[sword-devel] Most 3rd world children can learn a little Python but not a huge C++ Re: OLPC interest still?

Sat Jan 19 06:01:11 MST 2008

If you want a project in the 3rd world 
to be a success, involve the local people from the start and at 
every phase possible instead of just handing them something.  
I have said it before, Most 3rd world children can learn Python,
but C++ is unrealistic.  

Olpc has inspired the Asus Eee, the classmate, and many other 
imitations and innovations.  When can we get a group of sword-devel 
people to be inspired with what we should have been working 
together to do a long time ago?  The Bible has plenty of 
linguistics, psychology, sociology, and other educational 
materials.  When can we get a team as interested in these things 
as sword-devel has been interested in searching words in commentaries, 
and dictionaries?  A few suggestions have been made on this list 
for text to speech and other things which could be of great benefit 
to 3rd world children.  Now that we have two versions of the sword 
available on Python, let's move on to more important things.

Pycon.org registration is open for staff now and will be open 
for everyone soon.  There will be a OLPC tutorial March 13 and 
then some talks.  From March 15 p.m. until March 20 there will 
be OLPC development sprints.  Last year I was told that anyone 
with decades of experience in the third world was not needed 
and that experience in team leadership was plan B.  With such 
attitudes, OLPC may continue to make less impact than their 
excellent technology deserves.  Perhaps the same could be said 
for many other excellent technologies.

Anyone who is interested in technology and serving children should 
keep on showing their interest on this list.  I was able to work 
with the Rapier developer one weekend in Paris.  Because he knew 
a lot of things I did not know how to do and because I understood 
some things he did not, we were able to do something that neither 
one of us could have done alone.  Anyone who can go to Chicago 
for pycon.org largest regional meeting in March should do so.  
Everyone else who is interested should sprint with us via eMail 
and IRC.  It costs money to dispose of computers in Europe.  It 
is better to send them to me in Indonesia.  If people will help 
to develop the appropriate studies in Python and Scala we can 
help many children and adults.  OLPC here would be great.  But 
we can do a lot with other technologies as long as they are not 
dependent on C++, huge data files, and things that are not 
realistic for the undeveloping part of the 3rd world.  BTW please 
Google Nias site: TheJakartaPost.com and see how much progress 
has been made among the hardest hit tsunami/earthquake victims 
after 3+ years and the largest foreign contributions ever given 
to a 3rd world country.  The Jakarta Post says there is still 
traffic of children, 1.2 million children drop out of school 
each year, and the majority of the houses have not yet been 
rebuilt so many people are still living in tents.  Nias, the predominatly 
Christian island is worse off than Muslim areas that got more 
aid.  But I am still working in Muslim areas with people who 
live still with great trauma and little hope for the future 
although they again have a brick home.

I will be at Pycon in Chicago.  But please contact me and others 
who are interested if you really want to do something appropriate 
for 3rd world children.
Johnny Stovall - a volunteer 
The Dr. Stovall Foundation 

--- "Zachary M. Oglesby" <zoglesby at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am still learning Python but I think this is a great idea. OLPC is
> designed for children in developing nations and that would be a great
> resource for  people  trying to spread  God's word to them.
> 
> On Jan 14, 2008 12:38 PM, DJ Ortley <djortley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Having started at least one of those conversations, I still mildly
> > have an interest.  Especially as I've learned Python since then. :)
> >
> > It seemed that the conversation ended with people thinking the intent
> > was to get sword stuck on the the laptops before they ship, which
> > obviously isn't going to happen (and definatly weren't my original
> > thoughts.)
> >
> > As I said, I'm still mildly interested, but I don't know how involved
> > I can be in the short term as I have many other plates spinning (and
> > falling down.)
> >
> > -DJ
> >
> >
> > On Jan 14, 2008 10:02 AM, Jason Galyon <jtgalyon at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > There were various conversations in the past relating to Bible related
> > > software for the One Laptop Per Child or XO project.  I would like to
> > > start the discussion back up if anyone is interested.
> > >
> > > At my local Python Users Group meeting (http://dfwpython.org) we had
> > > three of the units and played around with them including messing with
> > > the mesh networking and collaborative activities.
> > >
> > > These are very cool, I can't say enough good about them.
> > >
> > > While large amounts of text are out due to storage (and RAM) is there
> > > interest in developing client or server software for and lesson
> > > management applications?
> > >
> > > For example, you could still have bible reading assignments (including
> > > the follow along in the class) using either the browser or just the
> > > normal pyGTK interface receiving its information from the class (school)
> > > server.
> > >
> > > There have been some great ideas generated already however having seen
> > > some of these, I can say that the potential for teaching the world the
> > > Word is limitless.  Combining these with general education setup
> > > missions would be a great boon for witnessing.
> > >
> > > Some resources:
> > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home - general website
> > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developers - development info
> > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_with_sugar-jhbuild - development
> > > checkout of the sugar environment
> > >
> > > note that with sugar, you have the latest development versions available
> > > (my preference) with sugar-jhbuild, downloadable packages for many
> > > platforms, and vm images such as for VMWare, Parallels, and QEMU.
> > >
> > > Download a copy and see what the potential is!
> > >
> > > Jason
> > >
> > >
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