Talk:OLPC Rochester, NY

Developer collaboration with teachers and students

I suspect that its a difficulty in 'breaking the ice' of being remote and foreign with unfamiliar technology. Time and earnest efforts will diminish those difficulties. I think that making collaboration-friendly tools more pervasive is a good strategy, but one that will take some time to permeate our communities.

Consider how difficult it sometimes is to get users to collaborate with developers in USA society.

We will certainly think about this more and look for specific usability obstacles. --FGrose 22:28, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

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Hi Fred and team,

On another related challenge. Working with a lead in Uruguay (Pablo) I got some feedback on an application that they want to build to make blogging easier. The current requirements definition is at:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Requiremientos_Para_XO

I got some more feedback this week on why blogging is hard:

- You have to create a google account for each user (now, as it accepts OpenId it might be easier...)
- If you have different blogs, children get confused with the "new post" option.
- follow the steps for making a new post since you get connected to the internet, and you'll see there are a lot. It doesn't mean it can't be taught, but usability could be much better for children usage.
- It's not easy for teachers to take a look at posts before being published.

I want to design a tool that make that process easier. Let me know if you think you can suggest some UI designs which will address it.

Thanks,

Gregorio 07:28, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

HTHs.
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Hi,

I picked up your comments on my OLPC Wiki page. I put a watch on this page so we can continue here and it will e-mail me when this page changes.

I think this is a very hard problem. To get a sense of the challenge, try it for yourself. See if you can open an exchange with an XO user or teacher in a developing country. Let me know how it goes as my approach may be inexpert.

My guess is that the difference is due to two main things:
- People new to computers don't feel comfortable saying what the computer should do.
- Language and culture barriers make people nervous about speaking out

I have been trying for several months and I have yet to get any direct feedback from teachers. I got one exchange going with project lead in Uruguay but we haven't got down to specifics yet.

He did tell me that the training they do is tough because the technicians and the teachers have a hard time finding a common language. They're all Uruguayan so that implies a tech vs non-tech challenge.

Interestingly you get hundreds of comments from G1G1 users in the US and Canada. They are more tech savvy and seem to have no issue with posting to any blog or forum.

There are also a couple of US School deployments getting started so we can try interacting with them as a test. They are much more tech savvy and no language or culture divides there (aside from Upstate vs. Manhattan or different sides of the Mason-Dixon line :-).

My suggestion for your usability project is to try and figure out what interface would most encourage feedback, especially from new computer users in developing countries.

I was recently thinking of a "button" right on the XO main page that says: click here with questions or comments. I wonder if that would help...

This may get easier with more user experience but I think the most original input comes before people start constraining themselves to the paradigms implicit in their existing applications/interfaces.

HTHs, thanks for your comments,

Greg S

Gregorio 15:53, 17 March 2008 (EDT)