[Server-devel] Drupal on OLPC? (Martin Langhoff)

Mon Mar 17 11:56:06 EDT 2008

I have looked on the wiki and find no mention of how moodle and mediawiki
are to be used on the school server.  Since my need is in providing an
in-class "website" for young children, I find drupal much closer to
providing what I think is needed than either moodle or mediawiki.  Perhaps
my inspection of the moodle website has not adequately found the optional
modules or customization that would allow what I need.  It appears far more
suitable as a tool for older kids and teachers.  But a wiki is certainly not
what I need.  My use cases map to a content management system such as Drupal
much better.  Specifically, I want to have an album made by the kids where
they can upload their photos from "record".  I have separately provided a
library cataloging application and done a book drive to give my target
school 800 or so books, which I have cataloged and want to display on their
classroom website dynamically and with an interface tailored to emerging
readers.  I have various documents aimed at teachers and administrators
which could presumably also work in moodle, but could be made more
attractive in a system like Drupal I belive.

Now, Martin may have a perfect counterexample to this (mis)understanding of
mine, and if so, please point to it.  Otherwise, it seems like some use case
gathering is needed before making a decision that moodle and mediawiki cover
all bases.

As to Sameer's taxonomy, it probably covers the OLPC-sponsored territory,
but to encompass small deployments not sponsored by OLPC, one needs to
consider cases like mine, where no access to live antennae is available.  So
in the school I will deploy in two weeks I am using a commercial access
point, but the number of xos is small (4).  Fast access to the net is
possible in general but must be heavily restricted for the kids.  I don't
expect OLPC to tailor networking solutions to my situation (I'm calling it
4/20s laptops per child), but I do think my need for an easy to build local
website  is transferrable to the general case.  Personally, I'd love a
drupal expert to configure it as an rpm for the server, so that it could be
cleanly and simply installed in the school server environment.

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 7:36 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:

> Greg Smith (gregmsmi) wrote:
> > Hi Martin et al,
> >
> > Its great you will be on this full time, congratulations! Wad is a tough
> > act to follow but you have a super education background and technical
> > savvy in general.
> >
> > I could use some direction on overall methodology of development and
> > support for the XS.
> >
> > I can think of three models but you may have others in mind too:
> > A - An appliance type offering where the school systems buy an XS from
> > OLPC, boots it, does some basic configuration then they're done.
> >
> > B - Schools buy a PC, install OS, XS image and maybe some other approved
> > modules (e.g. LAMP) then run a set of well defined and supported
> > applications.
> >
> > C - Take the base XS image, add any applications they need and run a
> > more general purpose server.
> >
> >
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> I've been thinking along the same lines, but at a slightly more abstract
> level. If you were to take two constraints (there are many more, but its
> easier to start with two): power and backhaul, then you can look at
> cases that combine these to some degree.
>
> For example:
>
> no grid + no backhaul = use case A
> unreliable grid + no backhaul = use case B
> reliable grid + limited backhaul = use case C
> reliable grid + good backhaul = use case D
>
> and so on.
>
> Then, there is another constraint, which is school size, so smaller
> schools may work with a single mesh, but larger ones may need APs. I
> haven't thought this through completely as yet, but I'm throwing it out
> there. If use cases can be defined first, based on these constraint
> combinations, then perhaps we can look at different server-side models
> such as small-footprint server on site (proxy) + larger server at colo
> (moodle+mediwiki, etc.), or all-in-one boxes on site
> (proxy+moodle+mediawiki+...), etc. that service one or more use cases.
>
> cheers,
> Sameer
>
> --
> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>
>
> > In all cases, what kind of support should deployments expect from OLPC
> > and the list in general? Which model should we design to?
> >
> > The current question may help clarify why I'm asking:
> >
> > - Uruguay wants to the kids and teachers to have tools for building web
> > sites. The current thinking on what they need is posted here:
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Learning_activities/Journalism
> >
> > Should they look to the XS for the full solution (Moodle/MediaWiki may
> > solve their challenge...) or plan to install XS image then add some code
> > to it or plan to use XS and then add completely different servers
> > somewhere else in the network?
> >
> > Another option is to not rely on the XS and do web site building on the
> > XO (e.g. browse directly out of the file system with no web server
> > needed) then post/copy the final version to Internet hosted sites.
> >
> > Any tips on short term or long term strategy re: XS are appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Greg S
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:52:25 +1300
> > From: "Martin Langhoff" <martin.langhoff at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Drupal on OLPC?
> > To: "Sameer Verma" <sverma at sfsu.edu>
> > Cc: server-devel <server-devel at lists.laptop.org>
> > Message-ID:
> >       <46a038f90803131252i12ac6b8cs3956ae6578db5025 at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 5:57 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>  Moodle has blog functionality in the core install. It used to be
> >>
> > called
> >
> >>  Journal way back, but its now replaced by blogs. I've used the
> >>
> > "Journal"
> >
> >>  feature in my classes before, and it serves the blogging purpose
> >>
> > well.
> >
> >>  Why have yet another CMS even if the stack is the same (LAMP)?
> >>
> >
> > that will be the main question. We have limited resources
> > (development-wise, and on the XS) and Moodle and Mediawiki will be on
> > the XS, and heavily customised to fit well in the workflow. Both have
> > strong content-management aspects. I am open to having a CMS there as
> > well, but it is hard to provide a clear added value with it.
> >
> > Once the Moodle/Mediawiki combo is a bit more ship-shape, I would
> > invite Drupal/Mambo developers to have a look at what is in place, and
> > figure out if it is worth their effort to have a CMS install in there.
> > It won't be just a simple packaging issue -- UI changes,
> > preconfigured/pre-seeded databases, auth integration, etc.
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> >
> >
> > martin
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Server-devel mailing list
> > Server-devel at lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
> >
>
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