[Olpc-open] Educational XHTML Editor Educational Game Maker

Fri May 21 05:38:39 EDT 2010

On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 19:50, Mike Dawson <mikeofmanchester at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear David,
>
> Thanks for your email.  Will definitely try and put together an .xo
> activity for the version of eXe learning as it is now - should work.
>
> As a tool for the teachers and publishing to the school server -
> indeed would be nice and would be possible.  eXe can indeed make
> potential content producers far more productive.  I would rather stick
> with those junior officers in deployments and hire them rather than
> loading the job onto already overloaded teachers (or at least they are
> in our case).
>
> I guess one of the points of using eXe is that when you create content
> it is not tied to any specific platform - it will run on an android
> phone, web browser on any other computer etc.
>
> What you can expect is a compatibility drive.  It would be possible to
> make it export files to .xol for adding to the library automatically
> or indeed to making an activity .xo file directly from exe learning.
> You can also expect additional learning interaction formats to be
> added.
>
> I could definitely use help with pushing eXe further into the
> community - documentation, wikis tutorials etc. would be most useful
> indeed.   The more people using it and providing testimonials the
> better.  And what really matters is the more people creating
> interactive educational content - the better!

Hi, does it relate in any way with karma.js?

http://karmaeducation.org/

Regards,

Tomeu

> Regards,
>
> -Mike
>
> On 20 May 2010 04:01, David Leeming <david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
>> Mike,
>>
>> I have followed eXe Learning since it started, developed by Wayne Mackintosh
>> who later on, of course, created the WikiEducator and is a leading champion
>> of OERs. I can instantly see that eXe Learning if installed on the XOs would
>> be a very useful tool. Very easy to train teachers to become productive
>> quickly, compared with, say, online wiki work, which is not always an option
>> (yes we can install mediawiki on the XS but I think eXe Learning has
>> specific advantages in some areas). It is very well targeted technology,
>> thinking of the OLPC deployments in which I have been involved. As an
>> example, in a distance learning programme here in Solomons in 2007 we
>> converted examples of teacher training resources into online format using
>> eXe Learning, in order to demonstrate simple first steps in e-learning to
>> the Ministry. A junior officer with only basic office computing skills was
>> able to migrate the entire RTC teacher training manuals to online with
>> limited supervision - and she enjoyed it too!
>>
>> Of course, the resources produced with eXe Learning are HTML based which are
>> easy to install in public folders on the XS. eXe Learning can also output
>> SCORMs which can be loaded into the XS's Moodle as appropriate.
>>
>> If we had access to an eXe Learning activity I would immediately incorporate
>> it into the teacher training that we do in Pacific Islands deployments.
>> Empowering teachers to create and share resources is always a key component
>> of Level 2/3 training, linked to curriculum integration. OERs have massive
>> potential for the Pacific. Educators have repeatedly called for more
>> regionally relevant and localisable curriculum related content, and
>> empowerment of front line teachers to create OERs is the way to scalability
>> - freeing up the dependence on overworked curriculum departments locked into
>> traditional closed authoring approaches with long term donor programmes.
>> Resources created with eXe Learning by teachers with XOs will therefore have
>> a wide currency beyond the OLPC project areas which are still only small
>> scale. They can be shared and used freely.
>>
>> So, I will watch this thread carefully. I would like to help, if not as an
>> active team member on the coding, in other ways. What is the status of this,
>> can we expect an eXe Learning project for Sugar and the XO?
>>
>> One requirement would be to be able to create a resource using the "eXe
>> Learning" activity, name and save in journal, then to be able to upload it
>> to the server so that it is installed as a public folder (or via "site
>> files" etc) but without any difficult command line work needed on the
>> server. So needs to be coordined with XS-devel.
>>
>> David Leeming
>> Honiara, Solomon Islands
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: devel-bounces at lists.laptop.org [mailto:devel-bounces at lists.laptop.org]
>> On Behalf Of Mike Dawson
>> Sent: Tuesday, 18 May 2010 6:53 a.m.
>> To: olpc-open; Developers List
>> Subject: Educational XHTML Editor Educational Game Maker
>>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> One of the greatest challenges here in deployments has been to create
>> sufficient curriculum *interactive* educational content.  Though
>> Scratch and Etoys are great for simulators for many common educational
>> interaction formats (e.g. assemble objects, click in place according
>> to hint in order, memory match, hangman, sorting items etc) using such
>> tools can be quite awkward.
>>
>> eXe Learning was created as a GUI educational XHTML Editor with
>> support for fill in the blank question formats, multi choice, multi
>> select etc.  I have created plugins for Place the objects / label
>> (e.g. assembling parts / labelling a diagram), Click in place
>> according to a hint, sort objects, hangman, memory match, moving
>> object speed answer (e.g. Tuxmath) and sort.  The output is generated
>> as HTML / Javascript which can run online or offline.  I've also
>> created a plugin for embedding Scratch using the Scratch Java player
>> with an option for the user to download.
>>
>> There are many repositories of open content; however many of them fail
>> to harness the potential of ICT as an interactive medium.  Hopefully
>> further lowering the barrier can help to create more.  This can make
>> it far easier to turn existing open static content into interactive
>> educational content.
>>
>> Compared to conventional Javascript / Flash / EToys development this
>> dramatically increases the amount of educational interactive content
>> that can be produced by given teams in a given amount of time.  It
>> also can help make creation of interactive educational material far
>> easier for educators by templating the kind of interaction they would
>> like to produce and allowing them to just plug in the questions,
>> answers, images, options of the game etc.
>>
>> For many parts of the curriculum the best course of action can be to
>> embed already created Scratch simulators from the Scratch website
>> (e.g. physics sims).  With eXe Learning + plugins one can produce a
>> complete interactive package that opens in the browser.  I am hoping
>> to develop a roleplay and generic simple simulator creator in the near
>> future.
>>
>> I have also updated the HTML Editor to enable it to create HTML 5
>> Audio and Video tags for embedding media.
>>
>> Comments/ Feedback most welcome.  The plugins are still 'bleeding
>> edge'...  Will soon get the sourceforge project properly taken care of
>> so that bugs / QA can be taken care of.
>>
>> For now see http://www.paiwastoon.af/eldep
>>
>> Regards from Afghanistan,
>>
>> -Mike
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>>
>>
>>
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