> > > Perhaps. What would you define as the ailment, yourself? The primary > > intent was to encourage use of a direct interaction model, in which > > palettes we're supposed to play a big role. When it turned out that > > young kids, who didn't read, and who didn't have motor skills for > > selecting form the palettes, we aimed to reduce accidental invocation > > of them without entirely eliminating discovery by increasing the > > delay. > > Many kids have motor skills, and the ones that don't initially are > remarkably good (being kids) at developing motor skills that they don't yet > have. Many kids also read. In fact, let's cut into some real deep philosophy > stuff here... >
True. But all kids matter. Including the nonreaders, the ones going to schools that are not taught in their native language, the ones for whom reading is a struggle, the dyslectics. Also I really disagree about the developing motor skills. I think developing motor skills is a developmental thing that goes at different paces. I see kids that can get the concepts of Sugar but who struggle with clicking the blocks together in Turtle Art. I think they are perfectly normal kids who will eventually have perfectly adequate motor skills for normal computing. Providing them with a system that is as easy as possible for them while those motor skills are developing should be one of our missions. > > The idea that the XO laptop is mainly for kids who can't read is completely > bogus. Now, maybe you're thinking of other children when you say this, but I > prefer to first consider the main existing userbase. Laptops which have > Sugar installed on them are primarily located in schools and are used for > education. It is kind of ridiculous to say "Well, you don't actually need to > know how to read to use the laptops, so we should make the interface not > require reading." when the truth is that, for most activities that have any > educational merit, you DO need to read and you need to read things > significantly more complicated than activity names. Most of the people who > use Sugar for most of the time WILL know how to read. > > I disagree on this too. I think there a host of activities that nonreaders could use in Sugar. Paint, Colors, Jingsaw, Flipsticks, Write (writing a great way to learn to read), speak, many GCompris Games, Calculate, books that are read to you, Browse if you share a favorited website. In fact if you share a started activity then you further expand the number of things a nonreader could do.
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