Re: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions
Thanks for all the good input. I wasn't expecting this much response! Sorry for the delay in response, other duties have kept me away from coEL. A couple of clarifications: First, perhaps I was a tad harsh when I said that Sugar was in no way optimized for the high school learner. I apologize if I sounded a little tough -- in fact, you've got a excellent start, it just needs a little work. But that'll come with time. I'm working on prototyping some sketches of what an ideal multitouch-enabled, high school version of Sugar would look like and will post more when I get a little further along. I do realize that there are a few OLPC deployments in the US, but my dream will only work if there are *many *deployments. See, I've thought about this, and part of the whole idea behind coEL is anywhere, anytime learning. I'd personally love to take a class (livestreamed) from another whole district. But in order for that to work, both districts would have to have coEL deployments. Also, I will look into the HIG and eBooks in detail later... thanks for the links! Is there anything else I should/can be doing to help? Thanks again, --Brett Neese ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions
Brett, You might want to check out a couple of FLOSS Manuals I put together. The first one is finished, and is about developing Sugar Activities. The second is in progress and is about finding, using, creating and publishing e-books. http://en.flossmanuals.net/ActivitiesGuideSugar/Introduction http://en.flossmanuals.net/ReadingandSugar/Introduction Personally I think that Sugar is suited to high school students, and could be made more so with a bit of work on the Journal. My Activity Sugar Commander shows some ideas of what a more grown-up version of the Journal might be like. The new XOs will ship with both Sugar and GNOME, a desktop environment like Windows but without the viruses. This should make them quite appealing to older students. If you learn how to make e-books as described in the second book you can use them on several different platforms, including those cheap Android tablets that are coming out. There are lots of free e-books, many of which would be of interest to high school students. Let me know what you think. James Simmons Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 18:50:18 -0500 From: Brett Neese brne...@brneese.com Subject: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions To: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org, olpc-o...@lists.laptop.org, grassro...@lists.laptop.org Message-ID: aanlktinh5x_9bxmp6ogn=ylmfo-kd_vvx3j=gcwkk...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Hi there, I'm looking for some advice. My name is Brett Neese, and I'm currently a high school student at a school in Iowa, USA (although I'm planning on graduating early in December 2010). I have been working on a little project (in its current incarnation, it's more of an idea, really) I'm dubbing Project coEL. See, the OLPC project is great -- I think what you are doing in developing countries is terrific; I commend your efforts to bring computing to the poorest children in the world -- but in my opinion there are a few flaws; namely the fact that most developed countries, such as the US, don't currently have a large-scale XO deployment. While I understand that the need for these laptops in developing countries is MUCH greater than it is in the US (and I'm not trying to sound like greedy, rich, American or anything, either) , I also know from being a high-school student myself (albeit one with some learning difficulties) that the US needs some of this type of technology as well, especially for others who, like me, sometimes have trouble learning. My other issue is the fact that currently the Sugar user experience is in no way optimized for the high school learner. I think, from my experience, that if deployed in the US, the high school/secondary school student could benefit the most from this sort of technology and it could trickle down to the elementary level but, at present, the UX is not optimized for the way teachers teach and students learn in today's world. So those are my problems with OLPC. However, I don't think these issues are such in that we can't work together, either now or in the future. My overall vision for coEL is to bring a specially-designed hardware and software ecosystem to every high school in the US. You can read more about the overall vision in coEL's blog -- it's at http://projectcoel.tumblr.com/ http://projectcoel.tumblr.com/%20-- but in short it's a specially designed open-source laptop in the hand of every highschooler, along with the appropriate backend server and other hardware, a highly open and extensible API/SDK -- many of the same technological goals as the XO laptop -- which I why I'm asking for your help. You have great hardware, I'd love to build off of it, but in my opinion, your software is lacking, though with the XO-3 concepts floating around, and your recent partnership with Marvell, its only going to get better. I'll be honest, I don't program. I don't know anything about hardware RD, nor know anything about education at an administrative level. I?m just a 17-year-old high school student who, quite frankly, hates school and wants to make a difference in the world. I do, however, know a little bit about design; I interned at a mobile UX agency last year. But, in general, what I'm asking you, OLPC staff and volunteers, is this -- what can we do, together, to help make this vision become reality? More specifically, I want to start a grassroots effort, but I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Should I apply to the contributors program? Start a regional group? How? Participate in the IRC chatrooms? Edit the wiki? Any other suggestions/advice? In closing, I just wanted to thank you for reading this email. I realize its a little lengthy, and greatly appreciate your time. Please forgive me if I'm speaking out-of-turn here, and excuse me if I sent this to the wrong lists -- please forward this message on to the relevant lists if that is the case. Again, thanks so much, Brett Neese
Re: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions
On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 10:46 PM, Tim McNamara
paperl...@timmcnamara.co.nzwrote:
{...}
I'm really interested in what you think a Sugar for high school aged youth
would look like.
One thing that OLPC spent a lot of time on was the Human Interface
Guidelines. Some things have slipped, Sugar is moving away from integer
activity numbers only using verbs to describe activities, but on the whole
it's a very good read.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines
Please reference http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Human_Interface_Guidelines; this
is the canonical copy, and includes a few updates.
