Design for Isolated and Inexperienced user base

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

I'll preface this by saying I have a meeting schedule for Monday where
I should get some clarifications abou the project as a whole.

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 11:02:46AM -0800, Susan Addington wrote:

:Software:
:For middle grades math (ages 10 and up) the spreadsheet can be very  
:valuable for making the transition from arithmetic to algebra. (This  
:isn't very well known, but I'm working on it.) And a dynamic geometry  
:program: I think that GeoGebra does the best job of any software,  
:even commercial ones, for connecting geometry and algebra. Apparently  
:java needs to be installed separately (from what I have heard from  
:this list.) The drawing programs are also good for various things in  
:math.

Thanks I'll checkout GeoGebra, and consider the promenence of a
spreadsheet application.

:But, again, it's hard to say without knowing the people. Do they have  
:lots of paper and pencil? Slates and chalk? Pocket calculators?  

That's the key,a nd what I hope to get from my Monday meeting

:I  
:notice that 95% of the adult population is literate (according to the  
:CIA website.)

There's also been a long history of coups, which I found surprising.
The latest was on 2000 and the investigations and trials are still
very much in the news http://www.fijitimes.com on any given day
usually has a headline relating to it.  So tehre's some other back
story that I don't fully understand from here.

Hopefully I'll have more information and more specific questions next
week.

Thanks all for your help thus far.
-Jon