Re: [seul-edu] SEUL Licensing (was: Our presence at trade shows)

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

At 10:49 AM 9/2/00 +0000, Manuel Gutierrez Algaba wrote:
>On Sat, 2 Sep 2000, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
>> 
>> Really? You probably have a lack of imagination if you think so. For
>> example Dr. Geo and Dr. Genius - two educations soft - make dynamic
>> geometry, and I can ensure that dynamic geometry is really a chalange
>> in term of software design and mathematic research.
>
>Pure mathematic research is not an interest either. Most hackers
>consider math subjects in the university as a major nuisance that
>eats lots of time. The only use they see in them is 3D-graphics.

The issues are a bit more complicated than this, but nonetheless Manuel
makes the right basic point.

The question is not whether there are significant challenges in writing
educational software. Of course there are; otherwise, we'd be flooded with
great stuff. The issue is whether the challenges are the sorts that will
motivate people with the needed skills to write software of the quality that
schools need, and to do it for free. Posed this way, it highlights two problems.

One, what kinds of challenges motivate skilled programmers to work for free?
Saying a problem has challenges is not enough to answer this. I'd be the
first to agree, for example, that the athletes who will go to Sidney this
month overcame tremendous challenges to do so ... but that won't motivate
*me* to start training for the decathelon or whatever. 

Two, who has the needed skills? One reason why programmers often focus on
things like programming tools is that they understand both how to create
them and what good ones look like. How many skilled programmers,
particularly ones who fit the (admittedly imprecise) label "hacker", know
the difference between a program that works well for teaching 12 year olds
and one that fails abyssmially? I'd guess very few.

I've never worked for an edsoft company, but I assume they staff with both
experienced educators and skilled programmers, then do what is needed (pay
them is the obvious starting point, but I expect there is more) to get them
to work as a team.

Perhaps in addition to addressing the standard question of how to get
programmers to produce code that gets distributed for free, the Open Source
edsoft discussion should consider how to motivate teachers and programmers
to collaborate in an Open Source setting. 

In my time on this list, I've seen a few instances in which teachers trying
to develop something posted asking for volunteers to help with the
programming; I don't recall ever seeing a programmer post asking for
teachers to collaborate (but my memory isn't all that good - and I mean
something more than tell the programmer what they want, as is now occurring
with the gradebook project). 

Have any of those efforts succeeded? If so, how? What did the team leader do
to motivate the collaboration and amke it work? If they failed, perhaps the
people who tried them have some insights as to why?

The cafeteria-manager program is the latest instance of this sort of
request. Perhaps paying attention to how its team-building process works (or
fails) will be instructive.


--
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA           	 	         ray@comarre.com        
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