On Mar 19, 2009, at 7:46 AM, Sean DALY wrote: > Actually I agree with Mel, we could obtain extremely useful first-hand > accounts which don't involve asking anyone what they like or not, but > simply watching what they do. > > To discover how Sugar is not serving its users, we need lots of raw > field data. And to make good use of it, we need that data to be > structured. This is the bread and butter of consumer market surveys... > just needs to be adjusted due to the young age and cultural > differences of the users.
May I suggest the [email protected] ? There are thousands of teachers in South America already using Sugar. Many more than OLPCCorps will provide... > Most kids I know get wise as every year passes and will try to answer > what is expected... so the trick is to talk about stuff that interests > them, and learn while they chat about it. Linguists are constantly > faced with a similar problem: if you tell anyone they are to be > interviewed by a linguist, s/he will put on the most educated accent > they can muster; if you ask in a friendly way what their favorite > football team is, or what kind of music they like, or about an > important event in their life, you are guaranteed to get authentic > linguistic results. > > A visiting OLPCorps student could tell us: > * How do kids (& teachers) start their day with the XO - bright and > early, or at a set time every day? > * What Activities do they start with? > * Which Activities do they spend time on in class? in free time? What > do they seem to like the most / the least? > * When and where are the XOs charging (=Sugar downtime)? > * Are the XOs always / sometimes / never, open and in use outside > of class time? > * Is anyone left out (i.e. without an XO due to breakage)? > * Are kids helping each other when they get stuck on something? > * Are the XOs used in the evening? > > > Questions to kids can reveal very interesting information, without > asking for detailed criticism: > * "Show me some photos you took or drawings you made" -> how do they > search and retrieve them? > * "When did you take that photo?" -> Are they concerned about having > enough space for photos, do they delete old ones if they run low? Do > they get the age from the Journal, or just remembering? > * "Do you have brothers and sisters? Do you let them look at your > computer?" -> Kids will never hesitate to talk about siblings and the > answer will reveal: Do the parents look at the computer too? > > > We can spend a minimum of time and yet harvest incredible information > by making reporting easy: > * standardize a little list like this > * ask OLPCorps volunteers to look at the list and print it out before > departure, perhaps taking notes on the printed page during the short > stay, but never in front of the kids > * ask them to submit the little report upon return (or just before) > through a friendly webform. Thank them! > > > I am sure OLPC will already be doing something similar. Although the > help these sickly students might bring to the sites might be minimal, > the help they can bring to the OLPC and Sugar projects as "eyes and > ears" using homogenized reporting, leading to usable consolidated > results, is a golden opportunity I think to better know how Sugar is > being used across cultures. > > thanks > > Sean > Marketing Coordinator > > > > On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Bryan Berry <[email protected]> > wrote: >> I highly doubt that OLPCorps personnel will be useful to Sugarlabs. >> Trying to work w/ them will just be a time sink. >> >> 1. Few of these folks will know anything about Sugar or really care, >> otherwise they would already be active on the mailing lists. >> >> 2. They are going from microbe-free Europe/North America to central >> Africa. I conservatively estimate that all of them will spend 1/3 >> to 1/2 >> of their stay in Central Africa sick w/ malaria or intestinal >> problems. >> I don't mean to judge Africa harshly here, if they came to rural >> Nepal >> they would spend at least 1 month sick. >> >> 3. I doubt very few of these people will be able to communicate >> effectively w/ the locals. This is not a language issue but a >> cultural >> one. If I go to a rural school and ask the locals how they like >> Sugar, >> they always respond "Yes, yes, it is fantastic. No complaints" If my >> colleague Rabi karmacharya goes, they give him a long list of >> complaints. Locals know not to complain to foreigners, because >> telling >> foreigners what they might not want to hear usually leads >> foreigners to >> stop giving money. >> >> >> >> On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:57 +0100, Tomeu Vizoso wrote: >>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 06:32, Mel Chua <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> I thought you folks might be interested in the conversation/ >>>> questions I >>>> had with Paul Commons about the OLPCorps internship program >>>> tonight. >>>> Paul's going to be moving discussions to the grassroots mailing >>>> list, so >>>> please reply to Paul on that list if you're interested in the >>>> program >>>> itself or the workings of it. >>>> >>>> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/grassroots/2009-March/001151.html >>>> >>>> What I /do/ want to discusson this list: given that all these >>>> pilots and >>>> all these student internship teams are going to be using Sugar, >>>> it seems >>>> like this is an awesome opportunity to... >>>> >>>> 1) get some Sugar feedback love from teachers through the >>>> OLPCorps teams >>>> >>>> 2) seed Sugar-savvy groups of university students (who can do >>>> things >>>> like deploy SoaS back home right away - there's nothing like a >>>> local >>>> deployment to work with to keep you engaged) >>>> >>>> 3) get some great Sugar use stories so we can hear about what >>>> our stuff >>>> actually /does/ for kids. >>>> >>>> What do you folks think? How can we make this happen? >>> >>> I don't know that, but how we can help these groups of people to use >>> Sugar more successfully? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Tomeu >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Marketing mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing >> -- >> Bryan W. Berry >> Technology Director >> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Marketing mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing >> > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
