[OLPC-Philippines] Fwd: An Opportunity to bring vital content to the Sugar/XO world - Needs technical help.

[rayb at apc.edu.ph]

Hi, Caroline,

----- Caroline Meeks <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I know you guys are aware of the need for content when you deploy.  Please
> take a look at this content and see if you think it will be useful in the
> Philippines.  If so, I'd appreciate a +1 on the IAEP to let them know you
> need it.
I was wondering what "basals" where, and in googling for the term found out that not everyone thinks they are a good thing: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_03/Bas153.shtml
But of course it's the teachers "in the trenches" who can really say.

> I know you guys also have a lot of technical talent if someone wants to work
> on this directly.
Here, I take it that you are referring to porting the TeacherMate Classroom Management System, as you say in your forwarded message:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Caroline Meeks <caroline at solutiongrove.com>
> Date: Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 3:27 PM
> Subject: An Opportunity to bring vital content to the Sugar/XO world - Needs
> technical help.
> To: iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>, XS Devel <server-devel at lists.laptop.org>,
> Community Support Volunteers -- who help respond t <
> support-gang at lists.laptop.org>
> 
> 
> We have an opportunity to bring a program of K-2 English Reading and Math
> content to our Sugar users for free.
> 
> http://www.innovationsforlearning.org/software_demo.php
> 
> Ignore the teachermate hardware and the $100 a machine price tag. The
> concept is we make this available for Sugar for free.  So if you have XOs or
> a machines you can use with Sugar on a Stick, you can use it for free.
> 
> If you watch the Classroom management video you'll see they have aligned it
> to major Basal Curriculum programs or it can be used without. It can
> differentiate instruction for groups and students.  This is vital
> functionality.  We need to port this to the Sugar world, probably by putting
> it on the XS, maybe as a module in Moodle. 
I agree that functionality like this (which is quite close to what's provided by Moodle) is useful whatever the instructional content.  So, APC accepts the challenge 8^).  I was looking at browser-based content development as something we at APC would be comfortable with and propose to work on under the Contributors Program, and this looks like it would fit right in.  Integration with the XO would have to wait until we have people up to speed on the technology involved.

I'll get together with some of our people and work up a proposal.

Servus,

Ray