Having thrown around a few initial impressions about the OLPC XOs, I thought I would take a more in-depth look at the user interface and some of the activities kids can engage in. And I have a couple of comments about their durability and adjustable screens.
Before I get into the Sugar user interface and activities, I'd like to revisit the issue of using the XOs outside, as well as talk about their durability. I took my XO outside in direct sunlight at high Noon, and read a colorful PDF file with no problems. The screen switches from color mode to black and white mode automatically. Or at least, I didn't do anything special to adjust the screen. I did get glare when I adjusted the screen to catch the sun head-on, but my assumption is that most students will probably adjust their screen so that there is no glare. Actually, even with some glare, I could read the text fairly easily.
As for their durability, I decided to abuse mine a little bit. I wasn't willing to risk damaging the machine outright, as I still have to work with a handful of children. That means I need a working machine. Still, a 30" drop from my dining room table onto a carpeted floor is a little risky. With the laptop opened up, ears extended, I gave it a bit of a nudge. I watched as it hit and tumbled. It fell screen-first, with the ears simply folding up as they hit the floor. Nothing broke. The screen did not even blink. I just picked it up and kept working. I also did it while it was turned off and closed up. It booted up just fine. If you're interested in supplying some of these for more serious crash testing, I'll be happy to put them through the ringer.
The Sugar UI's desktop consists of an XO figure in the middle of what I call a pineapple ring. This is surrounded by a vanishing frame. Just beneath the pineapple ring is a set of indicators for showing the battery and network connection (wifi signal) strength. The top of the frame gives you access to the network (neighborhood), groups, desktop, and the highlighted activity. The bottom frame gives you access to the various activities.
Launching the neighborhood tool from the top frame takes you to a page where you can see other XOs, wifi Internet connections, and other potential connections. From there, you can normally click one to connect to it. As I understand it, you have to choose between connecting to the Internet or to the mesh network with other XOs. In my experience, you can still connect to other users while connected to the Internet, and it appears that the idea behind the mesh is that at least one of the XOs (or the school server) will have Internet access, with the others feeding through that.
After initially connecting manually to my home wifi (just by clicking on the connection from the Neighborhood view), I can now simply boot up and hit the web, without any further manual connection efforts. As I was saying, I was able to share the Write activity between the two laptops while one was connected to the Internet. Groups apparently are the active connections with other XOs. Thus, you can choose to share an activity with other XO users in your group (people you are already sharing activities with), or with those in the larger neighborhood.
The chat activity and mozilla-based web browser are no-frills tools, but do their jobs well enough. My biggest complaint about the chat client is that it does not seem to include any kind of contact or favorites list. Instead, you have to first start the chat client, share it, and then go back to the neighborhood (or group) view, to invite someone to chat. The browser gives you a bookmark function, but I have yet to figure out how to access saved bookmarks, other than through the journal. I assume this is related to the security concerns, much like the inability to open documents from within an application. Still, it's a bit aggravating for those who are at least somewhat familiar with how most web clients work. Of course, to those who do not, it makes no difference.
On the bright side, students can access most web content, download and read PDF files, listen to Ogg-Vorbis feeds, and so on. And that chat client does work. As I said in my previous post, I have my gripes, but they are mostly minor issues. These gripes are likely most important to people like me, who already have access to good technology. I really don't believe that children growing up with XOs will somehow feel traumatized by having to learn some new tricks when they do gain access to more commonly used programs.
The Abiword-based Write activity is fairly straight forward. It's difficult to gripe about a word processor that can save documents in RTF, HTML and plain text. It would be nice to have ODF capability, but for most educational situations involving young children, the format is largely irrelevant. What is important is whether children can learn to write/type - to spell and put sentences together. They need to know when and how to use emphasis, graphics and tables in writing. Write lets them do exactly that.
Of course, most people with access to modern technology might expect to see these children printing out their documents. Well, as expensive as ink is here, I can only imagine what it might cost elsewhere. And then there's the cost of the paper. In developing countries, it's much cheaper and easier to just let the children save their documents without printing them. Actually, I only use my own printer for printing downloaded forms or maps. I rarely print anything any more. One can always save the documents to a USB drive and print them from a computer with a printer. But you can install and configure CUPS if you really need to print. Most schools probably won't even give their students direct access to a printer - not even in here in the US.
I would like to finish up with the XOs multimedia capability. It's really cool to have a webcam, and to be able to take quick snapshots and record audio. I think it's important for children to have access to this kind of technology, since it will very likely become ubiquitous over time. While snapshots look pretty good, in my opinion, I think the video recording quality is fairly low. It works, but just barely. While it is by no means a show-stopper for me, it is a bit disappointing.
The only issue I have with the audio recording capability is that children had better get a microphone if they intend to record their voices. Well, they could shout, which is about what you have to do to be able to hear yourself on playback. If schools rely on the built-in mic, I hope they also provide the teachers with plenty of headache medicine. Again, not really a show-stopper, but I warned that I do have my gripes about these XOs. In the grand scheme of things, it's great that they have given the children the ability to record their voices. I just hope they can improve the multimedia capabilities in due time.
I have discussed using the XOs in sunlight and their durability, as well as the first four activities included with these machines. I will cover some more XO activities in my next post. Stay tuned!
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