On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Carlos Rabassa <car...@mac.com> wrote: > Walter, > > thanks for taking a whole point of your report to discuss a subject I > brought up. > > Unfortunately my point or its further clarification were not clear enough. > You are still not getting it right. > > The only reason I offered a link to the game "Circle-the-Cat" was to offer > an example of an easy to use application. > > What I meant by that is that you are already using it after a single clic on > the link I sent. > > No downloading or installation is required. It works with any computer > connected to internet (or to a school server??), using any operating > system. >
Carlos, In some of my projects, we don't have the luxury of a school server. How would this work in a "XO only" environment? > Let me offer another example, an application I constantly use: > > Real time translation > http://tradukka.com/ > > ¿Want to test it quickly? > > I just translated the portion of your message that was written in French. > This is the result, without any retouching: > > "I have made it longer because I did not have time to make it shorter." > > > By the way, if you tried to impress and/or intimidate me with your French, > let me tell you that in the public high school I attended in Montevideo, > we had French courses during 4 years. > > At the end of that period we all were able to read without any problem and > to visit France or Quebec for business or pleasure without any communication > problem. > > What you actually gave me with the French quote is another good example of > how to alienate uruguayan teachers. > > Here in Uruguay we speak Spanish and that is the language teachers teach us > in school. Not quite sure if they still teach French in public schools. > > Also, looking now at the meaning of the quote, I have to admit you > perfectly describe the situation of Sugar. > > My question is now: > > ¿Do the children have the time to wait until Sugar is easily usable by > everyone, not geeks only? > We have children in India who use Sugar quite nicely without any prior computer experience (http://bhagmalpur.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/so-whats-working/). In fact, I would add that my personal usability with Sugar and GNOME is better than my usability with MacOSX, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and KDE. I don't buy your assertion. cheers, Sameer -- Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Professor, Information Systems San Francisco State University http://verma.sfsu.edu/ http://olpcsf.org/ > I believe I already told you very clearly why I refuse to discuss the value > of "Circle-the-Cat" as an educational application: > > I am a firm believer no one, including myself, should discuss matters that > are not within our field of expertise. > > By the way, this is a very good use of the signature blocks someone > suggested long ago to be used in the mail lists. WIth the torrent of > information we receive every day, it is important to evaluate the authors. > Someone reading my signature block will see I am not saying I am a teacher > or educator and will probably not invite me to engage in a discussion about > the educational value of an application. > > I understand there are many teachers in Uruguay coaching children to do > searches with Navigate and evaluate the results to decide which ones they > may use for their homework and which ones they better discard. I strongly > suggest we use these signature blocks to give a good example to the young > users of the lists and keep reminding them they have to use their judgement > to decide what to believe from all they can read. > > Carlos Rabassa > Volunteer > Plan Ceibal Support Network > Montevideo, Uruguay > > > > On Dec 1, 2011, at 1:40 PM, Walter Bender wrote: > > 4. Carlos Rabassa posted a link to a fun game, Circle the Cat [5] in > the context of a question he posed to the list: "Why couldn´t all > educational applications be as simple to use as this one?" My glib > response was to quote the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal: > > "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le > loisir de la faire plus courte." > > In other words, reaching to simplicity takes time and effort. Alan Kay > chimed in about Hypercard, reminding us that it took years of > refinement for it to reach its polished state. It is an open debate as > to if and when Sugar will ever reach that level of polish and the path > towards achieving it. > > But while Carlos did not want to discuss the value Circle the Cat as > an educational program, to not do so seems to skirt the central > question of Sugar: it is an education project after all!! I am > interested in how we can use a simple game or activity to drive the > children to deeper principles. So I wrote a Sugar Activity inspired by > Circle the Cat, but with a twist: The user is invited to experiment > with the algorithm (Please seeTurtle in a Pond [6])--of course I had > to use a turtle instead of a cat. The game itself is fun to play and > arguably of some educational benefit. But there is perhaps more to > learn from algorithm development. For better or for worse, the user > needs to load their algorithms written in Python from their Sugar > Journal. This probably precludes the younger children from > experimenting, but it presents an open-ended invitation to those > willing to take the challenge. > > > > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep