Charles Cosse wrote:
Bases like this exist in learning management systems - and being that they are web based, most questions of cross-platform compatibility are answered. How would something such as this differentiate itself from a LMS?Hi All,i must have missed Justin's funding opportunities post, so thanks for the reminder.IMHO the following would work:The SchoolForge community establishes a truly open, interest-neutral, software base for educational applications, hosted at SchoolForge, perhaps, which serves as a foundation for satellite programs around the world. Let's say this software base exists. Now, an arbitrary university professor (or other) submits a funding proposal to the institution of their choice (NSF in US, local Dept of Education, etc) and proposes that funding be provided for mentoring a handful of students, (perhaps as a college class, perhaps as a high-school class, even an after school program, etc) to develop education applications derived from the software base that they download from SchoolForge.
My perception it that it sounds more application based instead of web based - so it wouldn't require a significant effort to pick it up and try it out. But what could be developed through this method that is beyond the reach of LMS systems? A possibility that SVG & AJAX will have a scripting language built around them that give pretty much the entire functionality of pre-video Flash players? If applications were built in this way - they could be feature rich and available through a browser. Seems like something to keep in mind..
Is each application a specific binary/package?Could it be set up so that they download a single application - that offers a built in catalog and list of education apps in various categories? Sort of like an I-tunes, but edu apps instead of songs. Would this overlap, or assist in efforts of projects such as Childsplay or GCompris?
Could you provide more information on how something like this would work? Is it something directed towards non-programmers, and giving them the ability to make applications? Are there established standards in place for handing information that would be generated from these applications to student information systems?The software base would have everything a non-programmer would need to derive their innovations in the form of a new educational application, conforming to a few specifications, such as student assessment data-taking capabilities output format, namely, so data from various apps could be mixed/matched and compared.
And if it is directed at non-programmers, and uses some sort of easy to figure out scripting/GUI/etc - what would the student developers be learning that wouldn't better be covered in having them take courses of established programming languages?The apps could be designed in cooperation with local school systems to compliment their curriculum, or fill-in blanks which textbooks don't cover. The student developers would learn valuable programming skills, corporate sponsors might like to provide some support (thereby establishing early relationships with promising, motivated students), and the finished apps would be uploaded back into a central schoolforge repository for the benefit of schools everywhere.
Justin