Design for Isolated and Inexperienced user base

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 10:44:35AM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote:

:It also runs very nicely on Thinkpads :)

:Just check that the suspend on lid close works fine, some IBM's only
:work with APM, and others just with ACPI.

Good point hadn't tested that yet,  but power management is rather
crucial here.


:On the simplification of UI/desktop, I suppose these computers will be
:used by individuals, and when used by learners, it will be done under
:supervision? If so, it helps to simplify the login process. I suggest
:you either use an automated GDM or KDM logon, or have a few passwordless
:guest accounts for guest users (advertise this on the GDM login screen).
:It also helps to make the task bar slightly bigger, and adding shortcuts
:to applications you expect them to use regularly. Here's a screenshot
:from a typical guest account you would find in a tuXlab. (we name our
:guest users tux1 - tux50). It's likely that future Edubuntu versions
:will have an intelligent guest login, where it will create a user for
:you when you click on guest user in LDM, and then delete it again when
:the user logs out.

That validates my thinking.  My current plan is to have "student" auto
logon initially but not after zapping the X server (ie
CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE will get a GDM login screen), and have an additional
"teacher" account with  sudo privileges.  

My (perhaps erroneous) understanding is that there are eight school
houses and each will be receiving a single laptop.  The island is
about 460 km² with a total population of 15k, so I assume these are
basicly single room mixed level schools, but I really don't know. 

Populating the desktop is a key question, what should go there (I'm
leaning toward home directory, gcompris, tux-math, openoffice.org)

:Lots of documentation helps, especially on the simple stuff. How far
:apart would these users be from each other? What might help is to have
:them set up monthly meetings where they get together and share tips and
:tricks. Helping them set up a LUG might work very well, too.

They seem close by my standards but I don't know what the
transportation infrastructure is like.  Taveuni is 42Km in it's longest
dimension, which is a short drive but a very long walk.

I'm a bit concerned that the well meaning folks who've proposed this
donation haven't thought through how to really make use of the
resources we're handing out.   I'm hoping they have, but given my
rather vague marching orders... 

Are there any teachers out there who have lesson plans the use
Edubuntu programs?  Printed documentation is key as initially I don't
expect the educators or the learners to have comfort with electronic
documentation and internet access is likely years away.  The laptops
are being delivered by a professor and the director of computational
infastructure (my boss), so there will be some initial basic training
of the educators , after that I don't know.

Oh did I mention that this is all meant to ship out the first week of
April?  

Worst case maybe I'll need to fly out to Fiji to run additional
training, there are worse things.

-Jon