[kde-edu]: plasma edu

Fri Jul 16 16:42:54 CEST 2010

On Friday, July 16, 2010 06:22:06 am Nuno Pinheiro wrote:
> A Quinta, 15 de Julho de 2010 21:18:13 Thomas Thym você escreveu:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I am pleased to see the activity in KDE EDU. It seems that there were a
> > couple of discussions and BoFs during Akademy but I am not sure if the
> > KDE-EDU people were enough involved. (Just my impression after some
> > discussions with KDE-EDU people.)
> > 
> > Still motivated from Akademy I interviewed my sister (a teacher for 1st
> > till 4th grade in Germany) about the use of computers in their classes. A
> > short summary:
> > 
> > 1. IT-environment.
> > They need a cheep, easy to deploy and maintain IT-infrastructure as a
> > basic environment for their 1-5 computers in the classrooms to offer
> > their students access to the Internet and computers.
> 
> Here in Portugal its 1 laptop per kid. and a slightly biguer laptop aka not
> a netbook  for the teacher
> 
> > 2. A platform to collaborate.
> > (I don't like the idea, but at the moment) They use IT to control the
> > students. There are some (commercial, closed sourced) webbased services
> > that offer some tasks for the students and the teachers get informed
> > about the activity of their class. Some services include the option to
> > compete against others (in your class). The possibility of real
> > collaboration (beyond classroom boundaries or creating something or
> > learning together) is not practiced at her school.
> 
> Control is by far the best thing we can give the teachers in order for this
> to work, Right now the computers are not used at all in the classrooms
> because of that, as soon as kids turn on the computers they go straight in
> to games, or the web in order to find flash games. So the teacher no
> longuer as any control over the class and in no time he will tell the
> students to close the laptops. The only way it as been used so far is to
> do litle works, search the web at the request of the teacher etc, and as a
> reward system "if all of you behave nicely today tomorrow you can bring
> the "maganhães" tomorrow.

Nuno, you had an idea about a gsoc on that regard, lt's skip the gsoc thing 
and start to build it. 

> 
> > 3. Training software.
> > They use some individual training software (like math- and vocabulary
> > trainer) to offer the possibility to practice alone. To have those
> > applications on mobil phones would be nice, esp. when they have gaming
> > elements. At the moment they only use (buy) software that is approved by
> > the education department and delivers exactly the content that is defined
> > by the education department.
> 
> In the specific software I have some ideas that can really really  help the
> class, but depends a bit on the hardware, (i see a trend in this market for
> tablets in the near future), Me will need to talk again to the manufacture
> of this devices here...(maybe i can get us a few devices with a specific
> set up, including touch screen or the digital paper)

and we also have parley, rocs, cantor, kbrush, that are all training software. 
they really need a bit of polishment on the usability side, but as far as I 
know, they are good software.

