[kde-edu]: an idea for development of "Klass"

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

Hi Vivek,

This is a very good idea and I suggest that maybe you ask feedback from 
teachers to define use cases and start from there.
That will enable you to really target the needs from teachers.

You need to think about formats (Open Document Format, html, ...), about 
wikipedia integration, about teacher and student inputs, ...
Such a program in my opinion can only be successful if it answers needs from 
teachers and is carefully designed. 
I think the graphical part is not what matters for its success as with KDE4 
it'll be easy to add graphical items such as cartoons (having seen plasma 
makes me say that).
There is also the idea from Ralf about an interface for web-based content.

If you want it to become reality, I think that 
- carefully design it
- work in a team
are necessary.

There's people here in this list ready to help you!

Regards,

Anne-Marie

For the program design, On Friday 25 May 2007 05:55:22 vivek kumar wrote:
> Hi
>  
> I am Vivek Kumar, an engineer by profession, but extremely concerned about
> means and ways of education. I have the following observations when it
> comes to reading yourself (1) The video lectures are large files and
> difficult to download, all the times. Streaming gives extremely poor
> quality with respect to the speeds at which we access. But, most
> importantly videos are not interactive. (2) Presentations are also a kind
> of "static", and it might or might not engage many students. However, at
> any rate, the student does not carry complete class with him, when reading
> by himself at home. I have an idea in my mind which might help in such
> situations, although i am not very sure about it. Is it possible to develop
> a application, that simulates the class on the computer? Below I list
> the features and requirements which i feel are at the core (although they
> might not be complete). Let us call the application Klass. (1)  It will
> have a black/white/color-board, which will be capable of displaying all
> text, including maths, graphs, just like the normal blackcoards. (2) The
> user will be able to choose a teacher. The teacher might, actually be,
> different characters, may-be, micky mouse, uncle-scrooch. (3) In the Klass,
> the teacher will teach the user i.e. student, using the blackboard. (4)
> Klass will teach according to the notes, prepared by the students or
> teachers themselves. (5) Klass will be intelligent enough to help students
> in taking the notes. For example, while writing a theorem, Klass can prompt
> for the student to write the proof as well. (6) If you see the hierarchy,
> students first listen the lecture and take notes, then comes video
> lectures, then books etc. but while revising students can start with Klass,
> if unsure go to video lectures, if still unsure go to books/lecture-notes
> etc. So Klass will actually smoothen the transtion while revision process
> and many a times fasten as well. It will supplement other materials. (7)
> Most importantly, it will be short files, easily downloadable over the net.
> By now you must have  a got feel for the idea, and many features could
> actually be imagined and added to it, and for making the mail short, I have
> ignored them. Although, I am not an expert programmer, I would like to
> wirte a program to do this. I am not sure about how to go about it and
> thats the reason, I joined this mailing list. I would be extremely thankful
> if someone, helps me in this endevour. Thanking you.
> Vivek Kumar
>
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