X-Git-Url: https://codewiz.org/gitweb?p=wiki.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=blog%2F2010%2F03;h=f133236211be95dfb01050ddba4603e3d7b9332b;hp=b3feea5c9097cc5dc82184acddee7f70c0de96b5;hb=551cfe37176f263f013dbf4357215e7019f94182;hpb=979f461014a149d82bec457ee89c012d0ad17654 diff --git a/blog/2010/03 b/blog/2010/03 index b3feea5..f133236 100644 --- a/blog/2010/03 +++ b/blog/2010/03 @@ -1,89 +1,187 @@ +== Sun, Mar 14 - What are kids using Sugar for? == + +I'm finally back in Asuncíon. Over the last few days, I had the +opportunity to interview a dew dozen children who had been +using Sugar 0.82 for about one year. Perhaps the most interesting +and controversial finding was which activities are the most +popular among them: + +{{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) + +Heh, at least Browse made the third place, I thought. But when I +asked what websites they were visiting, the answer was invariably +"videos". + +Well, at the least I could tell they were answering honestly! +We often idealize our young users as being creative, passionate and +eager to learn just about everything. Some kids are really +like this, I met some in Caacupé. However, the naked truth is that the +vast majority would rather spend their free time playing. + + +=== 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). + +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. +You Tube would work with [[http://www.gnashdev.org/ | Gnash]] as well, +but because the required video codecs are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#Licensing_and_patent_issues | patent encumbered]], +we're not allowed to ship them in Fedora. Besides, +both Flash and Gnash are quite inefficient and would feel +sluggish on the XO-1. + +So I am left wondering what solutions these kids came up with +in order to circumvent the technical limitations and watch +their favorite videos. + +The coordinator of the education team got curious and asked questions. +It seems that some smart kids figured out how to rip videos from You Tube, +store them in the journal, and then play them back with some +[[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 +in a self-motivated and social way; in other words, the purpose for which +OLPC and Sugar were created. + + == 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/1.00011.jpg | maxwidth=480 | Albertito, our youngest volunteer, helping one of our trainers }} || +(photos courtesy of Carla Crosa) + +|| {{ 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 Caacupe who has impressed me and the educators very +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 Scatch and Turtle Art?** - * B: //Ablar 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. + * **What other activities do you like besides Scratch and Turtle Art?** + * 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 //Ablar 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 == @@ -126,8 +224,8 @@ 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 to kids more than a traditional desktop? -By now, I think I've observed our young users closely enough to be able to guess what they're -really missing in Sugar: +I don't claim to be a pedagogist, but by now I've observed our young users closely enough +to be able to guess what they're really missing in Sugar:
more configurability.