

On the OLPC - tdonia
http://www.miller-mccune.com/business_economics/computer-error-1390?article_page=1

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ZeroGravitas
Good read, though not _really_ about the OLPC.

Cites a bunch of studies that show that introducing computers into schools in
a cack-handed manner doesn't help. Tends to suggest this is the computers
fault rather than the people rolling it out though.

 _"The World Bank studied a program in Colombia that increased the number of
computers in schools ... and found no impact on student outcomes ... it was
clear that the teachers simply weren't using the computers"_

Found the info about the rise of private schools in slums and the impact of
deworming (in both Africa and the US) surprising and interesting but I'm not a
big fan of "you can't provide computers/open source software/better government
until you've done X". Why not do both? In fact why not do anything that's
shown to help, and prioritise by ROI?

Also interesting to see one of the easy and effective education reforms
(grouping by ability, not age) is referred to as 'tracking'. I recognize the
buzzword because the 4th series of the Wire mentions in passing that this is
politically frowned upon in US schools.

~~~
curtis
> Good read, though not really about the OLPC.

I agree. In fact I think the article would have been better if it hadn't been
about the OLPC at all, or if it had only mentioned the OLPC in passing.

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onreact-com
"the studies found that children using the software scored no better than
peers who did not have access to the software"

Yeah, but at least they know how to use computers while those without OLPCs do
not.

~~~
SamAtt
I'm not sure that's true, at least not with the OLPC. The OLPC doesn't
resemble modern interfaces (see screenshot here:
[http://morgancollett.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/olpc-
taskvi...](http://morgancollett.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/olpc-
taskview.png)) so I don't know how much it prepares kids for using full blown
computers.

~~~
thwarted
Ah, the business case against alternative interfaces: if it doesn't encourage
you to use Powerpoint and Excel, it's an empty experience.

~~~
SamAtt
The question was "Will this teach kids how to use computers" and my answer was
"it's an alternative interface so not necessarily"

So I don't see how your comment is relevant. Sure there are situations where
an alternative interface is a good thing but not when you're stated goal is to
teach kids how to use modern computers. When that's your goal you want to have
an interface that resembles everything else that's out there and the simple
truth is Windows, OS X and just about every variant of Linux have certain
conventions (basically their shared Xerox Parc heritage) that aren't shared by
the OLPC

~~~
jcl
Actually, there are not a lot of interface concepts that are common to
Windows, Macintosh, and Linux that are not present in Sugar. Textboxes,
buttons, scrollbars, dropdowns, icons, context menus, toolbars, etc. are all
present. It even has alt-tab application switching.

The major things that Sugar lacks from the common UI experience is overlapping
windows and text-based menu bars, which are not difficult to learn once you
have a solid understanding of the other stuff.

(It's kind of funny: people argue for a traditional interface for OLPC to
teach kids to use Office, while Office's new "ribbon" interface is arguably
closer to the toolbar-based applications in Sugar than most other Windows
applications.)

~~~
TomOfTTB
What interface doesn't have text boxes, scroll bars, etc…?

Let me ask you this: Other than "to be clever" what's the point of creating an
alternative interface in a device that's supposed to be a teaching machine?
When we teach people to drive don't we use real cars? Would it make sense to
use a car that had the brakes on the steering column but was the same as
normal cars in every other way?

Teaching isn't about inventing new things it's about finding a way to convey
old things to people who don't understand them.

P.S. The ribbon does in fact suck, you'll get no argument from me there.

~~~
jcl
I think one of the big reasons for creating a new interface was that the XO's
screen is really small -- it's about as wide as 1.5 times the largest
dimension of an iPhone. While its resolution is roughly the same as a standard
desktop, its pixels-per-inch is 2-3 times as high.

This places screen real-estate at a premium... Essentially all applications
will be running maximized, so title bars and other window decorations are a
waste of space, as is having a menu/launching bar at the top or bottom of the
screen.

And due to the XO's high pixels-per-inch, all text needs to be roughly 2-3
times larger in pixels than on a traditional display. Many applications on
existing systems do not cope well with this requirement; most of the X11
applications that have been minimally ported to Sugar have text that is
illegibly small.

The device's display is closer to a hand-held device than a typical laptop, so
OLPC decided it needs a different UI than a typical laptop. And OLPC is not
the only organization to make this choice: There are a number of manufacturers
who are releasing Android-powered netbooks in the near future, as opposed to
using more traditional UIs.

Unfortunately, Android was not an option at the time the XO was being
developed. I imagine Maemo or Qtopia were not chosen for either licensing or
maturity concerns. Any of these options would probably have been an OK
alternative to Sugar, but none of them is a traditional overlapping-windows
interface.

