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
