Educational Desktop Design: e.g. Linpus

[RalfGesellensetter]

Hi there,

when looking for minimal desktops that are appropriate for primary
schools, Linpus seems to be just another approach that could teach us
some things:

http://www.linpus.com/xampp/webmaster/Products/Linux9.4Lite.htm

There is also a live CD, but originaly the system aims at small systems
like classmate or eeepc, I think.

In this area, sugar might be more interesting - but it's always good to
look beyond one's own nose.

Regards
Ralf


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[José "L. Redrejo" Rodríguez]

El jue, 10-07-2008 a las 20:39 +0200, RalfGesellensetter escribió:

> Hi there,
>
> when looking for minimal desktops that are appropriate for primary
> schools, Linpus seems to be just another approach that could teach us
> some things:
>
> http://www.linpus.com/xampp/webmaster/Products/Linux9.4Lite.htm
>
> There is also a live CD, but originaly the system aims at small systems
> like classmate or eeepc, I think.
>
> In this area, sugar might be more interesting - but it's always good to
> look beyond one's own nose.
>

I'm not totally with you on this: sugar is good for primary schools, but
it's too childish for secondary schools. OTOH sugar is good when you
have a not too big number of users concurrently. Imagine my secondary
schools with 400 or 600 computers on, trying to show in the screen the
buddies of all the users.

I do think we must re-think the educational desktop. Current desktop is
totally office-oriented. In my experience, I've seen teachers that after
four years of "using" the computers have never seen most of the things
contained in the menus.They only click on the apps or icons that are one
click (or two, no more) away. The menu branch that opens from the lower
(or upper pannel) and has a lot of branches is ok for people used to
computers and other non-free systems, they are used to menus with
several levels of submenus. For newcomers, they just ignore most of that
stuff. I've used linpus on an Acer One and I like it, also the Desktop
we did for primary schools was pretty succesful because ther was some
animated bars with the main apps one click away. I do think that if we
use the computers to teach computing, current desktop is ok, but if we
use computers for the students to learn everything, current desktop is
not the best option.
Obviously, I'd like to get more feedback about this, because I'm
planning to spend some time this summer working on new ideas for the
desktop.

Regards.

[Holger Levsen-2]

Hi,

On Friday 11 July 2008 12:53, José L. Redrejo Rodríguez wrote:
> Obviously, I'd like to get more feedback about this, because I'm
> planning to spend some time this summer working on new ideas for the
> desktop.

I'm looking forward to see your ideas implemented.

:)


regards,
        Holger

[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 12:58:22PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
>Hi,
>
>On Friday 11 July 2008 12:53, José L. Redrejo Rodríguez wrote:
>> Obviously, I'd like to get more feedback about this, because I'm
>> planning to spend some time this summer working on new ideas for the
>> desktop.
>
>I'm looking forward to see your ideas implemented.

I am looking forward to hear/read about your ideas even as vague drafts!

:-)


  - Jonas

- --
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: [phone]  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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[RalfGesellensetter]

Am Freitag 11 Juli 2008 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
> I am looking forward to hear/read about your ideas even as vague
> drafts!

Hi Jonas,

BTW: does goPlay imply the option to launch installed apps?
This could be a real option for beginners...

@José:
Thanks for your promising statements ;)

Kind regards
Ralf


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[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 07:32:33PM +0200, RalfGesellensetter wrote:
>BTW: does goPlay imply the option to launch installed apps?
>This could be a real option for beginners...

Sorry, I don't understand above sentence - could you please rephrase?


  - Jonas

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* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: [phone]  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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[RalfGesellensetter]

Am Samstag 12 Juli 2008 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
> >BTW: does goPlay imply the option to launch installed apps?
> >This could be a real option for beginners...
>
> Sorry, I don't understand above sentence - could you please rephrase?

Okay, sorry for being too brief.

Imagine goLearn (sic!) running. Imagine you open the information
for "gcompris" (screenshot, info text). Now, are there plans to enable
the user to run gcompris (the currently active application in goLearn)
right from goLearn (if installed that is)?

This way, goLearn (or its succeeder) could replace the K-Menu and become
a central element of our educational desktop.

