Reading this article got me thinking again about a set of ideas I was playing with back in 2006 that helped lead to the Activities concept: use case specific Containments.
Right now we have a few containments (Desktop, Folder View, Panel, etc.) but they are all general purpose containments. They are meant to be general containers that can contain random sets of widgets in any sort of layout. Useful, no doubt, and absolutely required.
I don't think they are suitable for every use case, however. Listening to one of the people involved in the desktop roll out in the Gran Canarias at Akademy a couple years back, it became rather apparent that they really wanted to use the desktop in a way that most people didn't. They fudged a solution together, but it was a hack.
The article linked in the first paragraph above brings out another interesting point. Now, they could do what they want with some kiosk settings, but it would be a rather bore to do so and I'm not sure how teacher friendly that would be.
The bits we already do alright with is that you'd need to lock down console access so students can't run arbitrary things and then provide custom menu layouts and sets of apps on the desktop. Still, not exactly a five minute job and I think it should be. Locking down console access is one kiosk entry, but the menu arrangements and setting up the kiosk groups: quite a bit more time and a fair amount of technical details. Not teacher friendly.
Given how often teachers end up having to do the set up themselves, this is important. So I think we ought to have a set of containments and widgets appropriate to the classroom, then it's just a matter of creating an appropriate Activity, changing the panel a bit perhaps and voila.
Thing is, I'm not a school teacher and that means I shouldn't be the one to design this thing. If you are a school teacher, you'd be the "right" person for this. In fact, I would like to see a small group of educators or education IT support staff get together and brainstorm what a perfect desktop would look like and work like. I'm not suggesting a full classroom system with grading and all that stuff (I'm not insane ;) but just the desktop bits. What would make it work better for you?
I've created a page on our developer wiki where you can go and start putting ideas down. Feel free to use pictures, words, whatever. We can sort it out and then figure out how to implement it. I get the feeling this could make an awesome Google Summer of Code project.
But we need you, the educators, to step up and give us feedback. Not sure when the last time you were asked to help design a desktop just for your needs, but now's your chance.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
My plans are to use KDE4 as a foundation for developing the Debian distribution targeted at kids, what currently is Debian Jr. Even though I'm not targeting educational purposes, we seem to somehow be targeting the same age range, and thus we probably share a lot of common goals. Feel free to contact me ( miriam AT debian DOT org )
Greetings,
Miry
[1] http://wiki.debian.org/Kids
Aaron, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for from my blog post. It also shows me that KDE really has great potential for educators even beyond just apps (i.e. KDE Edu).
I'll forward your post on to the Edubuntu community, there are lots of educators there and they might give you some good feedback.
@Miriam: terrific; the input of you and those working on Debian Jr. would be very welcome!
@Jordan: i'd love to hear from the educators that rely on Edubuntu. they would be the exact target audience for this, so would be precisely who we need to hear from.
please feel free to send them to the wiki page linked to in the blog, or to find me on irc.freenode.net, my nick is aseigo (surprise!) and can be found in #kde-devel and #plasma. or they can post to the mailing list plasma-devel at kde dot org.
we will need to get all the ideas onto the wiki at some point, though i do understand that sometimes discussing things first can be helpful =)
if there are any questions they have about parameters and boundaries of possiblities, i'm very happy to answer those.
Not only Debian Jr. would be of interest here, but also Skolelinux and Linex (but this last one is gnome based)
Aaron, please take a look at Sugar. Sugar was originally developed as the Desktop for the OLPC project. The development is now happening at sugarlabs.org . The GUI is available on most distros.
We have gotten some things right:) More importantly, we have made a lot of mistakes from which a new education project can learn:(
@David Farning: yes, i'm familiar with Sugar. i do try and keep an eye on other projects who are trying new things in the primary user interface space, and you guys are certainly doing that.
obviously i'm not talking about the same sort of scope as sugar, e.g. modifying individual applications, replacing file dialogs with a journal, etc.
but the alternative task management in sugage is interesting and probably applicable.
Hi,
we did a desktop for kid for the mEDUXa project. The desktop configurations we did are in Launchpad (name hexperides). Here are the major links:
Screenshot: http://www.grupocpd.com/archivos_documentos/info_meduxa/meduxa_project_released/Image00043009/ImagePopup
Launchpad link to hexperides project (meduxa based): https://code.launchpad.net/~hexperides/hexperides/main
We used kiosk mode to configure the desktop. We had teachers as advisors and some changes have been made since then (I'm not related with the project anymore so I don't know). Anyway, during GCDS'09 you can get a better approach of the job done.
AgustÃn Benito (toscalix)
Hi aseigo, Thanks for asking for ideas. I've added a few on your wiki though not sure if I put them in the correct places as I'm a teacher, not programmer. Here are the things I added:
--other examples of groups and how the group might be useful to a teacher include:
a) "Mr. Gads Class" who is currently working on fractions and so might want a particular set of apps, though next week might want a different set.
b) "tutors", the students who have extra privileges to help them access extra apps
c) "Level 1" for the students who have not yet show sufficient trustworthiness to access particular parts of the desktop or apps.
d) "Period 1" who need to be able to access certain data sets that they created but not those of Period 2, 3, or 4's, (because of a big competition between classes. There are many reasons to only let a class view resources they created, though of course wider collaboration is the goal in other learning activities.
--or alternatively, make it so a student can choose from a set of wallpapers. It would be nice to make this 'choice' feature a perk which a teacher could give the student for cooperation or some other achievement.
--Again, make it so students can change font size if they have good fine motor skills or, for example have vision or fine motor issues... Starting with some size specific to a group setting would be great, just make it adjustable.
--if possible provide a visual transition between desktops--some metaphor such as moving to a different part of a (larger expanse of) wallpaper. Too, any metaphor which connects one's own physical motion with motion of objects (such as a hand grabbing the fabric of the wall paper and with a swish of the mouse, ones location in one segment of the wallpaper moves to another.
== Panel ==
--How about a 3D desktop where there is a widget that one can use to adjust perspective? As one moves an object towards the center of the desktop, the icon would get smaller mimicking that it were moving further away. One could set the 3D perspective so that the desktop were flat, of course.
--Do the apple dock thing where one can add or remove/add apps on the left side and folders and files on the right side. Also, provide the teacher with opportunities to add/lock some icons to all docs, allowing students to move others. Important: allow students to 'hide' the dock to get it out of the way and free up desk space. Being able to resize it is cool, too!
--Don't make the desktop too specialized-looking (thinking of the old-time "panel desktop" they had for children), keep it like a 'regular' desktop.
Post a Comment