WSJ
Ed Trager
ed.trager at gmail.com
Thu Nov 29 10:51:53 EST 2007
I have a few comments for this thread:
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(1) Porting Sugar+Activities to Competitors' Offerings : No.
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On Nov 29, 2007 12:12 AM, Mike C. Fletcher <mcfletch at vrplumber.com> wrote:
> Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:
> ...
> >> * we should port to the other inexpensive laptops, if a country
> >> decides to go with EEEs or Classmates, we should be in there
> >> offering an EEE or Classmate-optimised Sugar + Activities +
> >> Content that they can load onto those machines
I disagree. Especially in light of the high profile that OLPC has
because of recent articles like the Wall Street Journal article, the
OLPC team and community should continue to focus their efforts on
their own hardware platform and not worry about EEEs or Classmates.
To create EEE- or Classmate-optimised Sugar+Activities will only help
Asus and Intel sell more EEEs and Classmates. While Negroponte can
say that OLPC is "an education project" , it is an education project
with some real hardware that needs to be sold. This is just common
business sense that applies to non-profits like OLPC just as much as
it does to profit-making organizations like Intel.
> >> o we should also port to the thin-client-style setups seen
> >> in e.g. Canonical's deployments of computing labs in the
> >> developing world
> >>
Thin client deployments in schools which are already running Linux or
similar kit are "low hanging fruit" worth consideration. This option
makes much more sense.
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(2) "Kids" Participation in Software Development -- WHO are we really
talking about?
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> > And, I see that one of the biggest downside of our software is that
> > kids cannot participate the software development effort from their
> > laptops (except...). If we are to look at different platforms, it is
> > nice to think about easy support of on-laptop-development. I don't
> > care if it is on Windows or Mac OS; on top of Windows (or Mac OS), you
> > as an end-user can still do a lot. (Basically the same argument in
> > "filtered Internet access is better than no Internet access".)
> >
> Yes, we really need to get "Develop" development un-stuck. We currently
> have only Pippy (which doesn't do files) and the Squeak IDE available
> on-machine. We need that full Python IDE available for the children
> ASAP. After all, we've got a whole key on the keyboard devoted to it.
> Even if the IDE is just file-open/close/create, file-tabs and syntax
> highlighting it would be sufficient to start programming on-machine.
>
I agree that the XO should, to the extent possible, provide access to
a full development environment. (Of course people's definition of a
"full development environment" will vary drastically. For some (me
included), a terminal, vi, gcc , and valgrind constitute a "full
development environment").
However, WHO ARE THE DEVELOPERS? I see generic references to "kids"
or "children" and I keep wondering, CHILDREN OF WHAT AGES? There are
big differences between 8-year-old primary schoolers and 13-year-old
middle schoolers.
=> On the one hand, the XO appears to be designed for primary
schoolers. The keyboard appears to be designed to fit 8-10 year-old
hands. And the interface and activities also seem to be primarily
targeted for primary schoolers.
=> On the other hand, the XO sports a "view source code" key. That
was a very good idea. But that key IS NOT designed for primary
schoolers! "Viewing Source" is what developers want to do. "Viewing
Source" is also what people who are not yet developers but who are
intrigued by the possibilities of software development want to do.
And who might they be?
Certainly one can imagine TEACHERS and EDUCATORS becoming interested
in developing more software for the XO.
And one also imagines older kids -- MIDDLE schoolers and HIGH
schoolers who perhaps were weaned on the XO during their primary
school years -- becoming intrigued with the idea of developing
software for their younger peers.
(And of course there is also the world-wide Open Source community of
developers, a primarily adult demographic. We need not discuss this
obvious demographic in the current context ... ).
So there is a large pool of developers and potential developers who
can benefit from the "view source" key and the presence of ( ... or
option to install ... ) a full-fledged development environment on the
XO.
But that pool of developers is not the primary schoolers.
The OLPC organization and community WOULD DO ITSELF AND THE COMMUNITY
A SERVICE TO CLARIFY the different groups of people who will be using
XOs and what they will be doing with them:
(1) Primary Schoolers : Using the XO for learning and creative exploration.
(2) Teachers: Using the XO for lesson planning, creating teaching
activities, developing new activities, etc.
(3) Middle & High Schoolers: A subset of this demographic will be
using the XO to develop new activities for their younger peers. This
is a more realistic possibility than thinking that 8 year olds care to
look at Python code.
(4) World-wide OLPC development community: Primarily an adult
demographic, does primary development work for the OLPC project.
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(3) A Suggestion : Create an Enhanced XO Learning Environment for
Older Students, (& Teachers, Developers, Etc.)
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Has any thought been given to what kids (i.e., primary schoolers) are
supposed to do with their XOs after they outgrow them?
As kids get older and reach their middle-school and high-school years,
they are going to look at that cute little XO as yester-year's
industrial garbage. They are going to want to buy an iPod Touch ($US
299.00 -- isn't that the same price as an EEE? ). Or else they will
want to go for the really big kit and get a MacBook. Trust me -- I
have a teenager in middle school. Be my guest to do your own research
if you don't believe me.
But kids in more impoverished nations may only get dream about such
fun new electronic goodies around the holidays.
(It is absolutely certain that they will have full knowledge of such
products as they will have already thoroughly scanned the internet via
their XOs).
So what is a body to do?
Well, here's a suggestion. Why not create an enhanced XO Learning
Environment for older (middle and high-school) students? Given the
plethora of Open Source software available in the world just waiting
to be "sugarized", there is a lot of "low hanging fruit" here which
would allow the OLPC project to expand its "market share" beyond what
it is currently targeting.
For example, an XO Learning Environment for middle and high-schoolers
might include a more advanced version of the sugarized AbiWord
activity. It should definitely sport a spiffy-looking music and video
player -- that will surely appeal to the teen demographic. It could
easily include educational tools for learning things like advanced
algebra, trigonometry, and science and physics kit like Kalzium
(http://edu.kde.org/kalzium/pics/screen1.png).
Creation of an Enhanced XO Creative Environment for Learning ( EXCEL
-- yes we too can invent catchy marketing terms in our bid to Dominate
The World!!! :-) ) may go a long way toward enhancing the appeal of
the XO in the eyes of Education Ministers and their colleagues around
the world.
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(4) Conclusion
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The WSJ article and criticism of OLPC from such quarters as the
independent OLPC News (http://www.olpcnews.com/) make a few things
about the OLPC Project abundantly clear:
(1) The OLPC Project is sending mixed and confusing messages about
it's purpose and usefulness
-- See
http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/keyboard/children_view_source.html
(2) Negroponte may be his own worst enemy as a spokesperson for OLPC.
-- My 2 cents -- Ed Trager --
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