[Sugar-devel] GPA Class Notes July 22 - GS

[Greg Smith]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the comments and follow up!

BTW I have not been able to keep up with all the buddy/tagging/toolbar
design discussions. You guys are just too productive :-) When
designing, if you have a specific question re: GPA or something you
want feedback on from kids, copy me or call out my name and I'll try
to follow up on it. I'll try out the "star" icon in the journal and
comment on that after tomorrow.

Addressing two points below from two of your responses:
1 - Name in Journal of file saved from browse
I may have mixed two issues. This one is not tagging. The work flow
for this is as described in lesson #2 here:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Gardner_Pilot_Academy#Social_Studies_and_History

After saving a file from wikipedia then opening Memorize and clicking
to load an image from the journal, the files are hard to find in the
journal, especially if you saved a couple of them. The journal shows
something like: http:/nnn.nn.nn [image size] [more text]. Its just
hard to see which one is Texas and which California.Maybe it an issue
with interpreting the URL wikipedia uses. It would be better if we
could name the journal entry with say the alternate tex (e.g. Map of
the United States with Massachusetts highlighted) but that may not be
good in all cases. I'll get the exact syntax of what the Journal shows
and try to figure out why its hard to interpret tomorrow. A thumb nail
of any images would be very helpful too.

2 - Quiz activity
That sounds great, thanks for working on it. You could consider a
feature to show a new page/image on clicking the right thing. A hyper
text-like linking may go a long way if its not too hard to build. I'm
thinking of the Zoom In game the girl in GPA came up with. It shows
the world then when you click on the right continent it zooms to that
and you have to find the country etc. If the kids can define what
image  with  multiple parts they see after each successful click you
are well on the way to making web sites and other hypertext concepts.
Just a suggestion, time permitting.

Thanks,

Greg S

1 - Name in Journal of file saved from browse
> We should use the URL name (not sure of the right technical term but
> I mean the
> short name you see in browsers, e.g. www.google.com appears as Google.
> That or anything that is more intelligible than what you see by
> default. Will file a bug when I have a chance unless someone beats me
> to it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "file a bug" for this? Tagging works,
and has worked in Journal/datastore ever since I first used it. It's
just that the tagging UI in not very well exposed currently (enter tag
words in the Journal details view or the naming dialogue, search for
tags with the Journal search field or the Activity ObjectChoser).

********************
2 - Quiz activity
I have a plan (as yet unfulfilled) for a picture quiz Activity.
Initially as a selection of pre-sets (much like Memorize). But,
basically a customisable image background + customisable drag and drop
to 'sockets' set of text labels (think fridge magnets). Idea is part
of the "awards" concept as it fits quite well. Hopefully have a demo
on 0.86 time scale. It should scale quite well, and fit right in to
constructionist ideas (kid can draw, create, import, or photographs an
image into the Activity, label it, shares it as a quiz for others). It
could be all text if that's the goal, (i.e. picture of Romanian words
vs. English labels). I think I'd have the quiz only show a % of the
questions to keep the game fresh on re-play.

Regards,
--Gary