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}}
-
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 used his first
+ computer to play [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake | Quake]] when he was 12, and by the age of
+ 16 he was creating [[http://selfdotblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/selfshowoffgamemodifications.html | many maps]]
+ for it. Later on, he worked with a friend at the university to create an entire 3D game engine
+ from scratch with [[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
(photos courtesy of Carla Crosa)
-|| {{ 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 }} ||
+|| {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00008.jpg | maxwidth=480 | The "Scratcheros": Sofia, Jose and Aldo}} || {{ 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 three siblings of Caacupé 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
- * N: Nadia
- * A: Alberto
+ * J: Jose
+ * S: Sofia
+ * A: Aldo
* **How old are you?**
- * B: 12
- * N: 11
+ * J: 12
+ * S: 11
* A: 9
* **How did you learn Scratch?**
- * B: We tried all the functions. First, we'll try one function, and see what it does.
- * N: Like he said, we experimented with all the functions and check the results.
+ * J: We tried all the functions. First, we'll try one function, and see what it does.
+ * S: Like he said, we experimented with all the functions and check the results.
* A: By looking at the animations of the games bundled with Scratch
* **What job would you like to do when you're done with school?**
- * B: Software engineer
- * N: Paediatrician
+ * J: Software engineer
+ * S: Paediatrician
* A: Nada... ;-)
* **Do you like Turtle Art? What can you do with it?**
- * B: Si. I can create rectangles and other geometrical shapes.
- * N: Mostly geometric shapes
+ * J: Si. I can create rectangles and other geometrical shapes.
+ * S: Mostly geometric shapes
* A: Only basic shapes: square, triangle...
* **How much time do you spend with your laptop every day?**
- * B: A few hours.
- * N: 6 hours, more or less.
+ * J: A few hours.
+ * S: 6 hours, more or less.
* A: Same for me.
* (Mother's note: they don't use the laptop enough in school!)
* **Nobody is teaching you, yeah? You're learning everything on your own?**
- * B: No, with my sister. We try all activities, and when we find one we like, we spend some time on it together.
- * N: I learned the basics of Turtle Art at the trainer's course.
+ * J: No, with my sister. We try all activities, and when we find one we like, we spend some time on it together.
+ * S: I learned the basics of Turtle Art at the trainer's course.
* A: Yes, I learned it there too.
* **What other activities do you like besides Scratch and Turtle Art?**
- * B: //Hablar con Sara// [Speak] and //Super Vampire Ninja Zero//, //Máquina de discos// (Jukebox).
- * N: //eToys//, to edit photos. I need someone to teach me all the rest.
+ * J: //Hablar con Sara// [Speak] and //Super Vampire Ninja Zero//, //Máquina de discos// (Jukebox).
+ * S: //eToys//, to edit photos. I need someone to teach me all the rest.
* A: //Grabar// (Record), to take videos, interview people...
* **What would you like to add to Sugar?**
- * B: The "Snake" game
- * N: Strategic games
+ * J: The "Snake" game
+ * S: Strategic games
* A: ...hmm...
* (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 //Hablar con Sara// (
- * N: I want bigger fonts in //Pintar// (Paint).
+ * J: Can't use the "robot" function in //Hablar con Sara// (
+ * S: I want bigger fonts in //Pintar// (Paint).
* A: //Escribir// (Write ;-)
* **Would you like to learn a little bit of Python with Pippy?**
- * B: Very well!
+ * J: Very well!
-Then Benedicto and I got started. Python is easy, you can explain the basics to a smart kid in less than 30 minutes.
+Then Jose 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
+Jose 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.
-Nadia shows plenty of design talent: she uses Sugar to create short stories featuring her friends. She
+Sofia shows plenty of design talent: she uses Sugar to create short stories featuring her friends. She
cookie-cuts their photos and uses Scratch to animate them on fantasy backgrounds with music, sound
effects and text. Recently, she started creating line-art versions of the photos using eToys, so her
-new creations look more like cartoons. At this point, Benedicto mentioned the [[http://htf.atom.com/ | Happy Tree Friends]],
+new creations look more like cartoons. At this point, Jose mentioned the [[http://htf.atom.com/ | Happy Tree Friends]],
an innocently named Internet series which makes even South Park seem politically correct in comparison!
HTF is Flash-only and doesn't seem to work with Gnash -- at least, we should be above any bigot criticism
for conveying "inapprorpiate content" to young hack^Wchildren.
-Nadia also created a platform videogame in which a dog needs to jump around to find the way out from
+Sofia also created a platform videogame in which a dog needs to jump around to find the way out from
each level, while a bouncing arrow chases him. Technically simple, but shows sensitive use of
game-design principles. I'm not sure if the code is entirely new or comes in part from pre-existing
Scratch games. It doesn't matter: in Free Software, remixing other people's work is the rule.
-We 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
+We updated Jose's and Sofia'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]]. Jose had been previously
testing my build 45, revealing some bugs in networking and activities.
-|| {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00005-game-written-in-scratch.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Perro Bros }} || {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00016-nadias-work-in-etoys.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Nadia's line-art image }} ||
+|| {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00005-game-written-in-scratch.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Perro Bros }} || {{ pictures/sugar/deployment/paraguay/caacupe/scratcheros/00016-nadias-work-in-etoys.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Sofia's line-art image }} ||
== Mon, Mar 8 - Children want Sugar 0.84, for the wrong reasons ==
projects / wiki.git / blobdiff