Re: [school-discuss] Creating the "Killer App"

[david@members.iteachnet.org]

I agree with Matt. Good points all around, Chip. I'm sure others will tell you
that there are such projects, and pretty good ones, but they are not as complete
as the best of the proprietary products. They are, in some ways, IMHO, though,
better.

At the risk of embarrassing myself in this august company of coders, I'd like to
make some observations, spurred by your comments.

Starts have been made by numbers of people, a number of whom are on this list
and whom you might want to contact. The Apps database at seul and open source
schools both list a number of them: AUC, Schoolmation, IT4schools (I don't want
to leave anyone out, so let me just qulify this by suggesting you go to the
software section of schoolforge.net and look at what's there.
http://schoolforge.net/software.php

That said, your own project sounds pretty cool. 

I have suggested recently that a number of projects are quite close.
Schoolmation, for example, just needs a bulletin board to make it a must-have in
my opinion. MimerDesk is far along, too. But none of them interfaces with the
common grade books yet, or financial databases or library (as in books)
databases. The really cool thing would be for the coders of these apps to get
together with knowledgeable school teachers and students like you and pool their
efforts. Personally, I think the way forward is in a module-approach, based on a
common standard. That's why I like the sound of the recent talk on this list of
EduML. I'm told it may be more than we need to get starte, though.

I for one would encourage the formation of a workgroup to develop an idea of the
super app you describe and prototype it.  It could, at the very least, play the
role of example-app that the W3.org's Amyaya plays in desktop Web page building.

David

 Matt Jezorek <matt@bluelinux.org>:

> Good ideas, good rant, and makes sense. Now just because you can not compete
> 
> with skyward. Just because your school might be moving away it could be *the*
> 
> application that can go into other schools and start an open source
> movement.
> 
> Matt
> 
> P.S. If I can help you with anything on this let me know.
> 
> 
> Quoting Chip <chip@force-elite.com>:
> 
> > Hello, I am a new person to this list.  My Name is Paul Querna, and I am 
> > currently in 11th Grade at Mead High School ( http://mhs.mead.k12.wa.us ).
> 
> > 
> > Technology at my School and District ( http://www.mead.k12.wa.us ) is
> based
> > 
> > entirely around Windows 9X clients and Novell Based Servers.  Last Fall,
> our
> > 
> > school tried somthing new for technology, they had the students work on it.
> 
> > 
> > So, for one period a day, me and about 7 others work on various technology
> 
> > issues at the school.  I already knew quite a large ammount of PHP and
> Perl
> > 
> > before this, and as such wanted to use my skills to create a fulley
> dynamic
> > 
> > high school website.  What then insued was a large struggle to get a Linux
> 
> > based server installed so we could even use PHP (There is Perl for Novell,
> 
> > but no PHP).  After getting our server an external IP, it took another
> month
> > 
> > to get the domain name right, and another month to get SMTP unfiltered. 
> To
> > 
> > say the least, we are still having difficulties coordinating with the 
> > District Admins. :-)
> > 
> > For our website, I created the MyPHPSchool Project ( 
> > http://www.sf.net/projects/myphpschool/ ).  It does a few nice things like
> 
> > calendars, Web based Grades, Custom Teacher Home Pages (Teachers can edit
> 
> > links.. add stuff, etc...).  However, this past month I have more or less
> 
> > stopped developing all new features for MyPHPSchool.  Our District, as
> part
> > 
> > of Washington School Information Processing Cooperative (WSIPC)( 
> > http://www.wsipc.org/ ), is moving to Skyward ( http://www.skyward.com )
> for
> > 
> > everything this comming fall (See 
> > http://www.skyward.com/News/Archive/Q201.shtml for more info ).  My simple
> 
> > system cannot compete on the level of somthing like Skyward, so it would
> be
> > 
> > pointless for me to continue development.
> > 
> > This brings me to my biggest surprise.  There is no open source competitor
> 
> > that is anywhere near competitive with the commerical products in this
> arena.
> > 
> > Browsing the Google Administration and School Management Directory ( 
> > 
>
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Educational/Administration_an
> d_School_Management/
> > 
> > ) you can see that almost all of the programs are commercial programs(Not
> a
> > 
> > _bad_ thing, just disapointing, not like I am a GPL/Linux Zealot or
> anything
> > 
> > :-) ).  
> > 
> > What I see, is that in years previous, school adminstration software was 
> > specialized, ie one system for student schedules, another for
> Transportation,
> > 
> > another for attendence, and yet another for Grading.  What we are seeing
> now,
> > 
> > is the combining of all these into one product.  Open Source Programs are
> not
> > 
> > competitive with these one system products because it would take tweaking
> of
> > 
> > each to make them all work as one, which is somthing that most
> Administrators
> > 
> > do not have the time to do.  So they go for the more costly in upfront
> costs
> > 
> > in order to save time.
> > 
> > So where does that put us?  I think this is where open source *could* be
> the
> > 
> > most successful, in creating a one product solutioin, that can still 
> > interface with anything else via various methods.  I have read the mailing
> 
> > list archive on ZIS/SIF and EduML, and think that these could very well be
> 
> > the key people need to bring open source to education (on the server side
> at
> > 
> > least) at levels never seen before.  
> > 
> > What I would like to help with is the very top level of this interface. 
> They
> > 
> > way I see it, the best way is to create a PHP, or Perl web based system,
> that
> > 
> > is _extremely_ data source abstracted.  So that it can pull its
> information
> > 
> > from anything, from a traditional database like mySQL, pgSQL, and Orcale,
> or
> > 
> > from one of the new XML based systems still under development(Perhaps even
> 
> > have modules for both ZIS/SIF and EduML). The system should be able to do
> 
> > every aspect of data movment the school will ever need, this means
> exstensive
> > 
> > output and input filters.  The one last thing I think that is most
> inportant,
> > 
> > is flexiability.  The system needs to be able to run on Windows, or Linux,
> 
> > run in Frecnh, German or English as examples.  That is the key to
> widespread
> > 
> > adoption.  And that is how you create the Killer App, that will bring Open
> 
> > Source to Education.  Create somthing so wonderfull, that is does 
> > _everything_ a school needs to use the computers adminstration wise, make
> it
> > 
> > flexiable, and make it free.
> > 
> > --- Sorry for the long rant ---
> > 
> > - Paul Querna.
> > 
> > P.S. One more thing.  I volunteer to help do this "crazy idea(tm)".
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 




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