See this blog entry for what this page is all about. In short: design concepts and requirements for a Plasma layout for educational needs.
Try and keep thoughts in logical groups, and if there is discussion be sure to include your name with your thoughts.
Remember that this is a *brain storm* page. There are no wrong (or right) ideas or suggestions. The only wrong suggestions are ones that aren't ever shared with everyone here on the wiki. ;) We will sort through all the ideas *later* and separate out a set of design and implementation goals from the input gathered below.
Contents |
Because computers in schools are scarse, most of them are shared by several students at several moments. It would be nice if the desktop recognizes the user that is logged in, see to what group the user belongs (6year old, 7year old etc) and then shows a desktop that is best suited for this student. One can think of the following changes in the desktop:
--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.
-application icons for this student/group to start applications with one click (touch?). Only the applications are visible that are needed for this specific student/group
-wallpaper adapted to this student, --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.
-font sizes (6 year old need bigger fonts then 12 year olds. --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.
-number of desktops (one desktop for a 6 year old, 12 year can have multiple). --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.
For this to work there should be a possibility for a teacher to set the application per group (or even per student). As a teacher you can prepare the lessons in the evening by installing the icons and the only thing the students needs to do next morning is login and click the applications that are available.
as stated before the panel complexity should be adaptable to the capabilities of a student/group. Think of:
-number of available desktops
-shortcut buttons to common applications (firefox, or a browser targeted to small children)
-font sizes
--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 mimicing that it were moving further away. One could set the 3D perspective so that the desktop were flat, of course.
--Do the apple doc 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.
- KDE menu is very long and complicated looking, especially having 2x system and 2x settings. Try to find Konsole in one shot! See Projects/Plasma/AppsMenuReorganization
- Some Edu apps are buried under incomprehensible menu entries for younger kids (eg. edutainment/miscellaneous/)
- Kids very easily "damage" the panel - delete or move K button, move the whole panel to the side. I see this a lot.
- Minimised apps are too faint on the panel, and kids log out leaving them open. This leads to problems with OOo or Iceweasel "already running" errors.
- The open/save dialogues of non-KDE apps are different, using double-click, "browse for more folders", and other Gnome-isms that cause confusion.
You have a general description of the project here: http://www.grupocpd.com/archivos_documentos/info_meduxa/meduxa_project_released/#
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
This profile was oriented to pupils up to 8 years old. Many usability oriented configurations were made. In general, size of every element ha been increased and a strong selection of apps have also been made. Many of them didn't have a good behaviour when configured under kiosk mode.
The major desktop configurations were:
More configs were made.
The goal of this proposal is to create a simplified desktop experience for young students. The simplified desktop will hide the complex aspects of the current window manager and desktop work flow. It will present users with a simple list of applications, which they simply click to run. It should also come with a tool to allow teachers to quickly change the list of applications.
KDE TechBase 