enough time in the class.
>
> Other comments in debrief:
> The reality of teaching is time constrained. Next class we could just
> do the work for the kids who didn't get the GPA school noted on the
> Charles River map but they may lose a learning chance that way.
> Another option is to slow the class down, let kids who were done do
> something else and give the kids still working on the map more time.
> Kids seemed to think more this time rather than just clicking around a
> lot.
>
> Next class is Thursday. Goal is to put their pictures on the web.
>
> Comments that some kids don't understand the Journal/Keep paradigm
> which was introduced this time. An example:
>
> Sometimes they were in Turtle art and wanted to re-load an image from
> a previous instance. Many kids used the Turtla Art show tile (my
> turtle art is rusty so exact naming may be off). This allows clicking
> on it to open a Journal picker then clicking on it again (executing
> it?) shows an image of the last Turtle Art screen as seend in the
> Journal screen shot.
>
> What they really wanted was to just re-load the map in to the new
> blank Turtle Art screen. The suggestion was to rename the Turtle Art
> activity, then click Keep (I believe this step is not intended by Eben
> et al), then click stop, then open Turtle Art again, load the "Kept"
> instance from the journal.  That's what my notes say but maybe Anurag
> and/or Caroline can clarify.
>
> Another tough work flow was getting the map in Turtle Art, scaling it
> then placing the turtle. The "right" work flow in terms of order
> execution of tiles in Turtle art is:
> - Move turtle to right place on screen
> - Set scale
> - Show map
>
> Many kids did this:
> - Show map
> - Set x,y of turtle
> - scale map
>
> Again, I'm not sure why the kids method is wrong but believe its a
> nuance of Turtle Art. Clarification appreciated.
>
> Two notes about the computer lab class:
> - Its also the library! There weren't a huge number of books and they
> were behind book cases kind of pushed out of the way to make room for
> computers. That made me a little sad as I prefer spend time with hard
> copy books than any other inanimate object and quite a number of
> animate ones too. I saw a Dr Seuss book I have never read (The Cat's
> Quizzer) and to be honest I would rather my kids read Dr. Seuss than
> spend time on the computer any day! :-) Fortunately they can do both.
>
> - The wall had these instructions (algorithm?), each on a separate
> sheet of paper:
> #1 Sit quietly on the rug
> #2 Listen and follow the teachers directions
> #3 Only use the program assigned for today
> #4 Check your own work then have a teacher check it
> #5 Always save your work to your own disk
> #6 Close all programs before ejecting the disk
> #7 Don't be afraid to ask questions
> #8 Treat the computers gently and with care.
> #9 Please do not eat or drink near the computers
> #10 Please do not power down the computers unless asked to do so.
>
> The assistant principal came by and chatted with Caroline about which
> teachers to work with in the fall and the plan overall. She mentioned
> that 200+ of the 340 kids come from Spanish speaking homes. Parent
> communicatio n is a challenge as some parents are not literate in
> Spanish or English. There is a parent/famliy coordinator who holds
> open houses meetings with all parents regularly. 1:45 minutes a week
> is slotted for professional development of teachers. Some is booked
> but some could be reserved for computer learning. I asked about
> curriculum.
>
> She gave me this (no time to find links so any URLs/research appreciated).
> - Fundations for Phonics K-3
> - Making Meaning and Being a Writer for 1 - 5 fluency
> - Investigations for K-5 math
> - Foss program for science
>
> She mentioned that these are for "curriculum" not "standards".
>
> We also met briefly with the 3rd grade teacher to go over the near
> term curriculum. They are doing Parts of the earth, hemispheres,
> continents, countries, states for social studies. The next stage is to
> find "where is our community"..
>
> In Math they are on Investigations Unit 8 discussion #1, Activity #2
> and also Unit 5. (I will try to buy this book ASAP or get it from the
> library). Doing "skip counting" (AKA marking every 2,3,5 etc. number
> on a grid of all numbers 1 - 100_ Next is learning "places", hundreds,
> tenths, ones. They are adding three digit numbers and using various
> methods.
>
> A question for teachers: One kids I sat with last week had trouble
> spelling equator. His "q"s were usually typed as "p"s. I realized that
> they are the same shape with the loop on different sides. Is there a
> rhyme or mnemonic device to remember which side the loop goes on? Like
> "righty tighty, left loosey" to remember which way to turn a screw
> driver? Maybe "p points to progress" showing p's loop is on right hand
> side? I'd love to pass along a trick to help this kid if possible...
>
> I also spent 1/2 hour debugging collaboration. Dave and Gary helped on
> IRC. They pointed me a tool called Analyze (can someone put that on
> the main activities page ASAP? I didn't write down the URL and will
> need to fetch it again tomorrow).
>
> Some computers could collaborate via jabber.sugarlabs.org. Others
> couldn't. All could ping, traceroute and dig to jabber.sugarlabs,org.
> All go through the same gateway IP in the school, not sure if there is
> NAT. Two computers that failed to collaborate with anyone on
> Jabber.sugarlabs.org were able to see each other (and a computer named
> Ben) on schoolserver.media.mit.edu. We tested that by changing it in
> the Network control panel and rebooting.
>
> We couldn't get any gabble etc logs despite editing debug file to
> uncomment all relevant lines and ensuring right if statement is in
> .Xclients file. Analyze seemed to have some good stuff in it (e.g.
> jabber id). but I wasn't able to "collaborate" with the jabber servers
> when using it so no final word. Dave will see if he can come up with
> some useful tests for the future.
>
> Good news as that they consistently fell back to "local"
> collaboration. I think Caroline identified some hard coded ID/name on
> each USB stick (not sure of exact reference). When removed they seemed
> to use local collaboration well. Plan for tomorrow is to try that...
>
> I may have time to open analyze, terminal and IRC around 12:30 ET
> tomorrow. If anyone can come up with a useful test for execution
> client side look for me on Freenode Sugar IRC channel.
>
> Got to run to meet my son coming back from camp, new report planned
> after tomorrow's session.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg S
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-- 
Dave Bauer
dave at solutiongrove.com
http://www.solutiongrove.com