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

Greg Smith gregsmitholpc at gmail.com
Tue Jul 8 10:05:51 EDT 2008


Hi Tarun,

Let's simplify and put the option to add a blog on the teacher page. 
That takes out the admin role and hopefully simplifies things down to 
two roles and two main pages: Teacher and Student

Looks like we have some kind of issue with the server. I'll try to get 
that ironed out ASAP and try to get a sys admin lead person to get it 
ready for you.

Do one last round of edits on your free hosted site then let me know 
when you are ready for comment. Make sure to tell me what kind of 
comments will be useful (AKA what is likely to be the same and what will 
change).

We're down to the wire here. Sorry the development server is not ready. 
Will try to iron that out ASAP.

Let's get the HTML integrated with Moodle then deal with Auth last. My 
main concern is that we will run without ecurity during the beta test. 
My fall back will be to come up with an ACL - like blocking solution on 
the server if Tony has time to work on that in August. Don't sweat it 
right now, let's get the GUI nailed first.

Thanks,

Greg S

Tarun Pondicherry wrote:
> 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
> 


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