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    Hi Sora,<br>
    <br>
    There needs to be a database of XO users (both students and staff).
    The staff can then have 'teacher' priviliges. The system will also
    know what grade the student is in and so what course material is
    relevant.<br>
    <br>
    My plan is that where XO's are shared, that each user should go to
    the 'About Me' and change the nick to their username. The advantage
    is that no extra programming is required and the system will be
    restarted (terminating activities started by a previous user as well
    as registering the new nick).<br>
    <br>
    Naturally, where there is a single user, the username and the user
    nick would be the same. <br>
    <br>
    Essentially what is happening is that the activity stores a session
    record showing when an activity was started, stopped, and what
    outcome was recorded (simplest, it was run). The session records are
    captured on the school server and displayed to the teacher. The
    model for this is the coach report in Khan Academy Lite.<br>
    <br>
    A credible representation of what is available on the school server
    is now available at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http:www.projectbernie.org">http:www.projectbernie.org</a>. <br>
    <br>
    I would recommend the English Children's Literature collection from
    OLE Nepal's Pustakalaya and the <br>
    'stories' in the English Learning for Kids from the British Council
    (example of audio with text). The school server also has a
    collection of 40 more stories not on the web site.<br>
    <br>
    Synchronizing the audio with text is difficult. There is a
    capability called SMIL (smile) which has this capability but I have
    not had time enough to get it working. My thought was to have
    reading work similar to Karaoke.<br>
    <br>
    Incidentally, the Talk English component on the school server also
    provides a wide range of simple English text associated with audio
    clips.<br>
    <br>
    Tony<br>
    <br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 02/23/2015 01:19 PM, Sora
      Edwards-Thro wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote
cite="mid:CACfXvP8_BG1ZPScAbYnOsGw3HU8KhTYgiQPbV2j3FCX5xJCjeQ@mail.gmail.com"
      type="cite">
      <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
            moz-do-not-send="true" 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 moz-do-not-send="true"
              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 moz-do-not-send="true"
                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 moz-do-not-send="true"
                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
                  moz-do-not-send="true"
                  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 moz-do-not-send="true"
                          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 moz-do-not-send="true"
                            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 moz-do-not-send="true"
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
                              moz-do-not-send="true"
                              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
                                        moz-do-not-send="true"
                                        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
                                                  moz-do-not-send="true"
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
                                        moz-do-not-send="true"
                                        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>
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