Greg, Wad, The people I'm working with apparently are familiar with Moodle rather than Drupal, so that might be the way to go for me&them in that sense (funny, Aymara has a different form for the "us" me-and-them, different from me-and-y'all, would be handy in this sentence), though I am very curious about the EduBlog as well.
> My suggestion is to use Moodle, let teachers and sys admins set it up. Uh, might need some hand-holding there, for those prospective teachers & admin. I myself have never set up a successful Moodle server, will have to call that a priority so as to learn what a noob has to face. Have already several offers of help, so no need you personally to worry about this. > BTW I need more people to test out the EduBlog GUI during Beta test, > I need a teacher, a kid and an admin so let me know if you sign me up if you want to let me give it a try. No kids here, but I can virtualize the other two, and maybe borrow a kid or two at the crucial moments. Y'all know I am obsessive about ease of use and vocal to the point of bad manners... :-) Yama Greg Smith (gregmsmi) wrote: > Hi Yama and Wad, > > Give us a blog hosting app. and an API. EduBlog adds a one click HTML > front end with an option for teachers to approve posts. The blog can be > hosted anywhere routable from XS (e.g. on XS itself), no internet > needed. > > That's the idea, we'll see how it turns out :-) > > I'll leave it to others to comment on what blog hosting tools are > planned for XS. I believe Moodle has or will have a blog tool and if > Moodle is in default XS build that's an obvious choice. Drupal is > another option. Ceibal jam people investigated this and client side > ideas a little. See: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ceibal_Jam/Blogs > > My suggestion is to use Moodle, let teachers and sys admins set it up. > Then use EduBlog to allow kids to post. If kids are comfortable posting > right to Moodle Blog UI then you don't even need EduBlog. > > HTHs. > > BTW I need more people to test out the EduBlog GUI during Beta test, > target late July. You're going to need internet and preferably an XO for > the Beta. I need a teacher, a kid and an admin so let me know if you > have any contacts who are interested. > > Thanks, > > Greg S > > -----Original Message----- > From: Yama Ploskonka [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 10:23 AM > To: John Watlington > Cc: Greg Smith (gregmsmi); [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Edublog notes > > I second this request for off-internet solutions. > > I am currently cooperating with a Bolivian Ministry of Education project > for community/school centers which depends largely on blogging and such > tools, so I am following this thread closely for concepts / ideas / > solutions that would be obsessively user friendly. > It would be just the best of both worlds if the same tool were used for > XOs when we do get a deployment there! > > Yama > > John Watlington wrote: >> What do we provide for the schools which don't have internet access >> right now ? >> >> Should the XS contain some blog hosting software which can actually >> host the pages created by this tool ? (Pardon my ignorance of > whether >> Moodle already contains such.) >> >> wad >> >> On Jun 3, 2008, at 9:27 AM, Greg Smith (gregmsmi) wrote: >> >>> Hi Martin, >>> >>> On the sanity check, that's not it :-( >>> >>> It my fault for not explaining it better! I really hope Tarun, Marcel > >>> and Pablo are more in synch... It will be more clear once we get some > >>> draft/static HTML pages in place. >>> >>> I'll take some HTML editing help if anyone thinks they can mock up 3 >>> static HTML Pages based on the text here: >>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Blog_Educativo_Plan_del_Proyecto >>> >>> Here's another earlier write up which includes a network diagram >>> which may help explain the parts. >>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_Blogger_Project >>> >>> We do not plan to code, host, share or serve any blogs! All we will >>> build is a simple front end that let's users create a blog post and >>> click once to have it appear on a Moodle Blog, Blogger.com, Drupal >>> etc. >>> >>> Kids enter content, clicks post and that's it. The back end SW >>> running on the XS takes that post and puts it on the blog e.g. >>> http://centenarioescuela38sg.blogspot.com/ >>> >>> The SW we will build on the XS may include Apache + PHP + DB for HTML > >>> towards client and probably XML + RPC or SOAP towards blog API. There > >>> will be three main web pages and we will build no client code on the >>> XO at all, just support Browse! I need it to be simple so we can >>> build in 7 weeks. >>> >>> Three web pages towards the client then APIs towards supported blog >>> systems on XS. That's everything. Let me know if that explains it >>> better or its still not clear. >>> >>> I'll think about the database comments too. Let me see what fields >>> and tables Tarun thinks he needs and I'd like to get his input. >>> >>> Tarun and Marcel, let me know ASAP if the description above is not >>> clear. I think we are in synch but it never hurts to re-ack (there's >>> a reason why TCP is a triple handshake :-). >>> >>> BTW better book mark those two links. The main Uruguay page just got >>> a major re-edit and those links are now very hard to find. >>> >>> Other than