[Server-devel] EduBlog: Requesting input on design of Preview and Remote Blog Admin Pages

[Tarun Pondicherry]

Hi Greg,

So far I have the admin page set up in moodle and working with OU Blog.  
Students can create a post and post it locally.  Teachers can then send 
that post to Blogger.com.  I still need to add image support and the 
option for students to send the blog directly to a remote blog.  There 
are a couple more bugs to work out but once that is done, we can demo 
the Moodle OU Blog version of the system.  Has the server been set up 
yet?  I'm not able to connect to edublog.venango.com.
> The only concerns are that the teacher and potentially other students 
> should have the chance to edit the post. As long as the teacher can 
> pick it up and review it too, doing the preview off a local file on XO 
> is OK.
Teachers will be able to edit the post.  I'm not sure if student editing 
is already in OU Blog or if I will need to add that.  It may be what the 
groups option is at the bottom.  I'll look into it.
> We need to nail down the work flow of student to teacher back to 
> student too. I'd like to add in an option of student to teacher to 
> other student if we can figure that out. Probably another featuere 
> creep idea.
I'd like to finish up the core features before working on this, but I'm 
adding to the list of things to do.  Is it critical for me to work on 
this before image support, direct student posting and IE support?
> On the admin page, I was thinking that the main thing is to allow 
> people to add blogs. That is, they go to a blog site (e.g. blogger.com 
> or moodle etc.), create a blog and then add for use in Edublog. Then 
> the teacher can choose from a  list of pre-configured blogs to use 
> with their class.
This is exactly what I have right now for the admin page and what I 
added to the blog creation page.
>
> That's the only thing that comes to mind on the admin page. We may be 
> able to get rid of that page entirely by just allowng teachers to 
> setup up blogs and enter them on their own page...
This makes little difference code wise (just check a different security 
param).  Let me know what you would rather have.
> I'm going to send this out for another round of review: 
> http://olpc.betarun.com/dev/ui/student_sp.php
Please wait until tomorrow.  I will have preview set up by then.
> I spoke to SJ last week and he wants to get some real blog posts from 
> real teachers online for demonstration ASAP. I think the gating factor 
> is the teacher page and the ability to add a blog. Let me know when 
> you think we can finish that.
I think Moodle OU Blog + EduBlog modifications will be ready in a week.  
I need the server to demo it on though (Moodle takes up too much space 
and I am running low for my hosting).
> I told SJ that you are working on integration with Moodle which will 
> bring us a whole collection of user auth and teacher <-> student 
> associations capabilities. Is that right?
Yes.  I won't be working on the final XS auth portion, but I think other 
people are already working on that.  If not, I can have a simple auth 
module for demo, but am weary of dealing with things involving security, 
unless someone knowledgeable in this area can help me directly.
> Let me know what else is on the critical path as we start the last few 
> weeks of the project.
Basically just getting that server online so I can upload the 
semi-working Moodle version.  I started highlighting things on the 
milestones list as they are finished.  Right now, an admin can set up 
blogs.  Teachers can set up the blog page and select a remote blog.  
Students can post to the local blog and teachers can push that out to a 
remote site.  I need to make the editor IE compatible, add image support 
from OU Blog --> Blogger.com and the send to teacher feature.  Preview 
is part of tinyMCE so that is basically done.  Then, there is the auth 
module to work on and fixing the theme to look better on the XO.  If you 
know anyone that could help me work on the theme, that would really 
speed things along and produce a better final result.

I think we are in good shape to have a decent looking functional version 
of the core features we discussed by end of July.  I am doubtful I can 
finish all of it earlier, but we can start a demo with student posting 
and teacher pushing to blogger earlier if it is helpful.

Thanks,
Tarun