Re: [seul-edu] [Fwd: shooting from the hip]

[James Oden <joden@eworld.wox.org>]

> 
> 
> I'm in the process of scouring the web for a linux based prog that will
> do what "reading counts" does in windows.
> Essentially, reading counts is a program designed to test children's
> comprehension of books in the reading counts library.  The cool thing
> about reading counts is that the questions in the test database cover
> books that are already in the usual curriculum for students, so the
> program is just a ready made testing facility for teachers.  It
> shouldn't be rocket science to grab the questions already created and
> build an interface around them for students to use on the linux side of
> things.  So anyway, I know you guys are just getting started and all,
> but if you know of or hear of anything like this, please drop me a line,
> and we get sick of looking and decide to port it over ourselves, I'll be
> sure to pass the beast onto you.  Fair trade?  Good.
>
Hi Steve,

The school system I used to work for had a simular program to the one you
use called Accelerated Reader.  As you said it provided tests for many of the
books that were in our curriculem.  As a matter of fact I would have to say 
that Accelerated reader was often driving the choices of books to read.  
The things was it really was quite a simple application, and was completely
text based (it had menus, but the tests were just text).  I often wondered
about writting something like that for the school system while I was there,
but due to my job (there network admin.) I never had the time.

While I was their I did get experience with CGI-BIN programs, and I think you
are right that it would not be hard to create such a beast.  Furthermore,
I think that it might even be possible to get some sort of funding for it.
At anyrate, if you wanted to start such a project I would be willing to 
provide a server to host its demo site on and for CVS if you need it. I would
also be willing to help in the design and development, but at present I 
can't give too much time, because I am already working on three other 
projects:

	- Tech Tracker (its released).
	- Onetable (not realeased, tracker uses it; its a library that is
	            supposed to simplyfy settign up simple database apps on
		    the web).
	- CEU Tracker - when its done it will be a opened source web application
	                for tracking teacher's CEU's giving varying levels
		        of access to teachers, admins, and Central Office
		        personal.

Anyway, though, I am busy, I have experience with this sort of thing, and
perhaps my onetable libraries could help you get there faster (though,
I almost think PHP is better choice if you want to make the app 
catchy looking, as PHP is good at that sort of thing with less code [I am 
a die hard perl coder, but occasionally I have to look past my prejudices
and recognize other languages for their strengths).  Anyway, let me know if
I can help in anyway.

Cheers...james