Jim's suggestions on reviewing his Floss manuals,
http://en.flossmanuals.net/ActivitiesGuideSugar/Introduction
http://en.flossmanuals.net/ReadingandSugar/Introduction
are also good places to start.
--Fred
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Looking for suggestions
Hi there, I'm looking for some advice. My name is Brett Neese, and I'm currently a high school student at a school in Iowa, USA (although I'm planning on graduating early in December 2010). I have been working on a little project (in its current incarnation, it's more of an idea, really) I'm dubbing Project coEL. See, the OLPC project is great -- I think what you are doing in developing countries is terrific; I commend your efforts to bring computing to the poorest children in the world -- but in my opinion there are a few flaws; namely the fact that most developed countries, such as the US, don't currently have a large-scale XO deployment. While I understand that the need for these laptops in developing countries is MUCH greater than it is in the US (and I'm not trying to sound like greedy, rich, American or anything, either) , I also know from being a high-school student myself (albeit one with some learning difficulties) that the US needs some of this type of technology as well, especially for others who, like me, sometimes have trouble learning. My other issue is the fact that currently the Sugar user experience is in no way optimized for the high school learner. I think, from my experience, that if deployed in the US, the high school/secondary school student could benefit the most from this sort of technology and it could trickle down to the elementary level but, at present, the UX is not optimized for the way teachers teach and students learn in today's world. So those are my problems with OLPC. However, I don't think these issues are such in that we can't work together, either now or in the future. My overall vision for coEL is to bring a specially-designed hardware and software ecosystem to every high school in the US. You can read more about the overall vision in coEL's blog -- it's at http://projectcoel.tumblr.com/ http://projectcoel.tumblr.com/%20-- but in short it's a specially designed open-source laptop in the hand of every highschooler, along with the appropriate backend server and other hardware, a highly open and extensible API/SDK -- many of the same technological goals as the XO laptop -- which I why I'm asking for your help. You have great hardware, I'd love to build off of it, but in my opinion, your software is lacking, though with the XO-3 concepts floating around, and your recent partnership with Marvell, its only going to get better. I'll be honest, I don't program. I don't know anything about hardware RD, nor know anything about education at an administrative level. I’m just a 17-year-old high school student who, quite frankly, hates school and wants to make a difference in the world. I do, however, know a little bit about design; I interned at a mobile UX agency last year. But, in general, what I'm asking you, OLPC staff and volunteers, is this -- what can we do, together, to help make this vision become reality? More specifically, I want to start a grassroots effort, but I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Should I apply to the contributors program? Start a regional group? How? Participate in the IRC chatrooms? Edit the wiki? Any other suggestions/advice? In closing, I just wanted to thank you for reading this email. I realize its a little lengthy, and greatly appreciate your time. Please forgive me if I'm speaking out-of-turn here, and excuse me if I sent this to the wrong lists -- please forward this message on to the relevant lists if that is the case. Again, thanks so much, Brett Neese brne...@brneese.com twitter.com/brneese facebook.com/brneese linkedin.com/in/brneese 27577 Frederick Drive Le Claire, IA 52753-9422 USA +1-563-210-3459 ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions
Hi Brett, I had a quick look at your Project coEL site and your vision is certainly ambitious. And I mean that as a compliment, don't give too much attention to naysayers. I'm not sure what (if any) advice I could give you, except perhaps just become involved in OLPC, IAEP, or your own coEL projects in any way you find enjoyable. When I was a teenager I really enjoyed school and studying (still do), but if you don't, perhaps you could test drive some of the high school activities in Sugar on a Stick (SoaS) and write about the things you like or don't like there. Hope this helps, Kevin Kirton More specifically, I want to start a grassroots effort, but I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Should I apply to the contributors program? Start a regional group? How? Participate in the IRC chatrooms? Edit the wiki? Any other suggestions/advice? ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Looking for suggestions
Hi Brett, I don't have much to add to Kevin's comments besides the fact that your vision is indeed ambitious. I'm not sure whether there are any other OLPC / Sugar aficionados in your area but if so then I'd try to organize some sort of meetup with them. Else finding other groups or organizations who work in the space you're interested might be a worthwhile thing to do. Given that you seem to have some UX experience it might also be a good idea to sit down and sketch some of the ideas you have in terms of the UI. That would (a) be good material for your blog and (b) would give people a better idea of what you have in mind when saying the Sugar user experience is in no way optimized for the high school learner. Cheers for now and good luck! :-) Christoph Am 01.08.2010 23:14, schrieb Kevin Kirton: Hi Brett, I had a quick look at your Project coEL site and your vision is certainly ambitious. And I mean that as a compliment, don't give too much attention to naysayers. I'm not sure what (if any) advice I could give you, except perhaps just become involved in OLPC, IAEP, or your own coEL projects in any way you find enjoyable. When I was a teenager I really enjoyed school and studying (still do), but if you don't, perhaps you could test drive some of the high school activities in Sugar on a Stick (SoaS) and write about the things you like or don't like there. Hope this helps, Kevin Kirton More specifically, I want to start a grassroots effort, but I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Should I apply to the contributors program? Start a regional group? How? Participate in the IRC chatrooms? Edit the wiki? Any other suggestions/advice? ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Christoph Derndorfer co-editor, www.olpcnews.com e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
