[Server-devel] XSCE 6.0 Released

Tim Moody tim at timmoody.com
Sun Mar 27 11:36:53 EDT 2016


Years in the making!!  A cast of thousands!!

 

The School Server Community Edition (XSCE) version 6.0 is hereby officially
released.  Thanks to the many contributors, developers, and testers.

 

In addition to releasing the School Server software, we have provided
'short-cut' images for several platforms with more on the way.

 

Please read the following Release Notes and then proceed to
https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/wiki/XSCE-Installation.

 


Release Notes for XSCE 6.0


What is it?


XSCE is the digital backbone for your education revolution. Put simply,
School Server is an open-education project inspired by One Laptop Per Child
to provide breakthrough digital learning tools to the world's poorest
children.


A Rose by any other Name


Internally and in the source code we refer to this software as XSCE, the
Community Edition of the XS server originally from OLPC. Students and
teachers often know it as Internet in a Box, a collection of educational
materials and applications found on the internet, but available on the
server even without an internet connection. We also refer to it as a School
Server since it is aimed at schools and other places where people learn and
performs the function of a server.


What's new in XSCE Release 6.0?


This release extends the tools available to educators in three ways:

*	It makes available free and open source content that is available in
many languages
*	It provides new avenues for students to create, and share their work
*	It contains number of advances to permit easy configuration,
tailoring of content, and monitoring of student work.


Newly Available Open Source Educational Content


*	KA Lite brings the online features of Khan Academy to the offline
School Server based classroom. There are videos, exercises, tests, and
student tracking in a number of languages, all selectable via a Graphical
User Interface. <https://learningequality.org/ka-lite/>
https://learningequality.org/ka-lite/
*	Searchable offline access to Wikipedia and other content such as
Wiktionaries and TED Talks in a variety of subjects and many languages,
provided by the Kiwix server technology.
<http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page> http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page
*	RACHEL (a curated selection of offline materials)
<http://worldpossible.org/rachel/> http://worldpossible.org/rachel/
*	Bring your own content by inserting a USB thumbdrive with content
into the server having it immediately viewable by students.


Encourage Students to Write, Foster the Creative Process


*	Elgg provides the tools for generating social networks
<http://learn.elgg.org/en/2.0/intro/features.html>
http://learn.elgg.org/en/2.0/intro/features.html
*	ownCloud provides client based tools for storing and retrieving
materials stored on the XSCE local cloud.
*	DokuWiki (EXPERIMENTAL) provides a means for students to publish
their work.  <https://www.dokuwiki.org/features>
https://www.dokuwiki.org/features
*	Wordpress (EXPERIMENTAL -- enable in "local_vars") gives students
experience editing/sharing using a tool that is becoming an industry
standard.


New Tools for Administering the XSCE School Server


*	A new Graphical User Interface (Admin Console) to enable services,
select and download content, get information
*	AWstats is a flexible tool for summarizing the web traffic on and
through the server in graphical and detailed ways. <http://www.awstats.org/>
http://www.awstats.org/


How do I get it?


There are three main methods of installing this software:

*	Use ansible and the git repository - this is the fall back when you
need to customize or you have a platform for which we have not created an
image.
*	Use an image you download - for some commonly used platforms we
create image files that you can download, put on a usb stick or sd card and
boot in your new hardware.
*	Create and use your own image - this will appeal to you if you want
an image to use in multiple machines and are able to use the tools we
provide to create it.

In each case you need hardware that has been assembled, but with nothing
installed on it.

Detailed instructions on each of these methods is at
<https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/wiki/XSCE-Installation>
https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/wiki/XSCE-Installation.

 

 

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