ConFigures

Etoys in Space OLPC Usability

After my last post, a friend pointed me to usability big guy Jakob Nielsen’s online writings on Heuristic Evaluation, and I looked them over and passed specific links on to Mike Lee, organizing our “Code Jam”. I’ve mentioned Nielsen here before. I think the ideas they had did help some of us in testing the NASA learning tools on the XOs; I know the review beforehand was useful for me.

Mike Lee wrote up our day in email and I’ll link as soon as it’s online (photos are up already), but in short, we tested and provided feedback on 5 of their activities. I worked on the GIS activity.

Etoys are powerful. I can see the good they (it?) can be put to. They encourage exploration. I think I may generally prefer a more linear approach to master a subject than Etoys in Space offer, but I’m not the target audience. On this note, see also Greg DeKoenigsberg’s recent post about disruptive technology, learning, education (not always the same thing), and OLPC-esque possibilities. I’ve seen this positive use of “disruptive” more and more in the last year or so. GDK’s entry discusses ways to get around resistance to the disruption … assuming one buys into the goals.