Hopefully, this was comprehensive.
Thanks,
regards
Ralf


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[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 02:13:15PM +0200, RalfGesellensetter wrote:

>Am Samstag 12 Juli 2008 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
>> >BTW: does goPlay imply the option to launch installed apps?
>> >This could be a real option for beginners...
>>
>> Sorry, I don't understand above sentence - could you please rephrase?
>
>Okay, sorry for being too brief.
>
>Imagine goLearn (sic!) running. Imagine you open the information
>for "gcompris" (screenshot, info text). Now, are there plans to enable
>the user to run gcompris (the currently active application in goLearn)
>right from goLearn (if installed that is)?
>
>This way, goLearn (or its succeeder) could replace the K-Menu and become
>a central element of our educational desktop.

Do you mean that you would like a "Start this application" button added
to the GoPlay! application browser (and its variations too in recent
incarnations, like GoLearn!, GoAdmin!, GoOffice! and others)?

If so, then I think that is an excellent idea (also because I got that
same idea back when I initially tried GoPlay!).  I suggest you file a
bugreport against the goplay Debian package proposing such button.

If you meant something else, then sorry for being thickheaded: Please
try rephrasing again :-/


>Hopefully, this was comprehensive.

I hope so too :-)


  - Jonas

- --
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: [phone]  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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[Andreas Tille]

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

> Do you mean that you would like a "Start this application" button added
> to the GoPlay! application browser (and its variations too in recent
> incarnations, like GoLearn!, GoAdmin!, GoOffice! and others)?

I think there is one problem inbetween which might block this function:
There is no guarantee that the program in question is installed and you
can not know whether the user has the right permissions to install the
package.

If sudo is configured properly goWhatever! could perhaps learn from
auto-apt.  For those who never heard about auto-apt: This is a quite
cool thing if you are at a booth on some exhibitions a user drops in
and wants to know whether Debian has program X.  Assumed you just did

      sudo auto-apt update

you can open an auto-apt shell

      auto-apt -x -y

and the just call the program in question.  If the program is not
yet installed auto-apt searches the list of all executables in the
Debian pool and if it finds X it installs the package including the
dependencies and then starts the program.  I did so on a booth and
the user was not able to close his mouth until the program was fired
up in pure astonishment what is possible in Debian. ;-)

So back to the topic: There is some technique available to install and
fire up a not yet installed programm which might be a needed feature
for you plan.

On the other hand I would reall like to see the screenshot feature
of goWhatever! in synaptic or other graphical installers.  As Ralf
wrote on debian-devel [1] this would require a repository of screenshots.
I also would immediately include this into the tasks web pages.

It seems that this is like always: It's a good idea, we just need
somebody who implements it ...

Kind regards

          Andreas.


[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/06/msg00724.html
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[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 03:38:26PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>
>> Do you mean that you would like a "Start this application" button
>> added to the GoPlay! application browser (and its variations too in
>> recent incarnations, like GoLearn!, GoAdmin!, GoOffice! and others)?
>
> I think there is one problem inbetween which might block this
> function: There is no guarantee that the program in question is
> installed and you can not know whether the user has the right
> permissions to install the package.

GoPlay! has a switch at the top to select if you want to look only at
packages installed or all packages installable.  So the software knows,
and can thus show the "Start this application" button only when
relevant.

...and show an "Install this application" button otherwise.  But as you
wrote, this quickly gets more complicated, and should thus be optional
IMO.


But really I'd like for discussions like this to take place at some
bugreport filed against GoAdmin rather than this edu mailinglist.


  - Jonas

- --
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: [phone]  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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[José "L. Redrejo" Rodríguez]

El vie, 11-07-2008 a las 13:59 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard escribió:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 12:58:22PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >On Friday 11 July 2008 12:53, José L. Redrejo Rodríguez wrote:
> >> Obviously, I'd like to get more feedback about this, because I'm
> >> planning to spend some time this summer working on new ideas for the
> >> desktop.
> >
> >I'm looking forward to see your ideas implemented.
>
> I am looking forward to hear/read about your ideas even as vague drafts!

They are only some ideas on my head by now, I'll try to translate them
into words, but in brief I try to merge these things I've seen
experienced:
- Teachers who don't have almost experience with computers or who have
begun to use them recently, trend to use only the web browser, and in
some cases, OpenOffice: so using a web ui might help (Yes, I remember
how most people disabled that option in the W'98 Desktop ten years ago)
- I don't want it to consume too many resources (karamba, gdesklets, etc
need to load a bunch of libraries, that slow down the Desktop starting
in low resource computers, and steal several megabytes of memory)
- I think that a tab-based desktop is more friendly for students or
teachers that a menu with several levels.
- I'd like to follow the freedesktop standard, so current .desktop files
should be used, not reinventing the weel
- Eye candy is also important, and I'm not good at doing it, but have a
very good designer working with me and there are more people in this
list ;-)
- I'd like it to be easy to switch between the traditional desktop and
the new one, for people who are already used to the office paradigm.
- It should be friendly with the desktop the user has: kde, gnome, xfce
or whatever else.

