On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 4:29 AM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, 2008-10-05 at 02:25 -0400, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> Bryan Berry wrote: >> | There is something I would like to add. Folks from rich countries (like >> | myself) underestimate the importance of narratives b/c we are surrounded >> | by libraries, online tutorials in our native language, extensive >> | versions of wikipedia in our language, etc. There's a real drought of >> | narratives for poor countries. >> >> I don't know what you mean by narrative. If I were to pick a word to >> describe libraries, online tutorials, wikipedia, and other similar >> resources, I would choose "information". I go to wikipedia to learn >> facts, not stories. > > I basically mean "structured information" put into a structure by a > human(s) intended to best build up concepts. > >> I agree that providing information is good and important for education. >> >> I don't see how OLPC or Sugar lacks tools to provide information. >> Including a digital textbook into a Sugar build for XO is extremely easy. >> ~ We simply don't have the textbooks. The problem, in this case, seems >> much more like a lack of "content" and translators. That effort is >> important and worthwhile, but seems quite independent of Sugar. > > I agree on this. I don't see how narratives fit into Sugar. Michael > Stone has some interesting ideas on this though. I think that Sugar > should focus on collaboration and discovery and tools like Moodle can > provide the narrative.
Actually, while I may be arguing a point that you might not have been explicitly making, I think there are a few key ways in which we *can* embed a better "narrative" into Sugar, and I think they will be very powerful. JOURNAL This first of these is the Journal. As Walter has mentioned a few times, the Journal is meant to provide at once a container for all of one's "things", as well as a space for reflection upon those things and the actions taken upon them. Right now, all we have is a container. The rest hasn't yet been built. The vision for the Journal includes a view of a child's things which includes context such as when and with whom a given thing was created, who gave it to me, where I downloaded it from, who I gave it to, etc. It should also provide information about events which didn't necessarily produce a tangible "thing" (file), such as joining a group, making a friend, changing the XO colors, etc. This view will provide all of this context, as well as inline previews of files, in essence creating a true Journal of the actions a child has taken and the objects they've made or interacted with over time. I think this will provide a rich narrative space which is perfect also for reflection. Once we have a backup system in place, as well as a system for cleaning out older and less relevant entries, it will become more of a portfolio than a list of every file ever made, holding on to the items which have been starred, used the most, or otherwise considered important in the history of the child's interaction with the XO, further emphasizing the Journal as a place for reflection. Finally, if we can ever get a reasonable tagging system off the ground, it will be possible to categorize the giant stream that represents the entire Journal into streams for various projects and purposes. By filtering the contents to a specific tag -- say, "My final science project", it will be possible to narrow in on a series of actions, or a group of objects, or both, which exist within a particular narrative stream. BULLETIN BOARD (activity) Myriad concepts for the elusive "bulletin board" have been tossed around since before Sugar existed. These days, we have a revised view which we think, finally, fits the primary need. As an activity, the bulletin board fits nicely within the activity paradigm already setup, allowing kids to create as many of them as they choose, allowing them to retain them in their Journals, and allowing them to share them with their friends, with groups, or with everyone as a public bulletin board. The bulletin board, as envisioned, provides a space for sharing "things". A child could post photos she took, or a song she composed, or a story she wrote. Others could then look at, or download, these shared objects. Others, likewise, could also post to the bulletin board, to create a multidirectional sharing space. There are some technical details to work out of course; it's not exactly clear how these posted objects (which are clearly just references to objects hosted by the poster, or perhaps by a server, or perhaps by other who have since downloaded them) get "resolved" such that I might download one on request. I'm sure we can do something intelligent. Another potential feature for the bulletin board comes in two flavors: notes, and comments. Bulletin boards are often a space for posting messages, as well as objects. Support for this could be built-in, so that it's not necessary to first create a write document in order to post some text. Communicating should be easy in this forum. Additionally, communication *about* the posted objects could (should) also be supported, such that kids can provide feedback, rate, or otherwise discuss the contents. The ability to retain bulletin boards in the Journal, as well as the ability to communicate ideas about them, within them, lead to a narrative structure. I think that bulletin boards will play an especially important role for teachers in lesson planning. Consider this example: A teacher wants to create a lesson plan for science class. This lesson plan includes several URLs, some images for source materials, an etoys project that serves as a simulation, and a list of questions for the children to work on collaboratively. To create this the teacher makes a new bulletin board called "Today's science project". She then creates a new Browse activity, and then bookmarks all of the relevant URLs for the project, so that they're all available from the link bar at the bottom. She adds this activity to the bulletin board. She also adds some images (or a content bundle containing many, perhaps) to the project. Then she constructs the etoys project (in Etoys) and the questions (in a Write instance) and adds both of those. Finally, she organizes the documents on the bulletin board, and adds notes describing the various pieces of the assignment. Once the entire lesson plan has been created, she shares it. (For the moment, she does so publicly; in the future, she'll have the opportunity to share this with only "The third grade class" group.) The kids in the class can then join the activity, and access the information, and download the various pieces to work on. Perhaps they were instructed to work in groups on the questions. At the end of the day, each group then posts their finished questions *back to* the bulletin board for the assignment. In this manner, the kids have the opportunity to share their work with the class, and the teacher has a means to retain their work for future examination. It seems likely that a number of these "lesson plans" could be created, published, and shared. There are details to hammer out, for sure, but I see a lot of potential in a space which encourages this type of sharing, communication, and "narrative". - Eben >> - --Ben >> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >> Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) >> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org >> >> iEYEARECAAYFAkjoXcEACgkQUJT6e6HFtqR3awCgg4lNrxa3nTDLVf1NIATAgwdF >> ymEAn1DJ7qaNwIHgirT32K00Gj2ufEKI >> =XKff >> -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > Sugar mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar > _______________________________________________ Sugar mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
