Re: Burrokeet presentation

Allan Samaroo wrote:
> Anil Ramnanan wrote:
> 
>>> Spend time on the problem *before* spending time on the solution. I 
>>> have to admit that I thought you already identified the problem, but 
>>> it seems that Anil is trying to get agreement on that in this email, 
>>> thus implying that it hasn't been done before.
>>
>>
>>
>> The intial problem definied was that of providing a website for the 
>> school. 
> 
> 
> Not quite.  This is a problem to be addressed by the website project 
> when the time comes.

Sorry, what is the difference between these two statements?

> 
>> Burrokeet was identified as a good tool for that job with the 
>> potential of becoming much more. 
> 
> 
> This is correct, but (unfortuately) may not apply in all cases.

Can you please expand on this, we do not all have the background 
understanding you have and therefore do not know what these exception 
cases are. Please define them so that we can better understand the problem.

>  > The discussion was intended to be about
> 
>> presenting Burrokeet to staff at the school in a manner that would not 
>> be too technical and scare them off.  After the discussions, I think 
>> that the approach that we should take should focus on the website in a 
>> way that would make it look less like were were pushing a tool and 
>> more like we were solving a problem. I just want to see if we all 
>> agree on this approach.
> 
> 
> Yes.  This was the point I was wanted to make before I had to leave. 
> Below are some reasons that will make it dificult for the school to want 
> to Burrokeet, and which is why I've said the presentation cannot be 
> technical if we're to succeed.  In our minds they may be of little or no 
> consequence, but it will matter to them.
> 
> 1. Cost of running a school.
> 2. Time it will take to maintain the online system.
> 3. Skills required to maintain the online system.
> 4. Availability of computers and the Internet, both at the school and 
> the homes of teachers and students.
> 5. Availability of content.

This is what we need. A definition of the problem. However can we have 
more details. I don't understand what each of these sentences means when 
taken in isolation, I (and I presume others) need some context. It may 
seem obvious to some, but to others who do not have the same background 
knowledge these are just generic sentences that each address a 
completely different problem:

1. refers to funding issues

2. and 3. refer to availability of in-house technical skills

4. refers to hardware access

5. refers to an extremely generic thing called "content", what is this 
content?

 >
 > Anyone feel can free to add to this list.

May I suggest drawing up a problem statement instead?. Point 4 was to be 
the focus of the original LTSP experiments and is also the focus of the 
work Richard Hamel-Smith has done with Shiva.

What exactly is it that you want Burrokeet to address? It cannot affect 
1 or 4. It can have some influence on 2 and 3, but we need to know what 
level of skill is available (saying non-technical is not helpful as in 
its truest from that means people like the Nigerian teachers we were 
recently working with who have never even seen a computer).

The real strength of Burrokeet is 5 as it deals with content. But what 
content do you want and what are you going to do with it.

Ross

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