[Sugar-devel] [Marketing] [IAEP] ASLO Suggestion

[Sean DALY]

A useful distinction.

And, many teachers organize tasks for their students in pairs, too.

Sean


On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Walter Bender<walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe "Getting Started" might be a better name?
>
> Just to complicate things, Nubae and I were discussing collaboration
> on IRC. It is another theme people may be interested in searching.
> Activities that a whole class can share, e.g., Browse, and activities
> that are designed as "duets".
>
> -walter
>
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Sean DALY<sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bert - many thanks, I understand much better now.
>>
>> We're expecting a traffic peaks at the end of the month with our media
>> push, that's why this work on clarity/simplicity is important.
>>
>> I'm afraid "Fructose" as a left-hand category on ASLO is obscure, it
>> really should be "base" or "core" or "base install", this last I like
>> best because it's very clear. Note: a search for "Fructose" in ASLO
>> returns no results!
>>
>> I actually don't think it's that hard to set a list; it's really just
>> a Get Started list which covers online/offline, younger/older
>> Learners, and super-helpful to have even if off-ring (Terminal...).
>>
>> I agree some deployments will want to zap some Activities, but as long
>> as it's clear that there's no technical barrier to doing so we're
>> fine.
>>
>> The list of 13 Fructose Activities at
>> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/fructose/
>> does not match the list of 11 Fructose Activities on ASLO
>> (http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/browse/type:1/cat:112?sort=name).
>> I imagine Image is off the bus (replaced by Image Viewer), but is the
>> omission of Write intentional? I couldn't find it on ASLO at all :-(
>>
>> (N.B. Write is always the first Activity I choose to demonstrate
>> classroom collaboration; people understand collaboration instantly
>> when each of two machines can edit the same document live. My kids'
>> nanny who is in her early 60s and does not use computers understood
>> right away the usefulness of XOs in a classroom when she saw that, she
>> got all excited and started asking me questions!)
>>
>> So I think the ASLO Fructose list, plus Write, can certainly be
>> qualified as 12 "base install" Activities:
>>
>> Browse
>> Calculate
>> Chat
>> Etoys
>> ImageViewer
>> Jukebox
>> Log
>> Pippy
>> Read
>> Terminal
>> TurtleArt
>> Write
>>
>> However I think it would be judicious to add Help to this list. Help
>> is very reassuring during discovery of the totally unfamiliar
>> interface. I'm aware there are issues right now building a new Help
>> from the FLOSS Manuals source, but I believe Help aids teachers and
>> parents significantly with the Sugar GUI learning curve.
>>
>> Are there any other candidates today for the Fructose list we should
>> consider? Not to open a can of worms - adjusting the pantheon is much
>> less urgent than the discoverability/usability issues - but a review
>> before each SoaS version seems judicious to me, especially since a
>> choice needs to be made about which Activities are in the ring and
>> which are off. I would suggest:
>>
>> Clock
>> Help
>> Maze
>> Memorize
>> Moon
>> Read ETexts
>> Speak
>> Tux Paint
>>
>> I hesitated over:
>> * Record which kids adore, but which I understand is iffy due to wide
>> hardware variations, also teachers don't seem to like it much :-)
>> * the TamTams which would make the list longish... (though my
>> four-year-old figured out TamTam Mini in ten seconds the other day and
>> loved every second with it)
>> * GCompris Chess, since no 2-player yet.
>>
>>
>> Our introduction to Sugar has a page with an attractive smorgasbord of
>> Activities (http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=page&page=about_activities),
>> and a link to ASLO. We listed the Activities in teacher/parent
>> interest order: reassuring basics, net stuff,
>> games/language/multimedia, the TamTams, tech/system utilities. Image
>> Viewer and Jukebox are missing from this page, I propose to add them
>> and two others to the matrix so the complete Fructose set (minus
>> Image) is present. The Journal starts the list due to its special
>> status, but it really should be broken out as a "special" Activity
>> that is always there, saves everything automatically, allows resuming
>> of work, etc. ASLO should have a brief mention of the Journal in the
>> orientation intro I want to edit; telling inexperienced Sugar
>> admins/teachers/parents/Learners that it is always in Sugar and can't
>> be installed or uninstalled. This "super-Activity" distinction is
>> important because the Journal icon occupies the same spot under the
>> central XO avatar as the current Activity. Note that each icon links
>> to the OLPC page (the intro site was published on a tight deadline
>> just before the March 16th press release :-), I think we can update it
>> to link to the ASLO pages now.
>>
>> Note: we have been doing some "star marketing" of Activities in our
>> PR: Write, InfoSlicer, Mindmap, Portfolio. We chose these to appeal to
>> teachers; they are differentiators. Some press articles have mentioned
>> the star Activities, recognizing that they are interesting and unique
>> to Sugar. Library for example is an Activity I'm not quite sure does
>> what, but its name and logo will be irresistible to parents and
>> teachers.
>>
>> OLPC has their list (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities/All) and we
>> need to get that page to link to ASLO, the information there is uneven
>> (contains some stillborn/abandonware). Perhaps the easiest fix would
>> be to link from each Activity position on that page to that Activity's
>> ASLO page; people searching the Activity population would quickly
>> understand the different/parallel nature of the OLPC page and ASLO. As
>> far as I know, there aren't any issues with the very latest versions
>> running on XO-1s, would I be correct in assuming this? Or does OLPC
>> prefer to identify "known good" version, the ones updated through the
>> XO Control Panel?
>>
>> Google search ranks highly this 6-month-old page:
>> http://www.spitting-image.com/OLPC/ , an indicator of the need for
>> ASLO's rating system.
>>
>> By "Activity Pack" I mean a set of Activities.
>> * Activity Set: clear and concise, but dullish.
>> * Activity Pack: implies a "box" containing a bunch of chosen
>> Activities; my favorite, because it sounds like you're getting
>> something.
>> * Activity Group: will be confused with Learners.
>> * Activity Bundle: bundle clearly means something already, so that's
>> out. I'm afraid I don't know what a "content bundle" is.
>> * Activity Hive: fits with honey metaphor, but obscure.
>>
>> Activity packs can have a very useful role in promoting Sugar, e.g.
>> "our updated Multimedia Pack is perfect for budding musicians and
>> artists" or "our Games Pack has been specially selected for 2 or more
>> player learning fun". As our Activity offer becomes richer, we
>> encourage potential installers to jump through the hoops of
>> downloading an ISO, installing VirtualBox or loading a USB stick,
>> learning the new interface, etc.
>>
>> Echoing James' mail which started the thread, I agree Featured
>> Activities will ideally be:
>>
>> * non- base install
>> * interesting
>> * different each month, encouraging return traffic
>>
>> In short, the place to go for "extras" beyond what you start out with.
>>
>> The "base install" grouping will be very useful to replace an
>> accidentally deleted Activity or offer further information about an
>> Activity with a learning curve (link to author's page etc).
>>
>> A parent or teacher who successfully installs Sugar and then
>> successfully upgrades and adds to its Activities will fully understand
>> the key advantages of the platform's openness and extensibility.
>>
>> Does this seem like a good path?
>>
>> thanks
>>
>> Sean
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Bert Freudenberg<bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 11.06.2009, at 09:51, Sean DALY wrote:
>>>
>>>> ultimately, the question is: are there (or not) Activities common to
>>>> every, or nearly every instance of Sugar?
>>>>
>>>> Browse
>>>> Read
>>>> Write
>>>> etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> At least the Fructose activities should always be there:
>>>
>>> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/fructose/
>>>
>>> - Bert -
>>>
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>>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>