More ideas are very welcome, now I'm just digging into previous
experiments or experiences and trying to get a good way to do it with
low resources use. I haven't advance too much up to now, I was waiting
my vacation time to do it :-)

Regards.
José L.

[José "L. Redrejo" Rodríguez]

El dom, 13-07-2008 a las 15:38 +0200, Andreas Tille escribió:

> On Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>
> > Do you mean that you would like a "Start this application" button added
> > to the GoPlay! application browser (and its variations too in recent
> > incarnations, like GoLearn!, GoAdmin!, GoOffice! and others)?
>
> I think there is one problem inbetween which might block this function:
> There is no guarantee that the program in question is installed and you
> can not know whether the user has the right permissions to install the
> package.
>
> If sudo is configured properly goWhatever! could perhaps learn from
> auto-apt.  For those who never heard about auto-apt: This is a quite
> cool thing if you are at a booth on some exhibitions a user drops in
> and wants to know whether Debian has program X.  Assumed you just did
>
>       sudo auto-apt update
>
> you can open an auto-apt shell
>
>       auto-apt -x -y
>
> and the just call the program in question.  If the program is not
> yet installed auto-apt searches the list of all executables in the
> Debian pool and if it finds X it installs the package including the
> dependencies and then starts the program.  I did so on a booth and
> the user was not able to close his mouth until the program was fired
> up in pure astonishment what is possible in Debian. ;-)
>
> So back to the topic: There is some technique available to install and
> fire up a not yet installed programm which might be a needed feature
> for you plan.
>
> On the other hand I would reall like to see the screenshot feature
> of goWhatever! in synaptic or other graphical installers.  As Ralf
> wrote on debian-devel [1] this would require a repository of screenshots.
> I also would immediately include this into the tasks web pages.
>
> It seems that this is like always: It's a good idea, we just need
> somebody who implements it ...
>

That's something I talked some time ago with Enrico Zini, Holger and
Miriam Ruiz: joining debtags
(http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/ssearch.html ), the repository of
screenshots and aptlinex you'd have it all. When we talked about it, it
was not possible as aptlinex depends on gambas and gambas was only
available in i386. Nowadays that limitation has disappeared...

Regards.
José L.

[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 04:38:45PM +0200, José L. Redrejo Rodríguez wrote:
>> >On Friday 11 July 2008 12:53, José L. Redrejo Rodríguez wrote:
>> >> Obviously, I'd like to get more feedback about this, because I'm
>> >> planning to spend some time this summer working on new ideas for
>> >> the desktop.

>They are only some ideas on my head by now, I'll try to translate them
>into words, but in brief I try to merge these things I've seen
>experienced:
>- Teachers who don't have almost experience with computers or who have
>begun to use them recently, trend to use only the web browser, and in
>some cases, OpenOffice: so using a web ui might help (Yes, I remember
>how most people disabled that option in the W'98 Desktop ten years ago)
>- I don't want it to consume too many resources (karamba, gdesklets, etc
>need to load a bunch of libraries, that slow down the Desktop starting
>in low resource computers, and steal several megabytes of memory)
>- I think that a tab-based desktop is more friendly for students or
>teachers that a menu with several levels.
>- I'd like to follow the freedesktop standard, so current .desktop files
>should be used, not reinventing the weel
>- Eye candy is also important, and I'm not good at doing it, but have a
>very good designer working with me and there are more people in this
>list ;-)
>- I'd like it to be easy to switch between the traditional desktop and
>the new one, for people who are already used to the office paradigm.
>- It should be friendly with the desktop the user has: kde, gnome, xfce
>or whatever else.
>
>More ideas are very welcome, now I'm just digging into previous
>experiments or experiences and trying to get a good way to do it with
>low resources use. I haven't advance too much up to now, I was waiting
>my vacation time to do it :-)

Thanks alot for the inspiring input, José!


  - Jonas

- --
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: [phone]  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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