[sugar] Mini-Conference Proposal: Toolbars & Tabs

[Greg Smith (gregmsmi)]

Hi All,

I'm not opposed to changing the GUI at the OS level. I can think of a
dozen suggestions starting with that annoying "hot corners" thing. I
also love a whole bunch of the design elements.

All I'm saying is that any change comes at a cost. A cost paid by the
teachers, students and people who train more than the developers. The
cost also increases with time. I want to make sure you take that in to
consideration.

I'm not talking about the time OLPC has spent training people. I'm
talking about the time sys admins and technicians have spent training
teachers in country.

Dozens of people spent days doing teacher training in Uruguay and they
said it took several days of training for the teachers to start feeling
comfortable with the XO. I believe new teams of volunteers in Uruguay
have recently been expanding the training. Nepal also started teacher
training and they reported that it's a key variable to their success. I
think I heard that Peru has started training a few hundred teachers too.

I'm not sure about other deployments.

If the teachers and trainers know what the changes are, they want them
and are not concerned about having to re-learn or re-train, then its
fine with me. My point is to keep the users in the loop. If you dictate
changes without user input that doesn't foster collaboration and
empowerment. 

Sounds like you have the users in the loop and you're covered. Great! 

You definitely did a lot of things right in the first pass. I'm sure
you'll nail it again in the next revision.

My only suggestion is that once you have a new design, you show it to
some teachers and trainers before you lock it down. Even better give
them a range of options and see which works best for them.

There's a technical, economic, cultural, urban - rural, north - south
divide that we have to span here. That comes to the fore in the GUI more
than anywhere else (except maybe available actvities). Let's not lose
our chance to make the design process a two way collaboration which
bridges that divide.

Thanks,

Greg S

-----Original Message-----
From: walter.bender at gmail.com [mailto:walter.bender at gmail.com] On Behalf
Of Walter Bender
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:07 AM
To: Tomeu Vizoso; bens at alum.mit.edu; devel at lists.laptop.org; Greg Smith
(gregmsmi)
Subject: Re: [sugar] Mini-Conference Proposal: Toolbars & Tabs

Let me ad that these changes are motivated from feedback in the field.
What we are trying to change are precisely the things that people are
finding confusing or difficult. Let me further add that very little
"teacher training" has in fact taken place. What we have instead
concentrated on is working with teachers on how to best leverage to tool
to enhance learning inside and outside of the classroom. The very
features of the new interface are designed to facilitate more
collaboration, which is *the* distinguishing feature of Sugar.

-walter

On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net>
wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz  
> <bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>  >  Perhaps, in the intervening decade, first-world computer users 
> have  >  convinced themselves that they cannot adapt, but they are 
> wrong.  Humans  >  are very adaptable.  A teacher who has learned one 
> version of Sugar will  >  not have to spend more than a few days or 
> hours with the new version  >  before understanding it.
>
>  I'm sure they can adapt, but they need to be motivated to do so. What

> could happen if we don't make sure these changes are well-received? I

> think that's Gregorio's message.
>
>  Tomeu
>
>
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>  Devel at lists.laptop.org
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>



--
Walter Bender
One Laptop per Child
http://laptop.org