[IAEP] Volunteer-driven development of educational software

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 5:45 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> Cutting this important part out of another discussion ...
>
> On 10.11.2008, at 20:49, Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote:
>
>> Of course, this all supposes the open source model. If someone gets
>> paid
>> to do a Python Etoys or a GNU Smalltalk one then I wouldn't be at all
>> surprised to see a good quality implementation created from scratch in
>> just a couple of months.
>
> I have been thinking about this for quite a while - how valid is the
> assumption that a volunteer community would be able to create software
> that they do not intend to use themselves?

I think we all have seen that it doesn't work that way. With rare
exceptions, programmers either program to scratch their own itches, or
because they get paid. I will address this issue in my Sugar Camp talk
tomorrow. Earth Treasury intends to work with many others to get
governments in the OLPC countries to pay for textbook and software
development. I have to talk to Nicholas about this, too, of course.

The business case for the countries is that XOs plus electronic
textbooks cost less than published textbooks (or soon will, even in
the countries with the lowest textbook expenditure), and can teach
much better. This is in part because we can integrate XO Activities
into the textbooks and lesson plans, topic by topic and lesson by
lesson. We can integrate multimedia, simulations, math, puzzles...into
every subject, including gym/PE/PT. We can structure lessons around
collaborative discovery, guided by the teachers, and not random  In
the case of US state education systems, another benefit is that they
can use textbooks that are not on the California and Texas lists.

So to make that sale to any beyond the Early Adopters, we have to
demonstrate all that, and get professional educational researchers to
measure the results. Anybody who is interested in volunteering on the
code side of this would be welcome. We also need people with knowledge
of every elementary school subject, teachers, tech writers, students,
and parents.

-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai