[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Re: [school-discuss] School Admin Software



Les, are there any other software that interface with your database?  I mean stuff that other people wrote, but which cooperate with your OA conventions and merge data from your database with theirs?  I confess that I am, again,  thinking along the lines of my own personal experiments with data-recording applications and recording student session data, to be merged with meta-data about the school/class/district/etc.  It's not an exact science, but similar data-mining potential exists to what Google, for example, records about you when using gmail, etc.   There's ton's of info in there getting thrown away, otherwise.   Anyway, are there any apps making "synergistic" use of your data?

Thanks,
Charles

On 10/12/07, Les Richardson <les@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Daniel,

> Les Richardson wrote:
>>
>> Yes, I continue to toil alone in the pit of software development for
>> school admin software. And, yes, alone, little can be accomplished in a
>> short time.
>>
>
> You're doing great Les.  In Engineering you only get a maximum of two of the
> following three things: good, fast, cheap.  We'll give up fast. Note that M$
> does none of the three :-)

Thanks. Yes, agreed.

> Say, it turns out that the middle school my daughter will be at next year is
> piloting TeacherEase this year.  Pretty pricey stuff, $65 to $90 per teacher
> depending on volume.  Here's what the school says they can do with it: "You
> can login and access your child's subjects, assignments, and progress. From
> time to time you may also receive email for good grades, missed assignments,
> behavior, etc."

> Doesn't OpenAdmin do most of this too?

Yes, you can view (as the parent) their attendance, report cards, and
teacher gradebook (for your child's subjects) currently.

In order to add automated email's would be very simple. It's just that no
one has asked for it. I try not to build stuff nobody wants.

The other issue is that I work _with_ people. The development process is
an interative one. Someone asks for a feature.... I come up with some
ideas that fit in with overall OA objectives (which include simplicity). I
write some code, they test it; we make changes until they're happy. This
is then put into the updates area (or part of the next release).

I don't build to a spec sheet (even though that would look sexy and 'sell'
more software...) I could also make it look 'pretty' by using more
graphics (ala MS) and sell it that way. Howver, graphics are slow in a web
environment and folks on dialup would not get acceptable performance if
they were teachers working on their gradebook or doing their attendance
from home. It's all a tradeoff and I don't really have to make the
tradeoffs that commercial implementations must...

Let me know IF you want automated email (and it would really be useful to
the school and parents). It would increase the (already steep)
installation curve for OA since you would need an email enabled Linux/Unix
server.

I could easily add this to the demo site, if serious.


Les Richardson
Open Admin for Schools
http://richtech.ca/openadmin



>  The last item, automatic email to
> parents, is the only feature I think OA lacks, but is it on your roadmap?
> I'd like to offer the teacher who is coordinating the pilot the chance to try
> out OA as well.
>
> Daniel
>
> --
> Daniel Howard
> President and CEO
> Georgia Open Source Education Foundation
>