and controversial finding was which activities are the most
popular among them:
- # [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(video_game) | Doom II]]
+{{podium.jpg|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright|The most popular Sugar activities}}
+
+ # [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(video_game) | Doom]]
# [[http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/2009/12/super-vampire-ninja-zero/ | Super Vampire Ninja Zero]]
# [[http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4024 | Navegar]] (Browse)
-{{podium.jpg|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright}}
-
Heh, at least Browse made the third place, I thought. But when I
asked what websites they were visiting, the answer was invariably
"videos".
like this, I met some in Caacupé. However, the naked truth is that the
vast majority would rather spend their free time playing.
-Doom is one of the most popular games of all time, to the extent
-that the first 7 hits for the word "doom" are
-about the game itself. Then come the film adaptation and various
-fan sites. After all, many of us played Doom and many other types of
-"inappropriate" video games throughout our childhood.
-Anyway, how can we blame kids for playing games?
-We took down Doom from the OLPC wiki soon after it was uploaded,
+=== Those inappropriate games ===
+
+{{http://diablobasher.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/doom01.jpg|class=thumbleft|The Ultimate Doom title artwork}}
+
+It's no wonder kids like the game which, according to the Wikipedia, is "//widely regarded as one of
+the most important titles in gaming history//". This is no exaggeration: the first 7 hits for the
+common word "[[http://www.google.com/search?q=doom|doom]]" are about the game itself. Then come
+the film adaptation and various fan sites.
+Anyway, how can we blame kids for playing games? After all, many of us played
+Doom and many other types of "inappropriate" video games throughout our childhood.
+
+We quickly took Doom down from the OLPC wiki soon after it was uploaded,
yet it is still spreading fast among Sugar users worldwide. Let's look at the
-positive sides: it shows social behavior and encourages
-kids to find technical solutions to transfer activities
-directly (their old version of Sugar does not allow direct
-sharing from the journal).
+positive sides: it shows social behavior and encourages kids to find technical
+solutions to transfer activities directly (their old version of Sugar does not
+allow direct sharing from the journal).
+
+So, what to do now? Do we lock the entire system down so that kids could
+only install applications that we approve? So much for the "child ownership"
+principle.
+
+Do we develop a couple of boring educational games, in the hope they will keep
+our kids from playing the "//#1 game of all time//"? I'm sure that will work :-)
+
+How about admitting defeat and giving them the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_WAD|level editor]]
+too? It could redirect some of the existing passion towards learning about advanced concepts
+of 3D graphics and game deisgn. Don't underestimate the latent creativity of gamers: over 13,000 original maps
+were created for Doom by young artits of any age and nationality. Later games from ID Software included
+a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuakeC | programming language]] which enabled users to create entire
+new games with relative ease.
+
+ **Update**: [[http://selfdotblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/selfpresentation.html | Marten Abente]],
+ my Paraguay Educa colleague who added 3G broadband support to Sugar, noted that he had been creating
+ [[http://selfdotblog.blogspot.com/ | many game maps]] when he was just 16. At the university, he worked
+ with a friend to creat an entire 3D game engine from scratch using [[http://www.libsdl.org/ | SDL]]
+ and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL | OpenGL]].
+
+=== Those inappropriate cartoons ===
+
+{{http://www.shoemoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/blame-canada.jpg|class=thumbright|Still from South Park}}
+
What about the videos? The most popular video websites are
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash | Flash]] based.
[[http://www.olpcnews.com/software/applications/using_an_xo_laptop_a.html | clever hackery]].
We do not know the details of how this is done, but it is quite impressive.
+=== Passion-driven learning ===
+
Even though most kids are inclined to misuse our precious educational
technology for gaming and other mundane uses, in order to do what they want,
they seem to be acquiring pretty advanced problem-solving abilities
projects / wiki.git / blobdiff