Re: ME?

[Doug Loss <dloss@csrlink.net>]

Pierre-Luc Simard wrote:
> 
> I'm a yough (18 years old) System administrator at"Le College
> Saint-Charles-Garnier".
> 
> -- what I plan to do --
> I do not currently plan on installing Linux box everywhere in the
> school but I'm always looking into way to integrate Linux into the
> exisiting structure.
> 
Welcome, Pierre!  We're still in the opening throes of discussion on how
to use Linux in education, both at home and in schools.  Currently,
we're mostly focussed on administrative software such as gradebooks and
lesson planners, but we're also talking about courseware, "edutainment"
programs for home use, and user interfaces for lower-grade students.  As
the holiday season approaches I expect that many mailing list members
will have their concentration on other things (as will I to at least
some extent), but I hope we can get some work done on a good description
of our administrative software goals so we can begin some serious work
in the new year.  At this point it looks as though XML will be used as
our data interface between programs, by which I mean that (for example)
a gradebook will be expected to read and write data in a specific XML
format, which format the backend data storage system will also
understand.  In this way we don't have to have all parts built at the
same time for programs to be written and tested, and so long as the XML
DTDs we use are well publicized anyone can write programs to work with
our data.  I think studying XML (as I plan to do in the next few weeks)
will be a good idea for those of us here who want to work on this
particular aspect of Linux in education.

-- 
Doug Loss                 It is impossible to imagine Goethe
Data Network Coordinator  or Beethoven being good at billiards
Bloomsburg University     or golf.
dloss@bloomu.edu                H. L. Mencken