that the new page is packed with info and links thanks to >>> Pablo! http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Uruguay >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Greg S >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Martin Langhoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 5:38 PM >>> To: Greg Smith (gregmsmi) >>> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> Subject: Re: Edublog notes (was: Re: The road towards xs-0.3 - >>> update) >>> >>> On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Greg Smith (gregmsmi) >>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> Sanity check on our high level concept. >>>> >>>> The core idea of this software is to present an easy to use >>>> interface so kids can post to blogs. Enter text, click post you are > done. >>> Yes, and that's fantastic. But if I understand it right, we are >>> talking about 3 stages: >>> >>> 1 - Blogging tool on the XO - >>> >>> Something like Drivel, lets the user blog on the XO even while >>> disconnected. New articles and edits get placed in a queue and pushed > >>> out when we see the XS. This needs Sugar integration work so it's a >>> candidate for a write-from-scratch effort or, more likely, a wrapping > >>> around the abiword-based Write.xo . >>> >>> 2 - Blog on the XS >>> >>> This should >>> - display blog entries like a normal blog does >>> - receive blog entries and edits from the xo-based tool >>> - allow new blog entries and edits from a web UI >>> - allow "approval" stages >>> - "forward" blog entries & edits that are tagged 'public' to an >>> internet-hosted blog >>> >>> Some of this aspects are _complex_, even if they sound trivial. So I >>> heavily recommend a pre-existing blog tool. Grab something that is >>> good, offers good APIs, is well maintained and known to be scalable. >>> And then patch it here and there to do what we want :-) >>> >>> 3 - Blog on the Internet. >>> >>> This bit is not under our control ;-) >>> >>>> Let me know if you have any comments or questions and I hope its >>>> clear now we are not building another blog hosting system. >>> Ok, so my understanding (and hope) is that you are building #1 above, > >>> and patching an existing blog tool for #2. >>> >>>> Back to the DB. The EduBlog web app needs a table to store its own >>>> info (e.g. configured blog URLs, blog user name/pass, posts >>>> submitted but not approved by teacher, options set for each student, > etc.). >>>> Should we store that in the same DB that moodle is already using and > >>>> just create some new tables or should we create a new DB for our own >>> use? >>> >>> If you are talking about the queue of blog entries on the XO-based >>> tool, you will probably want to use sqllite. For the XS-based local >>> blog-and-foward tool, you _really_ need to get your head around how >>> the core tool works, and you'll find that you want to add a few >>> columns here or there. Most blog tools will already have a "Config" >>> table to hold configuration, so that's easy. >>> >>>> In the future we may want to run a query on the moodle DB and web >>>> app DB. E.g. get user name, class and school from Moodle DB then >>>> look up configured blogs in web app DB. >>> IME the blog tool will expect to have a copy of the user profile to >>> be able to run joins across the data, and grab the relevant bits. So >>> you'll want to copy the "user profile" data into it, and lock down >>> the "user profile" editing in the blog tool itself. >>> >>> It's a bit of work - I know - but it's very important that we avoid >>> reinventing the wheel. Building a blog is a huge job - easy to get >>> started, but pretty near impossible to get to the level of polish you > >>> expect, and to keep it maintained long term. >>> >>> If we reuse an existing blog, what we get is >>> >>> - a solid base to build upon >>> - a pre-existing community that can help you, and that will keep >>> improving and fixing the blog for years to come >>> - if you hit a bug, and fix it, it can be merged upstream >>> - if you develop a useful enhancement - the review stage you mention > >>> and the "forward to another blog" are good examples - it can be >>> merged upstream >>> - a few customisations that are local to us - hopefully minimal >>> >>>> BTW last time I wrote an SQL query it ran against Oracle 8 (AKA >>>> years >>>> ago) so let me know if my use of "DB" and "Table" is unclear or not >>>> relevant for PostGres. >>> Database and table are more than relevant - they are crucial :-) >>> >>> The most important thing is to pick the best upstream, understand it >>> thoroughly (warts and all), and develop a good relationship with the >>> existing upstream core dev team. If you guys get that right, the rest > >>> is a SMOP :-) >>> >>> cheers, >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> m >>> -- >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect >>> - ask interesting questions >>> - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first >>> - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Server-devel mailing list >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel >> _______________________________________________ >> Server-devel mailing list >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel >> > _______________________________________________ Server-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
