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[school-discuss] Local outreach programs built around a community EduApp project



Dear SchoolForge Members,

greetings from sunny Southern New Mexico, where it is
currently snowing!  I'm writing to propose that we join
forces in developing an opensource framework for small
education software projects, which will subsequently be
refered to as "EduApps" during this letter.

What I have in mind is a two-part business model we could
all benefit from: First, the opensource community develops
and maintains a central "EduApp Developer's Kit" on the
SourceForge website. This kit would contain the EduApp
Library, template applications and tutorial materials to
facilitate creation of new applications compatible with the
framework.  Among the functionalities handled by this base
framework would be a data recording module to record
transcripts of interactive sessions.  

Then, interested participants setup their own local program
to develop EduApps in response to requests from local
teachers; local participants download the developer's kit,
and upload their GPL'd innovations back to the central  
repository on SourceForge.

Here at New Mexico State University we are attempting to
bootstrap such a program into existence.  In this case, our
program serves to broker deals between local teachers'
requests, university departments (which give course credit
to student programmers from their respective departments)  
and external funding sources.

Our specific model seeks to recognize sponsors with a
reserved acknowledgement space in the application. The data
could potentially be used by teachers, university
researchers, and school administrators, to quantify student
performances and advance research into formative learning
processes.  

This whole concept is something which I have been working
on for several years. I currently have a small suite of
applications which all derive from a common EduApp template,
and thus, much of the above work has already been started.
The current design is for EduApps written in Python, with
the options of both wxPython and PyGame toolkits, as unified
through the current framework, located at:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/eduapp
    http://www.asymptopia.org
    
The sourceforge website is sparse because it has only
recently been decided to steer the project in the direction
advocated in this email.  However, there are mailing lists
and forums setup where, hopefully, a discussion on this can
continue.

This model can offer educational, financial and publishing
opportunities to everyone involved. I believe industry
sponsors would be very attracted to local "franchises" or
campus "industries"  (or outreach projects) as described
above.  One way to think of it is as a community self-service
program.  There is a lot more to be said, and I am eager to
follow-up after giving you all a chance to respond.  

Best Regards,

Charlie Cosse

ccosse@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.asymptopia.org
http://eduapp.nmsu.edu