yay. spoke with vp of exhibitions at the conf this week as well. Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 28, 2009, at 9:00 AM, fourthgrademath- [email protected] wrote: > Send FourthGradeMath mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/fourthgrademath > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of FourthGradeMath digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Strong Museum Follow-up (Karlie Robinson) > 2. Re: FourthGradeMath Digest, Vol 2, Issue 37 (Brian Long) > 3. Quiz/Question API Proposal (Enimihil) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:33:11 -0400 > From: Karlie Robinson <[email protected]> > Subject: [math4] Strong Museum Follow-up > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > I spoke with the Collections Manager at the Strong Museum today. > > They do have an XO in the collection but it's not on display and they > would welcome a second XO. > > It will take about a month for the museum to determine if they will > take > the donation and if they do, we will be given an opportunity to name > who > the donation is from. "A gift from [someone]" > > Good news is that it can be a gift from more than one group so from > the > Fedora Ambassadors and OLPC etc. > > So while things are up in the air on a donation, I did suggest that we > could hold an event at the museum with the Grass Roots folks in > Western > NY at the Museum. After all, the public may not get their hands on > the > XO if it's behind glass but if our people bring machines for the > public > to explore and play with it could present a good opportunity for > Fedora, > OLPC, SugarLabs and Math4. > > I'll keep you updated as info becomes available > > ~Karlie > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:03:03 -0400 > From: Brian Long <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [math4] FourthGradeMath Digest, Vol 2, Issue 37 > To: Mel Chua <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected] > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Mel, > > Thanks for the help. I do believe most of us were able to get on > the IRC > today. We do come from a very broad range as far as programming and > technical skill goes though. I think the next step for a lot of us > will be > setting up the development environment to code and then run Sugar on > top of > our OS or on another machine... > > My last question was pretty amateur, sorry about that. From now on, > I'm > full speed ahead with Python! Thanks to > http://delicious.com/force > > for this bookmark: > http://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/python-is-not-java.html > > -Brian Long > [email protected] > > > On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Mel Chua <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Moving this thread to sugar-devel as well. Most general "how do I >> set up >> $environment?" questions regarding Sugar development get answered >> faster >> there. ;) >> >> If you need help setting up a Sugar dev environment, the #sugar >> channel on >> freenode is an awesome place to go - did the class get an intro to >> IRC yet*? >> >> --Mel >> >> *If not, this sentence may sound incoherent to a lot of people >> here... >> >> >> Brian Long wrote: >> >>> all, >>> >>> Is there any means of running sugar or python via a JVM? >>> >>> -Brian Long >>> [email protected] >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/fourthgrademath/attachments/20090327/1fd811c1/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:32:03 -0400 > From: Enimihil <[email protected]> > Subject: [math4] Quiz/Question API Proposal > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Hello all, > > This is my first post so I guess I should introduce myself a bit. ?I'm > Greg S., one of the RIT students in the class working on the Math4 > goals, and something that I've mentioned might be a good idea a few > times now is a shared library/API for quiz questions/drilling so that > activity developers can leverage content and easily use questions > written in a variety of formats, from a variety of sources. > > Inline below is a simple outline of a proposal for an API along those > lines, with a few notes on implementation at the end. ?Just trying to > propose something to save and/or centralize some common work that > needs to be done for a variety of activities. > > ================================= > Sugar Quiz API Preliminary Design > ================================= > > Motivation > ========== > > In the RIT class working on the Math4 projects, many proposed > activities > require a question database of some kind. ?A common API or library for > accessing databases in different formats, stored either locally or > remotely, > along with a simple mechanism to determine more complex formatting or > presentation than simple text (e.g. to include simple graphics or > mathematical notation) would cover a majority of the cases where the > activity needs some configurable "curriculum data". > > Eventually this library could be extended to provide hints, > explanations, or > walkthroughs for questions, in addition to the basic metadata about > level, > grouping, difficulty, and subject matter that would be part of the > base > system. > > Envisioned Usage > ================ > > Consider a simple flash-card-like activity. ?It presents a question > from a > list of questions, allows the student to select an answer from the > provided > answers for the question or to enter their own answer. ?Then the > correct > answer is revealed and the student it told whether their answer is > correct. > If the question has an explanation of the correct answer, the flash- > card > activity will show the explanation of the correct answer. ?