[Olpc-open] Educational XHTML Editor Educational Game Maker

[David Leeming]

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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