[gcompris-devel] [GSoc]Games + ReadingWriting

Fri Apr 1 21:46:41 UTC 2011

Le vendredi 01 avril 2011 à 00:01 +0300, Alex Burghelea a écrit :
> On 3/31/2011 11:05 PM, Bruno Coudoin wrote:
> > Le mercredi 30 mars 2011 à 04:51 +0300, Alex Burghelea a écrit :
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Sorry for the late delay, I had 2 deadlines for this week on my
> >> university assignments.
> >> I have compiled GCompris and played a little with it.
> >>
> >> Below you will find my ideas more detailed.
> >>
> >> On 3/26/2011 6:47 PM, Bruno Coudoin wrote:
> >>>> at the dominoes i think that i could combine it with the spelling and
> >>>> writing case association.
> >>> tack toe, and dominoes
> >>>
> >>>> Another game i'd like to implement is Dots and Boxes
> >>>> (http://jocuri.clopotel.ro/Q7ij8IFL/Dots_and_Boxes/).
> >>>> I think this game could have great potential in being integrated with
> >>>> the Reading/Writing Category
> >>> Hum, Dot and Boxes does not requires any reading / writing skills.
> >> Sorry for that one ,  it was meant for the dominoes game.
> > Ok, no problem.
> >
> >> I saw on the Idea Page the different levels proposed for dominoes, and I
> >> think that I could implement
> >> some levels based on letter ( Case - Sensitive / !Case Sensitive  have
> >> to decide which is harder)  and then numbers
> >> and finally a harder level with dots (double 6 or double 9 set should be
> >> sufficient enough for kids ).
> > Great, I like this.
> >
> >> The main part of the games I'm thinking of implementing the rules of
> >> Block / Draw dominoes.
> > I don't understand what you mean here.
> 
> The Dominoes games are very different , depending of the rules.
> 
> Block / Draw dominoes are the most common played. they are played until 
> the player about to move can neither draw and or put on the deck a piece 
> from his hand . and the deck is only linear , sth like this | 3 4 | 4 6 
> | 6 2 |, and the players can only attach to the end ( 3 and 2 ). There 
> are versions where you can attach to the sides too .
> 
> >> I also want to write another domino game based on the rules from "5s and
> >> 3s".
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domino_games#5s_and_3s
> > Ouch, it's overly complicated for our target.
> >
> >> But maybe bended to accommodate simpler math operations ( +/- simple
> >> levels | */ : harder levels, or not at all).
> > Yes, doing a simpler may work but I am not convince yet. There are some
> > research to do to see if it makes sense on a pedagogical aspect.
> >
> Ok. I will ask a kinder garden  teacher about this.
> >> In this part I'm thinking at something interactive like math hints for
> >> when the child is making a move that isn't the best one.
> >> Let's say that a rule is: "You get points by this formula sum of the
> >> dots on your piece and the half you are connecting
> >> to."
> >> For example: If the kid has in hand 6-3 , 4-2 + other and the deck would
> >> end with  4 **** 6  and he chooses
> >> to use 4-2 , the sum would be 10<  15 (by playing 6 -3 ). Here is where
> >> the math feature is bigger where a child is
> >> asked a question like "How much is 3 + 6 + 6?" .
> > Well, I thing that's it is way too complex.
> >
> >> A final game I think of working on, is Connect 4. I would like to
> >> implement an interactive tutorial,
> >> where the user is presented with some hints that will guide him to
> >> victory and
> >> maybe even explain (somehow) why the current move it's good/bad.
> >> I'm thinking on a solution based on alfa-betha prunning algorithm.
> >> I hope that I made myself understood.
> > I understand, maybe you could extend this to other games we have. We
> > don't provide enough guidance throughout GCompris to help the children
> > when he makes mistakes. I am thinking to the awele activity which does
> > not show the moves so its hard to understand the rules. Also it could be
> > enhanced with helper to show the best moves. By the way, I did manage to
> > provide help in the lightsoff activities.
> 
> I'll take a look at the lightsoff activities (maybe I'll learn to play 
> it :D ).
> 
> Sure, expanding to other games, it would be fun.
> 
> >> For the reading writing category, I'm thinking that a calligraphic
> >> application would be cool.
> >> But I don't know how it would be received by the users , because it's
> >> limited to using graphic
> >> tablets.
> > There has already been work on this but it never succeeded. Yes the
> > hardware limits the use of this.
> >
> 
> That was my biggest concern here.
> 
> >> I really want to know what's your opinion here.
> >>
> >> I saw a game that gave me an idea for the Letter Classification
> >>
> >> http://nobelprize.org/educational/physics/laser/challenge.html
> >>
> >> At the end of the first level after talking to the police officer, there
> >> is a challenge where
> >> objects come on a conveyor belt and they have to be categorized.
> >> I'm thinking of doing something where the kid has to select letter
> >> and put them on several places , so that he could form the words.
> > I don't know. I am not a teacher and I have a hard time imagining the
> > activity.
> >
> 
> I'll attach a photo of what I mean. When I was in kinder garden I used 
> to play this, and from what I remember it was quite fun :D .
> 
> http://swarm.cs.pub.ro/~aburghelea/wordcomp.png 
> <http://swarm.cs.pub.ro/%7Eaburghelea/wordcomp.png>
> 
> Basically it would be like a spelling bee activity, only the child has 
> to use the letter as they come.
> I think it will have a bigger impact for hand-eye coordination .
> 
> The letters move according to the arrow and the users has to drag and 
> drop correct letter in the boxes to complete the word.

I see now, yes, I like it !

> I was also thinking at a scrabble game , but I don't know how it will be 
> received , being a difficult game. I just had to implement a 
> spellchecker, that I think it could be easily adapted for this case. 
> *But here i really have my doughs about it will really be usefull.*

Scrabble is a problem because of the trademark, then it is too complex
for small children. We could have a more simplistic version. This
requires to have a full dictionary of all the words of all the
languages. For french, uncompressed it takes 1.5MB which is acceptable.

Now if we include the dictionaries, a game like anagram could be
simpler, we pick a word, remove some letters and let the children find
the missing one. We can easily increase the level. It would complement
fine the hangman we already have.

-- 
Bruno Coudoin
http://gcompris.net  Free educational software for kids
http://toulibre.org  Logiciel Libre à Toulouse
http://april.org     Promouvoir et défendre le Logiciel Libre