[OLPC library] Content formats for the XS and XO

[S Page]

Martin Langhoff wrote:

> The XS is going to grow a "browse-and-download library content" leg
> sometime soon. It will be a facility that knows how to unpack and
> index the IMS-CP and SCORM metadata (which is all DublinCore stuff),
> and it'll be transparent to users how to browse, search and use any
> such content placed on the XS.
> ...
> My plan is to make that XS feature so that it can also automagically
> make a bundle for the XO to download -- after all, happiness is a warm
> bundle (  http://blog.laptop.org/2009/01/13/happiness-is-a-warm-bundle/
> ) :-)

Sounds great.  .xol bundles and the auto-expanding Library home page are 
great but Sugar-specific, so having your server create an appropriate 
bundle is worthwhile.  I guess if the server just noticed a request from 
a non-Sugar client, it could return a different mime type and possibly 
extension, and that would be enough for a non-Sugar client to get an 
plain ZIP file.

I just stumbled across http://sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/InfoSlicer 
(from its YouTube video!), which turns web pages into .xol bundles, the 
code is 
<http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/infoslicer/repos/mainline/blobs/master/Processing/Package_Creator.py>

> This also means that XS and XO can leverage the large existing pools
> of IMS-CP and SCORM content.

"SCORM", that takes me back to working at a company where the learning 
division kept saying "It's a billion dollar business!" (before exiting 
that business).  Does SCORM let me work through a course offline or 
online, a) taking a quiz to verify I've learned each "learning object" 
and b) keeping track of my progress?  It seems those functions are what 
a school would want to tack on to existing web-based curricula.  Back in 
the day I never got a straight answer whether there was an easy way to 
do this on our web site, even though we were selling the software. 
Judging from http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm/ , it remains opaque and confusing.

> That's my plan at least :-) -- no plan ever survives contact with reality.

Good luck with your efforts!  http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Roadmap 
doesn't match this rallying cry.

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=S Page