> 
> > 4. Non-IT rulez
> > IT is only a small element in education. The main part is done "offline".
> > 
> > (5. They don't care about the OS as long as it's Windows. Yes, there are
> > still many prejudices  and MS is visiting the teachers regularly with
> > special offers of Windows and Office (less than 50 EUR) for them.)
> 
> Yes this is the main problem , note the students but the teachers, kids
> learn anything extremely fast, but teachers think they don't and frankly
> they don't care specially wen it was imposed on them as political
> marketing, that forced them to take classes.They also prefer windows as
> its what they know (pretty badly). And the main problem is, its just extra
> work on what is a very tiering job and they don't like changing the way
> they have allays done it.
> 
> Now the fact is that windows sucks just as bad as we do in helping the
> teacher, and this creates a once in a life time opportunity for us.
> I think that if we create a work flow that matches the traditional class
> and the way a teacher prepares a class right now we would be lowering the
> teachers barriers alot.
> 
> > I planned to do some interviews here in Switzerland, too, if you think
> > this information helps us further.
> 
> yeah ask them about the control part, tell them "what if you could see what
> the kids were doing in a given shared application and could help the finish
> exercises?", ask them, "What if you could prepare a class with the
> available applications for that class and once the students would log in
> they would have a set up controlled by you?"
> 
> From my experience this is what they really want and once i tell them i get
> really positive vibes, as it fits the way they work now plus it gives them
> extra control over the class.
> 
> > Cheers,
> > Thomas
> > 
> > On Wednesday 14 July 2010 21:52:07 wrote Aaron J. Seigo:
> > > hi everyone :)
> > > 
> > > at Akademy we had a very good meeting of people involved with various
> > > school deployments of the KDE Desktop v3 and/or KDE Plasma Desktop. we
> > > decided to try and do two things:
> > > 
> > > a) bring some of the unique efforts that are currently going on
> > > downstream in these projects upstream, allowing them to use the KDE
> > > community's resources as a point of collaboration for them. this will
> > > hopefully allow our large (and small!) edu deployments to share their
> > > efforts as well as get their work into more downstream-agnostic forms
> > > (allowing them to more easily shift OS if needed)
> > > 
> > > b) provide a unique Plasma Workspace offering that educational
> > > deployments may choose to take advantage of. this means upstream work
> > > on the Plasma Desktop that has a specific aim for the educational
> > > desktop needs, bringing us closer to our downstreams and giving our
> > > downstreams new tools they can't get elsewhere.
> > > 
> > > at the meeting we decided on a few things:
> > > 
> > > * the best place to run this project is from the KDE Edu community.
> > > 
> > > this is why i am sending this email to kde-edu@ and not plasma-devel at .
> > > it's more relevant for educational deployments (plasma-devel is fairly
> > > high traffic, techical and not overly useful for edu focused work :),
> > > and hopefully will bring all of our edu resources closer together. we
> > > hope that by providing a good edu experience on top of Plasma Desktop
> > > and Plasma Netbook, we can also find new opportunities for KDE Edu
> > > software (and vice versa)
> > > 
> > > 
> > > * we need to write documentation of what we want to achieve and where
> > > we are
> > > 
> > > right now, this will go here for now:
> > > 	 http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Classroom
> > > 
> > > we did this with netbook
> > > (http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Plasma- Netbook) and it was a
> > > very successful approach, even as our initial design evolved over
> > > time.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > * we want to keep our sources together, but not bound to the KDE SC
> > > release cycle for now. therefore, we are proposing to put our code into
> > > trunk/extragear/edu/. no such directory currently exists. we will make
> > > it.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > * in addition to gather work down for existing edu deployments, we
> > > intend to deliver a set of components (plasmoids, containments,
> > > javascript layout templates) that will run inside a standard Plasma
> > > Desktop shell. we want to have a first release around the same time as
> > > SC 4.6. the central idea is to have a set of simplified, lockable
> > > panel layouts paired with a desktop widget layout that can be
> > > customized by the teacher that leverages the Activities as debuting in
> > > Plasma Desktop 4.5. each class session will get an Actvity, which the
> > > classroom lead (e.g. teacher) can populate with applications, files,
> > > etc. when a student logs in, it will fetch the Activities for the
> > > class sessions they are in.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > * we require input from teachers using KDE software to provide feedback
> > > and consultation on the above idea and as it progresses as a software
> > > product
> > > 
> > > 
> > > current action items:
> > > 
> > > * get the Plasmoid from the Portugal deployment in svn
> > > 
> > > * get the javascript layout that mimics the java bar used in Brazil in
> > > svn
> > > 
> > > * flesh out the design document so we can begin getting teacher
> > > feedback and start working on it
> > > 
> > > 
> > > ok, that's probably enough for one email. :)
> > > 
> > > i hope that the KDE Edu team is ok with us joining/invading your space
> > > to run this project. your input is not only welcome, it is desired.
> > > i'd say it's even critical to this becoming a success. open the
> > > floodgates! :)
> > 
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