You might want to explore what the educators at TeachingOpenSource.org have to say about your effort. Their mailing list is at:
http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos Fedora also has a Special Interest Group on Education that might be worth exploring: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Education The DebianEdu project might also have some folks interested in working with you: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 2:40 PM, nho...@cee.carleton.ca wrote: > Hello - I'm just looking for general comments, if anyone cares > to give them. (I apologize in advance for the length of this msg). > > I'm planning to start developing a wiki text book for a university > level engineering course I'm teaching. I've so far only got a page > or two and a rough structure as a proof of concept. In addition > to the easily added extra value such as images, photos, problem > solving videos (ala Khan Academy), I'ld like other media there > as well, such as interactive self test questions, application > software, perhaps links to things like sagemath worksheets, etc. > > Oh yes: a lot of mathematics is involved. > > = One = > > I suppose I should really start with WikiBooks, particularly as > there is the start of a text on the subject there already. It does > provide some nice stuff out of the box, such as pdf creation > for an entire text (or subset, I assume). However, the things > I don't like are: > - I don't think I can get the software, and I really don't want > to host this on their server. > - MediaWiki on which it based can be installed, but I really > don't want to program in php if I don't have to ... And I > do expect some new code will be necessary > > So I guess if I want to extend a wiki system using Python, that > MoinMoin is the best choice. That was my first discussion point. > > = Two = > > Markup language: I was pulled toward reStructured text, > again because of all the extra stuff that is there already > built around it. However, after doing a couple of pages, > I really dislike it (esthetically). I really do prefer using > wiki markup. I looked at creole in hopes of getting something > that might be more portable but that doesn't seem to > be the silver bullet either, yet. > > I'll want things like the ability to generate text-book-like > pdfs of a set of pages, so students can print easier. > > Should I stick with wiki markup and develop the required > tools based on that? (they are not high priority). > > = Three = > > Now - self test questions: I'm intrigued about leveraging > moodle for this purpose; I can easily see having questions > for grading students within moodle - I will probably eventually > do so. > > Moodle stores questions in a relational database, and can > export them in several formats. I think it might be possible > to develop some python code to either access the moodle > database directly, or read the exported xml (I'ld probably > do both). Then render the questions for anonymous self > testing for wiki book readers. This is a significant amount > of work, but I don't think its huge (I have done this before, > in 1994, believe it or not ... :-[ > http://http-server.carleton.ca/~nholtz/tut/doc/doc.html > ) > > Most of the hard work is in the user interface to develop > questions, and thats already been done in moodle. > > The way I see this is developing a parser for moin that > would read either the moodle xml or moodle database > info, and present the question. > > Any other quiz engines in python? > > If you got this far, you patience is remarkable. > > Thanks - any kind of comments are welcome. > > > > -- > Neal Holtz http://cee.carleton.ca/~nholtz > Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, > Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6. nho...@cee.carleton.ca > Public Key: http://holtz3.cee.carleton.ca/~nholtz/pubkey.asc > Office-Hours: http://holtz3.cee.carleton.ca/~nholtz/office-hours.html > Free-Busy: http://holtz3.cee.carleton.ca/~nholtz/free-busy.cgi > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Storage Efficiency Calculator > This modeling tool is based on patent-pending intellectual property that > has been used successfully in hundreds of IBM storage optimization engage- > ments, worldwide. Store less, Store more with what you own, Move data to > the right place. Try It Now! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51427378/ > _______________________________________________ > Moin-user mailing list > Moin-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/moin-user > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Magic Quadrant for Content-Aware Data Loss Prevention Research study explores the data loss prevention market. Includes in-depth analysis on the changes within the DLP market, and the criteria used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these DLP solutions. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51385063/ _______________________________________________ Moin-user mailing list Moin-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/moin-user
