[Server-devel] RIT XS Teacher Reporting Project

[Tim Moody]

You may be reinventing work already done, or at least started.  Moodle 
integration into the XS has already begun and is expected to go further in 
the next XS release 0.6,  though, admittedly, changes at OLPC could derail 
this.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Release_Notes

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Moodle_plan

I'm no expert on Moodle, but I understand it as more of a platform than an 
application.  That is, you can create modules with differing features 
without rewriting Moodle, so it may save you some time to explore what's 
there.

In terms of where to run the XS, I would determine who needs access when. 
If students need to access moodle modules when the teacher's XO is away, 
then a central server is probably better.  In any event effort has been put 
into making the XS run in either an XO or standalone environment.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS-on-XO

> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 22:26:59 -0400
> From: Jeremiah Green <jrgreen118 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Server-devel] RIT XS Teacher Reporting Project
> (Math4RIT)
> To: caroline at solutiongrove.com
> Cc: server-devel at lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID:
> <6bf5e72e0905021926o24c63064l7898ce21645f11e0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 10:06 PM, Caroline Meeks 
> <solutiongrove at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 8:45 PM, Jeremiah Green 
>> <jrgreen118 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> Currently at RIT we are working on a project in which we hope to utilize
>>> modified Moodle modules and a customized XS School Server operating 
>>> system.
>>> Our goal is to allow results, or grades, from student activities to be
>>> readily available to teachers. Based on their wants and needs, the 
>>> teachers
>>> can then generate custom reports on a class or student and have the 
>>> ability
>>> to determine what types of problems students are finding most difficult. 
>>> In
>>> the end we imagine the XS environment running on an XO itself, allowing 
>>> the
>>> teachers the same portability as the students. Our wiki page can be 
>>> found
>>> here: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Teacher_Reporting . It's a work in
>>> progress, so things aren't as neat or complete as it will be in the 
>>> future.
>>
>>
>> I usually think of many teachers and many classes using the same XS. 
>> Does
>> your model allow this?  If so, it really doesn't matter to the teacher if
>> Moodle is running on his or her personal laptop or on a central machine
>> located somewhere in the school right?
>>
>
> This sounds like a possible user issue to me. When the students and 
> teachers
> use the same hardware, do the logon separately or do they just use the 
> same
> user name or credentials? Even if they use the same credentials, our goal 
> is
> to modify an existing module to allow us to enter more data fields into 
> the
> database. I think using this we can add identifying information to both 
> the
> applications, when they are initialized, and the database.
>
> We've also toyed with the idea that teachers, at least in the U.S., aren't
> going to have XO laptops. Unfortunately, we haven't had much interfacing
> with the teacher community as of yet, so were not sure what the
> infrastructures are at the schools. In the model I see the Moodle server,
> web server, and database server could reside on an XO, a teachers laptop, 
> a
> single other school server, or separate servers.
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> We've really only just started working with the school server 
>>> environment
>>> and initially our development is using virtual machines, by way of 
>>> Virtual
>>> Box software. Thus far using online documentation and previous Fedora
>>> knowledge, we've been able to install the XS operating system, install
>>> MySQL, install PHP, with alot of tweaking got Gnome installed and 
>>> running,
>>> and installed Moodle. We modified the built in websever to use the 
>>> moddle
>>> directories as default, but were unable to ever load the index.php page. 
>>> Any
>>> suggestions on something we may have missed on the webserver end?
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Also, if anyone has any suggestions based on the information I provided
>>> above for any further resources please feel free to send them to us.
>>> Currently we concentrating on getting Moodle up and running and figuring 
>>> out
>>> how the modules store things in the database. Any help or suggestions 
>>> would
>>> be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
>>>
>>> Jeremiah Green
>>>
>>> RIT OLPC Development
>>> Teacher Reporting Project
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Server-devel mailing list
>>> Server-devel at lists.laptop.org
>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Caroline Meeks
>> Solution Grove
>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>
>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>>