<div dir="ltr"><div>Thanks, Tony and James. Replies to both your messages below: </div><div><br></div>On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 8:42 PM, James Simmons <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nicestep@gmail.com" target="_blank">nicestep@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">The goodreads website <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/" target="_blank">https://www.goodreads.com</a> might be useful. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes, and features like getting recommendations about what to read based on what you've already liked and being able to add books to a "want to read" list would be great. I especially like the "want to read" list because it implies it gives you a way to identify something as interesting and then move on instead of feeling obligated to dive right into it. Of course, the experience of downloading a text to your computer's journal to read later might replicate that. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>I wrote a free book the might be of some use to you:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment</a></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div> Thanks for passing this on! I ended up reading through the whole thing because everything inside is relevant to this project (even the parts on scanning in paper books). </div><div><br></div><div>A few questions: </div><div>You mention that the text-to-speech works for plain text and ePubs; does that mean it doesn't work for PDFs? I would test this on my personal XO, but I'm waiting for my charger to arrive in the mail...</div><div><br></div><div>On another note, at one point you mention that in the Read Etexts activity "highlighting may lag behind the words being spoken." Does this activity actually highlight the words as the computer is reading them? Using the text-to-speech function built into the Frame of later versions of Sugar, I haven't seen it do that. </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Tony Anderson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tony_anderson@usa.net" target="_blank">tony_anderson@usa.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Hi, Sora<br>
<br>
The idea would be that a comments on a book (accession) would be
linked from the accession record.<br>
There is also a Django app (kls), which provides a record for each
XO user (student or staff) and a record for each XO (inventory). The
comments made by a user would be linked also to the user. In this
way it would be easy to look at all comments and rankings by a user
or to look at all comments and rankings for a given item in the
library.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Sounds great. It's good to hear that accessions can be linked to one another; that also got me thinking about how we can accommodate books accompanied with audio on the server. Currently, when students want to listen to audio for a book, they have to start the audio in a separate window and then flip back to the book to read along. It isn't too much of a hassle, but it would be nice if it was easier. </div><div><br></div><div>Would you provide a log-on for each user? With our particular course we'll be enrolling only 20 students in each class, so everyone will have access to their own XO and will use the same computer each day. We figured that means we can skip a log-in step and just identify teachers and students by the computer they're using to access the server. I know other deployments are using the same set of XOs for the whole school, so they might need a log-in; we're just hoping to have one less page for students / teachers to click through before class can start. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<br>
Like most of my projects, this one is 90% complete. The comment link
is needed. I plan the comments/rankings to look like those in
Pustakalaya (<a href="http://www.pustakalaya.org" target="_blank">www.pustakalaya.org</a>). Unfortunately, that app currently
only works in the internet version. I also have not added the 'url'
links capability to add other items. Look at Rachel as an example of
how the Gutenberg collection could be organized into collections for
greater accessibility (by the way, this sort of direct link is far
less demanding on the server than the current search method).<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm glad someone's thinking of how to structure large amounts of resources in the future. That's not exactly our situation, since we're only dealing with 300 - 500 books in an extracurricular program that doesn't have to tie things to curriculum. Sorting of some sort will be important, but I guess my own priority at the moment is giving teachers and students the tools to share great reading materials with each other. Thanks for giving some advantages of the direct-link system so that even a non-techie like me can understand why it might be useful ( ; </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Tony <br><div><div class="h5">
<div>On 02/22/2015 09:42 AM, James Simmons
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Sora,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
The goodreads website <a href="https://www.goodreads.com" target="_blank">https://www.goodreads.com</a>
might be useful. You can do rankings of books, reviews, have
threaded discussions, post favorite quotes, interact with G+ and
Facebook, and other things that the words "reading socially"
would suggest.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I wrote a free book the might be of some use to you:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It is also available on the web. Here is the chapter on the
Pathagar book server, which might be of interest:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/the-pathagar-book-server/" target="_blank">http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/the-pathagar-book-server/</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>James Simmons</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 4:45 PM, Sora
Edwards-Thro <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sora@unleashkids.org" target="_blank">sora@unleashkids.org</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Thanks for the additional input, everyone.
James, Gonzalo, Tony, some responses below:
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><span>On Sat, Feb 21,
2015 at 4:14 PM, James Simmons <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nicestep@gmail.com" target="_blank">nicestep@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>The catch is it only works with plain text
files. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>Yes, my original thought was we could convert PDF
to plain-text files and just use the Write activity
to do highlights and such. But, some of the content
we're working with is not OER (that's what happens
when you need high-quality books in a specific
language), and I'm not sure if they'll be okay with
us manipulating the files like that. We've got to
choose how many battles to fight with them. Thanks
for passing this tool on - looks like it's better
suited than the Write activity for reading. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote"><span>On
Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 2:51 PM, Gonzalo
Odiard <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:godiard@sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">godiard@sugarlabs.org</a>></span>
wrote:</span><span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>I am available to work (on
contract) in these features if you
are interested.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thank you for the offer, Gonzalo. Fortunately, we
do have some money raised to pay programmers. Right
now I'm just trying to identify which tasks to ask
people to tackle. Bear in mind that this is my first
experience with software development; thanks for
being patient,everyone, as we try to figure out what
is and isn't doable, and what is and isn't worth
doing. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Tony Anderson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tony_anderson@usa.net" target="_blank">tony_anderson@usa.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Also
on the list is a 'comments' capability so that
learners can make comments and give rankings for
the books they read from the school server library
and which would be linked to the book entry on the
school server.</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra">Do you currently have a system in
place for organizing books on the schoolserver? I know
on the Haiti IIAB release we have a searchable copy of
Project Gutenberg; I don't know how easy it is to add
entries to that. In the past, we just added books by
creating another link that goes to a page with a list of
the PDF files available. But since we're looking at
adding at least 300 more books, plus whatever the texts
the students are able to write, so searching by title
would be nice / necessary. We're also looking for
sorting by level and topic. Finally, the ability to
comment and give rankings is essential if you want
students to start reading socially. If you've made /
plan to make any headway on the above, I'd love to hear
more about it. Thanks. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div></div>