pauric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would have to disagree with the thinking that Sugar fails because
> it does not "communicates how to make things work"
>
> Children learn best by exploring their world.
Please take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, because I've not had
the chance to actually play with an OLPC.
I've two real life incidences to relay about my niece when she was a young'n;
about 17 years ago.
First was when I installed Kid Pix on my Mac, in anticipation of her visit. She
was 3 yrs at the time. Because of age, I assumed she had no experience with
Macs or any other computer. So I had every intention of getting the thing up
and running, launching Kid Pix and showing her how to use it.
She needed absolutely no help from me. She knew how to turn the computer on,
locate the app (it wasn't iconified the desktop), launch it (double click, mind
you) and get busy. Clearly, she'd been introduced to a Mac and that app before,
but given her age, I was floored that she had no trouble.
A few years later, I purchased and installed some kid's math application on a
PC for her. She was 7 or 8 yrs. Once installation was complete and the app
launched, we were presented with a display of cartoon characters positioned
around a colorful room. I saw no menubar, no apparent icons, dialogs, message
area nor any other items I would have taken queue from for next steps.
I was a bit embarrassed not knowing how to continue. As I stepped away from the
computer keyboard to search for the blasted users manual, my niece took
control, studied the screen for a second then immediately started interacting,
successfully, mind you, with the app; an app she'd never seen before.
My big point of all this is I've learned to keep an extra wide open mind about
what will work for kids.
Does Sugar fail to communicate how things work? I suspect that like most
computers, there's loads of room for improvement with Sugar, but it may not
fail to the degree we experts think it fails. The primary target audience is
almost a different species! :D (well they seem that way to me sometimes)
desiree
Desiree McCrorey
UI Architect/Web Producer
www.healthline.com
desiredcreations.com
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