Thanks John Do you think a third of the teachers would be willing to fill out a webform like that?
Sean On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 1:01 PM, John Watlington <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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
