[Sugar-devel] Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 53, Issue 31

[Tony Anderson]

On 03/15/2013 06:03 PM, sugar-devel-request at lists.sugarlabs.org wrote:
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:21:31 -0500
> From: James Simmons<nicestep at gmail.com>
> To: Gonzalo Odiard<gonzalo at laptop.org>
> Cc: Sugar-dev Devel<sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] Activity to improve collaboration in the
> 	classroom
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAN6VRWwBAfpWNjfM=R+5MfU0YXvzK4dn5YU4NRDe-RvnXZZnkA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Gonzalo,
>
> This sounds a bit like the Library Activity that Aleksey Lim worked on:
>
> http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4089
>
> The sharing part was supposed to be something like you would create a list
> of Journal entries that you wished to share (something like a bookshelf),
> and these entries would be available for download by anyone you had shared
> the list with.  This functionality was supposed to be part of version 2
> which never got written.
>
> James Simmons
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Gonzalo Odiard<gonzalo at laptop.org>  wrote:
>
>> >  A few times, we found simple operations are not so simple for teachers in
>> >Sugar,
>> >one case is share one file with all the kids in a class, request a task to
>> >do
>> >and later get all the work done by the kids.
>> >
>> >I am working in one activity to try to solve this issue, I want share a
>> >prototype,
>> >and a few ideas around this issue.
>> >
>> >JournalShare [1] allow select a number of items in the Journal and after
>> >collaboration is
>> >established, download the files. Pending is the implementation of
>> >transference of files in the opposed direction. Right now,
>> >display only the favorite items in the journal, like Portfolio,
>> >but probably will allow select individual items or use tags to search.
>> >
>> >I used webkit to display the UI and a simple server to
>> >provide the data in JSON format. javascript in the client creates the UI.
>> >Using HTML and CSS allow fast and easy formating. Right now,
>> >the format is ugly, but will be improved later.
>> >
>> >I think we can improve this to allow adding comments or other social
>> >features,
>> >like walter proposed webservices plugins do. Other reason to use a web
>> >interface
>> >and not do the client with gtk, is allow easy migration to other future
>> >environments
>> >or allow run this in the schoolserver to access the backedup journal items.
>> >
>> >The most important thing right now is implement the transference from the
>> >client
>> >to the server, and test if can scale to have a entire class working
>> >together.
>> >
>> >Download a file is implemented with the downloadmanager from Browse,
>> >but for any reason does not show the alert when the download start
>> >but at the end, (probably gtk is blocking the thread or similar), is
>> >something to solve.
>> >I stolen code from other activities, like Portfolio, Read and the
>> >original JournalShare from Agustin. To all the developers, thanks:)
>> >
>> >Comments, ideas, bugs or patches are welcomed.
>> >
>> >Gonzalo
>> >
>> >[1]http://dev.laptop.org/~gonzalo/activities/JournalShare-1.xo
>> >
>> >_______________________________________________
>> >Sugar-devel mailing list
>> >Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> >http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel

Hi,

Most of this functionality is available. Currently I have modified 
ds-backup to backup only Journal items with a document. Thus all of the 
students documents are on the school server automatically.

The question is how to share. Do you want the students to be able to 
download documents for other student's Journal? Does the student decide 
whether to share his document? Does the teacher have a role in deciding 
what is to be shared. Is sharing across all XOs or only those in a 
specific class. Do you want students to work collaboratively on these 
items wiki-like?

So I have built a special 'milestone' into the Learn activity which I am 
calling My Studio. Students can create web pages and can submit them.
On the school server, there will be a 'resource' which contains the 
submitted 'My Studio' from each student in a hierarchy: school, class, 
student. Teachers and other students will be able to see the submitted 
items and download ones they want. Once downloaded they can (Creative 
Commons like) modify it as they wish. The modified work can then be 
uploaded as part of their 'My Studio'. This approach is not dependent on 
the Journal but on having a class list for each class that uses the XOs.

Note: the Learn activity is based on Firefox - I hope to port it to 
WebKit, but that will not be a simple task. Currently, I have not tested 
Firefox on XO-1.75 or XO-4 (Arm) but it works on XO-1 and XO-1.5 with 
12.1.0.

Tony