-== Fri, Mar 12 - Interview with "los scratcheros" ==
+== Fri, Mar 12 - Interview with //Los Scratcheros// ==
-{{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00008.jpg | maxwidth=480 | The Scratcheros: Nadia, Benedicto and Alberto}}{{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00003.jpg | maxwidth=480 | A sugar "hack" (zoom to see detail) }}
-{{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/cyber_nick/00029.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Kids asking for Sugar 0.84 }}
+|| {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00008.jpg | maxwidth=480 | The "Scratcheros": Nadia, Benedicto and Alberto}} || {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/1.00011.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Albertito, our youngest volunteer, helping one of our trainers }} ||
-Today I spent some time with a boy of Caacupe who has impressed me and the
-educators very much with his original creations in Scratch. Scratch is not
-a school subject, these kids are learning it on their own.
+Today I spent some time with three siblings of Caacupe who has impressed me and the educators very
+much with their original creations in Scratch. Scratch is not a school subject, these kids are
+learning it on their own driven by their own passion.
* **What's your name?**
* B: Benedicto
* B: The "Snake" game
* N: Strategic games
* A: ...hmm...
- * Mom: They need an automatic spell checker
+ * (Mom: They need an automatic spell checker... and a **screensaver**, of course).
* **What's the most annoying problem for you with Sugar?**
* B: Can't use the "robot" function in //Ablar con Sara// (
* **Would you like to learn a little bit of Python with Pippy?**
* B: Very well!
-Then we got started. Python is easy, you can explain the basics to a smart kid in less than 30 minutes.
-We also updated Benedicto's laptop to [[http://oficina.paraguayeduca.org/~bernie/py-xo1/ | build 65]],
-containing the latest version of the Sugar 0.84 branch. Benedicto had been previously testing my previous
-build 45, which contained some networking bugs.
+Then Benedicto and I got started. Python is easy, you can explain the basics to a smart kid in less than 30 minutes.
+I've shown him a few Pippy examples, describing the code briefly before running it, then making small changes to make
+Benedicto grasp the possibilities. From his questions and comments, I'm pretty sure that he could figure out the
+concepts despite my very poor Spanish fluency and my usual disorganized style.
+
+We also updated Benedicto's and Nadia's laptops to [[http://oficina.paraguayeduca.org/~bernie/py-xo1/ | F11-XO1 Paraguay, build 65]],
+which contains the latest release of [[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.84/Notes | Sugar 0.84]]. Benedicto had been previously
+testing my build 45, revealing some bugs in networking and activities.
+
+
+
+== Mon, Mar 8 - Children like Sugar, for the wrong reasons ==
+
+|| {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/cats/00001.jpg | maxwidth=480 | CATS, Fernando's XO repair lab in Caacupe }} || {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/cats/00029.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Kids asking to install Sugar 0.84 in front of Cyber Nick's lab }} ||
+
+The owner of **Centro de Assistencia Tecnica y Soporte (CATS)**, the XO support center of
+[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caacup%C3%A9 | Caacupé]], wrote:
+
+{{{
+On March 8 2010 14:51, Raúl Gutiérrez Segalés wrote:
+> Fernando,
+>
+> How is the migration to Fedora 11 going so far? Approximate number
+> of machines to date?
+
+Raul, the truth that it's going smooth so far, the boys are very excited
+about the new version, and the rumor is spreading fast.
+I think so far my team updated 120 laptops, more or less.
+
+FG
+}}}
+
+(Google translation with my manual corrctions)
+
+I witnessed it with my own eyes: every day, children start lining up outside of CATS' door
+early in the morning, and keep coming all day long, until the evening. All of them ask
+for the new version, bui in interesting ways: a little boy said:
+
+ "//Quiero poner ventanas coloradas//" (I want colored windows).
+
+They're obviously referring to the Gnome desktop, also known as "//salva pantallas//" (screensaver).
+Another kid admired his freshly installed Gnome desktop and proudly declared: "//Ahora tienen Windows!//"
+(now I have Windows). In Spanish, therre's no ambiguity on the meaning of the word Windows.
+
+Power of brand. It doesn't rmatter if it's the actual Windows, or even if it really does
+anything useful at all. It's new, it's colored and it's what adults are using. Oh, and it
+also comes with a screensaver which makes it irresistible.
+
+So, what do we do? Quick! Let's add a cool screensaver to Sugar! :-)
+
+Of course not, but could we do anything to appeal more to kids? By now, I think I've observed
+our young users closely enough to be able to guess what they're really missing in Sugar:
+
+<div style="font-size: large; color: red; text-align: center">
+more configurability.
+</div>
+
+Yeah, dozen of scientific studies showed how users almost never customize the desktops beyond
+setting a background image. Kids, however, are a lot more passionate about their precious
+laptop than the average office clerk using Windows. They //do// cover the exterior of
+their laptops with colorful stickers.
+
+|| {{pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/escuela_691_profesora_gudelia_cabrera/00048.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Shy girls hide behind their Barbie-fashioned laptops }} || {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00003.jpg | maxwidth=480 | A sugar "hack" (zoom in to see the ASCII art detail) }} ||
+
+Believe it or not, many of these kids also set their Home View with the random icon layout
+(aka "the Negroponte layout"), because it lets them drag icons around and arrange them in
+clever ways. I could take many screenshot to prove it, but I particulatily like this one
+abusing Sugar's user name field to create a drawing on three lines. These kids do not live
+in the middle of Silicon Valley; it is very likely that they rediscovered the technique
+of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art | ASCII art]] completely on their own.
+The original idea was passed along and successively refined by several anonymous artists.
+
+Finally, what was the gray-scale palette supposed to mean in our UI? I was explained it once,
+and it seemed to make some sense, but now I forgot. And, whatver the reason was, kids are
+unlikely to agree with us.
+
+Let's give our users a control panel applet for customizing colors as they wish, or they'll
+switch to Gnome //en masse//. I can't blame them, either. What would you have done when
+you were 8?
+
== Tue, Mar 02 - Charla @ Facultad Politecnica ==
projects / wiki.git / blobdiff