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Re: [school-discuss] Preview of new SchoolForge home page

Expanding the software section at SchoolForge is something that should happen - aside from the front page, it is the most visited page. It's an area that has to be done well, so there isn't a rush to do it right away - learning Drupal and working with what is there now is where the focus is. Before anything is started, it would be nice hear ideas that could make something like this more effective. I would like to think of whatever is created as a successor to the application index. I have a lot of admiration for the app index and the case studies - even if they are considered outdated. As I was working with the case studies, going through and cleaning up some of the fields - I started to notice that some of the entries that were made in 2002 were efforts that were maturing and gaining acknowledgment today. For example take a look at this, (2002) http://www.schoolforge.net/education-case-studies/40 and then take a look at this http://software.newsforge.com/software/07/05/25/1535242.shtml?tid=150&tid=35 . The case study is Kamloops, and the article is 5 years later - amazing what has happened with the project that started small.
Some of the ideas that have been shared towards the idea of a new software / app index: * A way to allow schools using the software to indicate that they are, so that developers can see who is using their products 
* Pulling software feeds from Freshmeat (not so sure about this)
Some other ideas to think about - I think it would be nice if when someone found a specific application in the various software categories, and that software was available via some of the projects that are working to provide schools with physical media - that there was a link to that as well. Example - someone navigates to Software -> Desktop Publishing -> OpenOffice, the page would display various information - a description of the software, links to the OpenOffice website, and links to case studies & workshops that have related materials. It could also have a link to say that it is part of the WinOSSCDRom collection, and if possible - some way that they could get the iso, or even better a CD shipped to them. There are some projects out there that are working to distribute the physical media, and I don't know how closely they work with projects such as WinOSSCDRom and various 'live cds', but if they did, I could see this being a good thing.. 

Justin Riddiough

Les Richardson wrote:
I will leave it up and running until SchoolForge has something, more current, to replace it with... 

No worries,


Les Richardson




On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, HOWARD DANIEL-GVN674 wrote:


I still go to the Edu App Index, and have recommended it to several
teachers, so I'd hate to see it go.  Daniel


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Doug
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 7:25 AM
To: schoolforge-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Preview of new SchoolForge home page

Justin wrote:

http://www.schoolforge.net/education

Trying a few different things here, as always, input is welcomed.

Justin


All the "View More" links go to http://www.schoolforge.net/software
which is surely not what's intended.  On a mildly different topic, the
SEUL/edu Educational Application Index is currently unmaintained and
hasn't been properly maintained in quite a while.  Heck, SEUL/edu hasn't
existed for quite a while.  If anyone would like to take over management
of this increasingly out of date resource, it would be much appreciated.
Is the Educational Application Index still useful to anyone?  If it's
not being used, I think those of us who were the driving forces behind
it initially would have no qualms about putting it to sleep.  Does
anyone have any ideas about this?

Doug Loss