Educational Toolkit: Difference between revisions

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It aims to act like a tool which does not take over the job of teaching, but promotes natural class environment and will aim to fit in the classroom environment. The software promotes better examination methods and encourages group work which is vital in any learning environment.

'''''Comparison with Moodle'''''

First of all, although Moodle has provided with a great learning system, it does not solve all the problems for teachers and students. Many-a-times, students or teachers are looking forward to engage in a group problem solving exercise which is often impromptu. It seems a lot of work to start up a course page or assignment page, asking all the students to log into Moodle using Browse; start the course and search for the newly made assignment or post. Afterwards everybody will need to submit this problem as assignment individually. The act of collaboration is missing here. Apart from this, there is always this chance of not having internet in the first place at the school.

Educational toolkit does not require either server or internet to start working with. Just make up a problem and share it with others and start working on it together.

Thus, the proposed activity is better than Moodle in the following ways:

# It promotes real-time group collaboration.

# Does not require internet/school server.

# Is native to sugar and does not require students/teachers to go through a lot of steps before accessing it.

# Discourages the assignment/test feedback cycle kind of routine.

It also has the following disadvantages as compared to Moodle:

# This is a new project while Moodle has lots of developers and a very healthy community.

# Moodle caters to students who do not have xos but other computers. It will need to be made specifically for other computers.

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The software is being developed in Python with emphasis on easy User Interface. The software will use : PyGTK for User Interface; Telepathy and DBus Tubes for connectivity; XML DOM API for xml

I will be reusing widgets. For instance, the Write activity uses the abiword widget from pyabiword and the Browse activity uses the gecko widget from hulahop. I will also ~~try~~ to ~~write widgets~~ to ~~get functionality from other existing activites if desired~~. ~~(Stretch Goal)~~

I will be reusing widgets. For instance, the Write activity uses the abiword widget from pyabiword and the Browse activity uses the gecko widget from hulahop.

The major work in this project is to provide a consistent method to share information over the mesh network. Currently, there are three scenarios which need to be supported:

#Unicast

#GroupCast

#Broadcast

D-Bus provides signals and methods:

* Signals are multicast - they are sent to all participants in the shared activity (including the sender). They send data and have no return value.

* Method calls are called on a single participant, and they do have a return value.

We can either use them as illustrated by the HelloMesh Activity directly or we can use their wrappers written by olpcgames folder in the package olpcgames.mesh . This package contains functions like Unicast, Broadcast, lookupBuddy, myHandle etc. which can be used as-is.

The Sugar.Presence Service will also be imported to find out our own name(owner's name), buddies around you and shared activites.

TALK : Another interesting idea can be its integration with GroupThink later which is another GSoC Project, but I am not very familiar with all its details. -Deepank

Please find some of the diagrams shown below to aid in implementation of the project :

Image:EducationalToolkit MVC.png|Standard MVC Model

Image:EducationalToolkit_Model.jpg|Model Component

Image:EducationalToolkit_Controller.jpg|Controller Component

Image:EducationalToolkit_UseCase.png|UseCase diagram

</gallery>

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'''July 21 - July 28 : '''

~~Integrate the Question and Answer Package so as to make~~ it ~~a forum post on~~ Moodle ~~Servers. According to Martin, Moodle has been already integrated and authenticated with Sugar.~~

Do feasibility study of integrating it with Moodle

'''July 29 - August 5 : '''

Work on documentation ~~and integrate the activity with Moodle.~~

Work on documentation

~~'''August 5 - August 10 : '''~~

~~Port the activity on Windows also.~~

'''August 10 - August 17 : '''

'''August 5 - August 17 : '''

Internal Alpha release cycle.

@@ Line 117: / Line 117: @@
 It aims to act like a tool which does not take over the job of teaching, but promotes natural class environment and will aim to fit in the classroom environment. The software promotes better examination methods and encourages group work which is vital in any learning environment.
+'''''Comparison with Moodle'''''
+First of all, although Moodle has provided with a great learning system, it does not solve all the problems for teachers and students. Many-a-times, students or teachers are looking forward to engage in a group problem solving exercise which is often impromptu. It seems a lot of work to start up a course page or assignment page, asking all the students to log into Moodle using Browse; start the course and search for the newly made assignment or post. Afterwards everybody will need to submit this problem as assignment individually. The act of collaboration is missing here.  Apart from this, there is always this chance of not having internet in the first place at the school.
+Educational toolkit does not require either server or internet to start working with. Just make up a problem and share it with others and start working on it together.
+Thus, the proposed activity is better than Moodle in the following ways:
+# It promotes real-time group collaboration.
+# Does not require internet/school server.
+# Is native to sugar and does not require students/teachers to go through a lot of steps before accessing it.
+# Discourages the assignment/test feedback cycle kind of routine.
+It also has the following disadvantages as compared to Moodle:
+# This is a new project while Moodle has lots of developers and a very healthy community.
+# Moodle caters to students who do not have xos but other computers. It will need to be made specifically for other computers.
 ----
@@ Line 123: / Line 141: @@
 The software is being developed in Python with emphasis on easy User Interface. The software will use : PyGTK for User Interface; Telepathy and DBus Tubes for connectivity; XML DOM API for xml
-I will be reusing widgets. For instance, the Write activity uses the abiword widget from pyabiword and the Browse activity uses the gecko widget from hulahop. I will also try to write widgets to get functionality from other existing activites if desired. (Stretch Goal)
+I will be reusing widgets. For instance, the Write activity uses the abiword widget from pyabiword and the Browse activity uses the gecko widget from hulahop.
+The major work in this project is to provide a consistent method to share information over the mesh network. Currently, there are three scenarios which need to be supported:
+#Unicast
+#GroupCast
+#Broadcast
+D-Bus provides signals and methods:
+* Signals are multicast - they are sent to all participants in the shared activity (including the sender). They send data and have no return value.
+* Method calls are called on a single participant, and they do have a return value.
+We can either use them as illustrated by the HelloMesh Activity directly or we can use their wrappers written by olpcgames folder in the package olpcgames.mesh . This package contains functions like Unicast, Broadcast, lookupBuddy, myHandle etc. which can be used as-is.
+The Sugar.Presence Service will also be imported to find out our own name(owner's name), buddies around you and shared activites.
+TALK : Another interesting idea can be its integration with GroupThink later which is another GSoC Project, but I am not very familiar with all its details. -Deepank
+Please find some of the diagrams shown below to aid in implementation of the project :
+<gallery>
+Image:EducationalToolkit MVC.png|Standard MVC Model
+Image:EducationalToolkit_Model.jpg|Model Component
+Image:EducationalToolkit_Controller.jpg|Controller Component
+Image:EducationalToolkit_UseCase.png|UseCase diagram
+</gallery>
 ----
@@ Line 173: / Line 221: @@
 '''July 21 - July 28 : '''
-Integrate the Question and Answer Package so as to make it a forum post on Moodle Servers. According to Martin, Moodle has been already integrated and authenticated with Sugar.
+Do feasibility study of integrating it with Moodle
 '''July 29 - August 5 : '''
-Work on documentation and integrate the activity with Moodle.
+Work on documentation
-'''August 5 - August 10 : '''
-Port the activity on Windows also.
-'''August 10 - August 17 : '''
+'''August 5 - August 17 : '''
 Internal Alpha release cycle.