Re: [seul-edu] Site tools for Schoolforge

[Scott Bradford <scottbradford@home.com>]

Doug Loss wrote:

> Subject:
>
> [seul-edu] Site tools for Schoolforge
> From:
>
> Doug Loss <drloss@home.com>
> Date:
>
> Thu, 29 Nov 2001 19:18:18 +0000
>
> To:
>
> seul-edu@seul.org
>
>
>
>
>So we need folks to do some research and recommend tools for us to use
>to develop the various aspects of Schoolforge.  As David said, different
>areas will need different tools; the areas may not even be on the same
>systems.  Roger came up with a great list of aspects that Schoolforge
>should cover here
><http://www.seul.org/archives/seul/edu/Nov-2001/msg00266.html>.
>

I feel the most important part is that schooolforge should :

schoolforge should be
the place connecting them all.

and along those lines, I think the PHPGroupware provides a nice foundation.for a few reasons:
1.  no client software needed othaer than a browser
2.  ability to add applications through a phpgroupware plugin or simply a link to another resource.
3.  "groupware"  letting us work as a group independent of where.

I feel that the site should server to bring together teachers developers and students.

For example, a section of phpgroupware could be used to develop a freely available curriculum by using a tool like wiki.  
students could write reports with data gathered from other sources about a given subject using phpgroupware to compose and share the report.
The teacher could grade the report and submit it for peer review to be added to the resources available.

If everyone starts by logging into the groupware suite, 
colaboration and development could proceed with end users (teachers and students) and developers working on the same interface.  
I feel that this is important because what is open source but a bunch of end users pitching in?

PHPgroupware would make it EASY for teachers to share homework 
assignments not just with students but also with teachers.
it also provides a medium for discussin through forums that doesn't 
require client side apps (other than the browser)

Say Whild Peas happens and we're all on the same schoolforge.net site 
for all our free educational needs....
one server won't be able to serve up all the schools of the world, so I 
think this needs to be built with a distributed platform in mind.
I don't know but suspect that PHPGroupware can be setup to run on a 
distributed network.

Potentially, I can see schoolforge being a custimized PHPgroupware setup 
that schools could easily install local mirrors of for the purpose of 
keeping that schools data close to that school,
but still making public data available to the shared network.

picture the boot and run from cd "DemoLinux" distribution being 
customized to bring up a schoolforge server that can update from the 
main sitem, or even just a package that installs apache/PHP/PHPgroupware 
"ready to run"

all in all, Community and colaboration is all we need, a tool that gives 
us that will set the stage for everything else.
rah rah PHPGROUPWARE

BTW excuse my linewrap, tonights Mozilla build is being funny about it.