Re: [seul-edu] Site tools for Schoolforge

[Harish Pillay 9v1hp <harish@iqmind.com>]

Thanks Tom for the reply.  I am not sure how Microsoft is pushing this
product into schools in the US, but here in Singapore there has been some
beta test trials and some of the schools on the trials have expressed
interest in acquiring it (and have asked my company to help provide it).  
Naturally, I am reluctant to go with it and perhaps this ongoing discussion 
will help to focus on a viable target of services to meet and exceed.

Good night, Tom.

I am off for lunch.

Regard.

Harish

On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 12:35:58AM -0500, Tom Hoffman wrote:
> On Thursday 29 November 2001 11:04 pm, you wrote:
> > Tom -
> >
> > Hi.  Thanks for your comments on your increasing success with Zope and CMF.
> > I would be curious if you could do a quick (a 10 minute) once-over on how
> > that compares with the Microsoft product called Encarta Class Server
> > (http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=ECS).  I have mentioned this
> > product on this list before, but have not had much success on getting
> > suggestions on alternatives.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Harish
> 
> Hm.  I hadn't seen this Encarta Class Server before.  I should be going to 
> bed but now I'm looking at the product tour...
> 
> Zope is a lower level tool.  It is a web server and object database with a 
> web interface (and lots more...).  The equivalent Microsoft products would be 
> more like Active Server Pages and SQL Server, I think.  The Encarta Class 
> Server might be built on top of those products.  Likewise, the CMF and 
> whatever tools you'd create to customize for a school website would be run on 
> top of Zope, mostly as Python scripts.
> 
> I have been reluctant to adopt and particularly spend money on pre-configured 
> school software because we are trying to create a non-traditional system of 
> assessment and all the preconfigured software I have seen is, understandably, 
> built around more traditional processes.
> 
> It seems like Mimerdesk is probably trying to do mostly the same thing as 
> Encarta, but I'm not sure.
> 
> --Tom