The XO laptop gets a Windows makeover

[Albert Cahalan]

rihoward1 at gmail.com writes:

> It was a very poor experiment and the article had a number of items
> of misinformation.  The author of the article did not take advantage
> of the fact that she had 2 XOs .  She did not boot both in Sugar to
> observe the collaboration capabilities of Sugar and Activities.  If
> she had then Sugar would have won hands down.

Sugar isn't helped when people shout down any criticism.
Living in denial about the competition just leads to failure.
I'm far from a fan of Windows, but it gets many things right.

If you think booting both into Sugar would have helped Sugar,
then you obviously haven't seen the collaboration capabilities
of Windows. Booting both into Windows would allow file sharing.
Compared to what Sugar does, file sharing is very reliable.
It works with **all** programs, without any developer effort.
It's compatible between different software versions, different
types of software, and even different OSes. It even eliminates
the need to maintain a continuous network connection, which is
great for kids without wired networks or reliable electricity.

> Windows is pointless as an educational platform.  I have never seen
> what I would call an educational application on Windows.  I have seen
> rote training applications on Windows.  About all Windows is good for
> is in a school training the next generation of low skilled, low wage
> support personal for Microsoft with out of date knowledge.

I haven't seen decent educational software for any platform.
That includes Sugar and Mac OS. Probably this means that the
concept itself is defective. Real tools are superior.

I have seen Microsoft Excel used for science, engineering, and
statistics. Sugar has nothing comparable, despite at least two
usable free spreadsheets being available for Linux.

> Remember education and training are 2 different concepts.  Education
> gives you the ability to reach beyond your base knowledge and to
> continue to learn, explore and synthesize ideas and concepts. Rote
> training freezes you in time and makes you inflexible.

You just keep telling yourself that Windows is only for rote training
(false) and that rote training is useless (also false) while the
world mysteriously ignores you for some reason.