Re: [school-discuss] SIF versus other initiatives

[Les Richardson <les@celery.richtech.ca>]

Hi,

> A XML message router using a publish and subscribe model to distribute
> data between networked applications combined with a suite of xml
> schemas for describing administrative and educational data structures.

Well, if you say it fast, it doesn't sound like much, but this is going 
to be a tremendous amount of work.

Let's say you're going to build a distributed system of small applets to
solve educational problems. Would you build your system on top of a 
system of vapourware? (or on top of a complex and continously changing
specification?)

Since most of our projects are tiny we have very distinct limitations in
terms of time and resources that we can use to write applications.

I just feel that we should husband these resources very carefully.


> If you assume that capability can be deployed and used it will change
> the way you think of application design and your approach to solving
> problems.  It will be much easier to add a small application targeted
> to a specific need.

True. However, the application doesn't exist.

> I think one important area for development in education is the
> combining of formative assessment in with students use of
> computer-based visualization environments.  To do this properly the
> interactives need access to authentication systems and a repository
> for storing the formative assessments.  Separately I need a web
> application to display the results of mining this assessment
> repository.  This experimentation and development is much easier if I
> can build from a SIF/ZIS framework.

Again, this doesn't exist.

> If the work we are doing turns out to be valuable it will be much
> easier to deploy into existing school if they are using SIF
> technology.

Very true.

> At this point I think the main advantage to an open source ZIS (the
> xml message router) is that it will make it much easier for open
> source developers to experiment with SIF and make more likely the
> design of new applications with this technology in mind.

Again true. However, the "existential reality" is that it doesn't
exist...<grin>

Les Richardson