Founder, Inventor, Creator
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I keep forgetting the name of the damn project and I always type it into Google wrong. Anyway. Diaspora has momentum. And it looks like a Ruby project too?
Looks like Ning/Edmodo etc. have their work cut out competing with this open source monster. Although we have been here before with open source/free social networks. I feel a touch of de ja vou. Wasn’t there a project called open social or something? Anyways.. If you care, good for you. Social networks aren’t productivity tools.
Me and Chad have been chatting about the scoring / reward / xp mechanism and how we can use it to try to encourage learners to “learn more”.
Without going off on one I wanted to quickly update everyone with where we are at. By we I mean the 3 developers, 1 designers and 2 teachers working on the project.
Whoa, now this is big. But it is right. The problem is that primary kids web based skills are developing so quickly at home that at 9-12 year old 3 years ago is the equivalent of a 6-8 year old now in the way they negotiate web sites. This report recently published suggests 2 interfaces, 6-8 then 9-12. My brain explodes. So many providers just provide one interface, us included. I often pondered this but to read it in this report confirmed it for me.
So these are the themes we hope to make available:
We don’t try to. We must leverage social networks by writing plugins/addons. Our current list reads:
Note: We wont promote any of these services directly to the user.
I don’t even have a due date or anything for this, it’s not because I don’t want to do it. Over the last month I have bashed our SearchyPants and Satpin, the reason for making those sites specifically is because they don’t have any layers of complexity, they are simplified versions of already existing relatively well understood concepts. So I guess maybe early 2011. I’m currently waiting on Ning developer access so I can see if it is possible to easily send points from a ning post to XPArena.
I really need teacher help with this project so if you can see a use for it please get in touch because without it being tested in it’s beta stage it could end up growing into something that completely misses the point. I’m considering writing it for Ruby on Rails. There, I said it.
Usually what happens is some well marketed system comes along and forks off our existing source code, closes it off then calls it their own. I’m fine with that. The only way we can compete against big business is with transparency and by proving to educators we are being security concious. The main thing XPArena will need to do is facilitate new learning tools as they are launched. Services like Edmodo will fall by the way side as they have no API/developer tools, schools will hopefully become aware of this ability to link tools together and begin choosing the open system.. Of course this in theory..
Obviously these designs are aimed at 6-8, maybe 9-12 too..
UPDATE: It’s not just me who thinks Minecraft is great, so does Leon!
Minecraft is an online game, the free version isn’t multi-player. Minecraft can be played in your web browser (when it’s up). Minecraft requires Java (not the usual flash software).
Minecraft is a first person survival game. You must manipulate elements/resources to survive and construct your own world. During the day everything is fine and peaceful, you spend this time constructing and crafting a safe environment because at night is when the dangerous beings come out to attack you. Admittedly this may be a bit scary but as its 8bit and its not exactly grand theft auto graphics I’m sure it can be classed as “U” rated or at most “PG”.
Well, mostly in the crafting section of the game. Trying to persuade you that control and/or the day/night thing is educational would be a bit far fetched and I try to treat my readers with respect. The crafting part of the game basically asks you to merge certain elements to create new materials. For example, you turn wood into planks, planks into sticks then craft 2 sticks and one piece of coal together to create a match.
Don’t expect for this game to be easy, in fact it’s tough! Watch below for a video on how to survive your first night!
Minecraft has been buggy so they released a free single player download version, how nice of them is that? This is the current download link. I haven’t played the multi player yet, I’m not sure on the child protection issues surrounding this. I guess like any other MMORPG (of sorts) it will have the ability to chat etc. Private educational collaborative servers could be an option though? In the mean time I’m getting in touch with the developer to see if we can get some free educational access so we can try it out in a few schools.
What do you think? Is this more a primary or secondary tool and other than geography what subjects does it complement?
I haven’t been very vocal lately, because I have been busy…
I have been working on Ian Addisons new project now called Satpin (something to do with phonics according to Miss Pitkethly). My Javascript skills have improved massively doing this project which I have enjoyed thoroughly. Javascript is awesome. I need a decent tutor though, I am cobbling my way through stuff using “John” logic which isn’t good enough. Once the project is complete/stable I will be releasing it open source (it will require a LAMP stack). I am spending masses of attention to detail on this project, more than I have ever done. I’m focusing 99% of my efforts on UI. I decided to make it writeable by anyone which will upset some people but oh well..
I have been finishing the electrics on my wind turbine, which is now up and running (hopefully okay). It’s been a while since I did any component level work and Sparky helped me which was good.
We spent a few hours working on how to improve load balancing on our main apache cluster. We are considering casandra if we grow any quicker than our current projections.
Mid week I struggled and I’m still struggling massively with a Shib SP deployment. I’m running the same config as another deployment but I am getting errors. Think this is a job for team john and tom to get sorted properly. We are doing it so we can work with the Swedish equivalent of JISC for their Etherpad deployment.
We got classdroid working properly, well, sort of. Turns out Android isn’t as cool as I first thought. Well, android is.. Turns out motorola/lg etc. are idiots and install custom software including custom camera intents that breaks a lot of the phones functionality. Thankfully google will fix this with any v2+ updates. The LG Optimus is due V2.1 this month so I am willing to wait a few weeks instead of trying to squash a documented/fixed bug.
I helped Challenge CLC with a touch of PHP this week, super easy stuff. It is always good to collaborate with people, especially when I am so comfortable helping out in PHP.
I did a few more edu installs of Etherpad, nothing exciting here. Wrote a new way to integrate with the scribblar API. Stefan has the code if anyone wants it. Important thing to note, why the Hell are so many Americans and now Africans getting me in to do Etherpad deployments yet there are so few EU deployments going on? Is their something about Europeans and our lack of encouraging collaboration in the work/edu place?
Finally. Happy Pirates day! Now gimme your loot.