Hello,<br><br>I am a student at NSIT currently in my third year of
undergraduate studies and have been associated with OLPC for the past
one and a half months as a volunteer developer. I just want to introduce a new project about an
educational toolkit inspired from the needs of students all around. It
all started with a small idea of providing automated tests, but has
started to grow into a multi-dimensional project with comments and
ideas from numerous people including recommendation from Walter
himself. Let me introduce with the basic idea : <br>
<br>The educational toolkit is a software to facilitate discussion in
classroom with the help of technology. It aims at providing teachers
and students with a tool to pose problems, compare and discuss
solutions by revolving the discussion around it in something known as
Demo Mode. It can provide flash cards and other objective and
subjective tests that can be used as a formal testing tool for class
tests and quizzes to provide a better gauge of a student's progress to
the teacher.<br>
<br>The software will be developed in Python with emphasis on easy User
Interface and will aim to act like a tool which does not take over the
job of teaching, but promotes natural class-room environment and will
aim to fit in the classroom environment. The choice of Python as a
programming language gives us the power of Object Oriented Design and
Implementation along with lots of libraries and easy integration with
Sugar and support for Shared Activities. You can find more details on
the project at the Wiki page along with the links to technologies in
use at <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_toolkit" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_toolkit</a> and also find the current code-base at <a href="http://www.nsitonline.in/it/students/2005/deepank/projects.html" target="_blank">http://www.nsitonline.in/it/students/2005/deepank/projects.html</a><br>
<br>Although, the software is still in the planning stages with lots of
feedback and ideas coming in, but, coding has started side-by-side
going with the motto of "Release Early, Release Often". The current
code-base is just a very minimum demo, but the work is going on at
rapid pace and it will increase exponentially over the next few weeks
with progress being updated every week. <br><br>Also, I want to take the advise and recommendations of the community on the following questions : <br>
<br>Q.1 The main difference between the toolkit and other stand-alone activities will be its integration with Sugar. All the other activities like Read or games are run on a use-to-use basis. But, this software will be run at all times in the classroom, since its use in classroom discussion and tests. What are your views regarding this and what are the best practices to implement this? <br>
<br>Q.2 I have been a bit confused about the use of platform for the viewer - PyGTK or PyGame. I have heard from other developers that PyGame is not very stable at this moment and is not integrated into Sugar by default. Since the software needs high integration into Sugar, what are your recommendations. <br>
<br>Thanks and Regards<br><font color="#888888">Deepank Gupta</font>