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Hello OLPCers!Just returning from the Saturday testing at MIT Museum. The following are a few observations in regards to the experience:
-------------------------------------- SettingToday was the first day of testing Mel's idea to get real feedback from student users of the XO machines at the MIT Museum. There were 6 XO units with 711 build that reside at MIT Museum and 5 XOs from 1CC that had the newest build 767 installed. The five from 1CC were put out for patrons to use while we busily upgraded the six MIT XO units to the current build. Once done we had out the MIT Museum XOs and put the 1CC units behind the table for volunteers to familiarize themselves with the new features.
There were a number of volunteers at the scene- Diane Serley (of XOexplosion.com), Michelle Kwak (from the MIT Museum), Bill Bogstad and Alex Wei (of olpc-boston) and a volunteer to the museum Yehnna. Seth Woodworth of 1CC also dropped in for the day.
The XOs were side-by-side on fold out tables set up toward the back corner of the first floor of the MIT Museum. Each had AC power and there were chairs for the patrons to sit at while they explored the XO machine. There was an OLPC slideshow going on behind the volunteers on a large screen.
We stayed at the MIT Museum between the hours of 1-4pm.The idea was to use a questionnaire supplied by Mel Chua to guide guardians and their students to write their experience down as they were exploring the XO. The questionnaire is attached.
------------------------------------- ExperienceThe questionnaire states that the idea of the "assistant" to the student, the one documenting the experience, should not touch or do anything for the students, but to let them try things out on their own and watch what happens easily and what confuses the students. What ended up happening was that the volunteers lead the student through the XO by reaching over and physically showing them how to use the touch pad and the "x" and "o" buttons. Even though I asked the volunteers to read through the questionnaire they still maintained their demonstrative lead.
There were many more adults than anticipated. There were probably about 15 children during my time there, but generally they wondered over without their guardian and started using the XO with the help of the volunteer.
Volunteers answered questions regarding the focus of the program, the current deployments, the software and hardware of the XO as well as questions about the old fundraiser and the new one coming up.
---------------------------------------- NotesI don't believe the setup at the MIT Museum works for the type of testing Mel was envisioning.
The questionnaire was much to long and detailed. We never even got anyone using it as we decided early on that this particular day should be our observation day where we see what the foot traffic is like, get a sense of what the students like and see how the testing may work in this given environment...our "baseline" in a sense.
Volunteers need to be trained to work in regards to the testing we hope to do. They are very efficient and engaging and have their own way of introducing and explaning the program.
There were not many students this particular Saturday. Diane mentioned that this particular Saturday was exceedingly slow in terms of foot traffic. Possibly because of the three day weekend.
----------------------------------Overall I think familiarizing the QA team with what the Ed Team does would be helpful. I think Mel actually sitting in on a full Saturday at the MIT Museum will help focus the testing. Its a great environment for introducing our program to folks who may or may not have heard of us, but may not be the testing ground we were hoping for.
Ultimately I was able to note a few bugs I had not noticed before in the 1CC setting, namely http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8814 about the WikipediaEN Activity. The other bugs, which have not been documented until I can reproduce them, deal with collaboration on Memorize Activity and Speak Activity.
Something I noticed was that the students generally went straight to Maze or Speak.
It was a good experience and makes me excited about proper testing for QA purposes!
-- Frances HopkinsOn Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 6:27 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
Organizational details aside, I think this is a *great* idea. Looking forward for your reports. Thanks for the effort of setting this up! Marco
reviewsquad.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
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