(Note > that this > is just a simple usage example, the interaction design of a drilling > activity could be markedly different.) > > The flash-card activity would use this proposed Quiz API for the > following: > > ? ?- Loading the questions from the storage location into memory. This > ? ? ?includes any filtering or network lookup to download the > questions > ? ? ?from a remote resource and select appropriate questions for the > ? ? ?student. > > ? ?- Determining whether the student has entered a correct answer. > > ? ?- Rendering the question to a simple widget/canvas. (i.e. pass the > ? ? ?library a GtkCanvas or similar and tell it to display the > question) > > To start with, the library would simply be a time-saving tool for > developers > needing similar functionality, but as the XS (School Server) becomes > more > fully developed the library should integrate the functions provided > by the > XS to enable automated update of course material for the current > topic of > study so the students can drill material using any tool they prefer, > while > still reporting progress to the instructor using the XS services. > > Proposed API > ============ > > The Quiz API would be a python library, to act mostly as glue between > various file formats (and local or remote resources) for question > data and > the Gtk graphical environment, providing a simple way to consistently > present and layout questions. > > ? ?:quizdata.open(uri, [cache=False]): > ? ? ? ?Opens a URI, returning a list of quizdata.Question > instances. ?A > ? ? ? ?standard method of filtering question data based on parameters > ? ? ? ?should be specified. ?Examples of URIs that might be used:: > > ? ? ? ? ? > ?http://xs-server/math4class/current_topic?level=4&difficulty=hard&format=moodle > > ? ? ? ? ? ?file:///var/lib/mathquestions/quiz1? > level=4&difficulty=hard&format=xml > > ? ? ? ? ? ?xmpp://[email protected]/classname? > difficulty=hard&level=4 > > ? ? ? ?The cache parameter would locally save the retrieved > questions to a > ? ? ? ?persistent storage so requests from the same URI (with > cache=True) > ? ? ? ?would read from the cache. > > ? ?:class quizdata.Question: > ? ? ? ?This class contains individual data for a question: > ? ? ? ? ? ?- The question text > ? ? ? ? ? ?- The style of answer (incl. multiple-choice, numeric, free > ? ? ? ? ? ? ?response, etc.) > ? ? ? ? ? ?- The correct answer (or if the question is subjective, > that > ? ? ? ? ? ? ?there *is* no correct answer). > ? ? ? ? ? ?- Question difficulty > ? ? ? ? ? ?- Grade level > ? ? ? ? ? ?- Tags (for free-form grouping by topic, course, > instructor, > ? ? ? ? ? ? ?etc.) > > ? ? ? ?The question text and answers should support at least minimal > ? ? ? ?markup, like that supported by pango, in addition to markup > ? ? ? ?rendering with MathML/LaTeX syntax. > > ? ? ? ?.. note:: > ? ? ? ? ? ?The attributes listed above will should grow standardized > names > ? ? ? ? ? ?and be documented as part of the interface to the Question > ? ? ? ? ? ?class, to allow for fine-grained for activity controlled > ? ? ? ? ? ?rendering of the Question, if the simple show() call is not > ? ? ? ? ? ?appropriate. > > ? ? ? ?:Question.show(surface, x, y, [width=-1, [height=-1]]): > ? ? ? ? ? ?Draw the question to the drawing surface at coordinates > (x,y) > ? ? ? ? ? ?limited to the optionally specified width/height. > > ? ? ? ? ? ?This also should set up the appropriate input widgets for > the > ? ? ? ? ? ?type of question (multiple-choice/free-response) and > handle the > ? ? ? ? ? ?vents for those widgets. > > ? ? ? ?:Question.answered(): > ? ? ? ? ? ?Returns True if the student has provided an answer for the > ? ? ? ? ? ?Question. > > ? ? ? ?:Question.submitted(): > ? ? ? ? ? ?Returns True if the student has submitted an answer for the > ? ? ? ? ? ?Question. > > ? ? ? ?:Question.correct(): > ? ? ? ? ? ?Returns True if the currently selected answer is correct > for the > ? ? ? ? ? ?Question. > > ? ? ? ?:Question.answer(): > ? ? ? ? ? ?Returns the answer the student has currently selected, or > None > ? ? ? ? ? ?if no answer has been entered. > > ? ? ? ?:Question.clear(): > ? ? ? ? ? ?Removes the widgets and drawings that show() set up, > preparing > ? ? ? ? ? ?the surface to receive the next question or other widgets. > > > Implementation Issues > ====================== > > The implementation of this (deceptively simple) library will take some > effort, in that it will be closely tied to the windowing/graphical > toolkit, > PyGtk/Cairo/Pango rather directly, due to the high level of > abstraction. > Additionally the URI lookup and question filtering based on > parameters will > be necessary, as will interpreter the various format parsers > necessary to > build the Question objects. > > For MathML support, the GtkMathView widget will need to be > available, so a > certain amount of effort may be involved in packaging the library in a > simple way for activity developers. > > Next Steps > ========== > > Firstly, this API is being proposed and posted to the Math4 mailing > list for > feedback and changes before any commitments to this interface is > decided. > For any activity developers who are currently working on an activity > that > could take advantage of such a system, or who have written similar > functionality in an activity, your input on usage and the > naturalness of the > API. > > Secondly, anyone who is interested in doing work on this library or > using > the library in their activity should chime in, along with the > expected usage > or how you can contribute. > > Greg S. > -- > Email is packaged by intellectual weight, not volume. Some settling of > contents may have occurred during transmission. > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > FourthGradeMath mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/fourthgrademath > > > End of FourthGradeMath Digest, Vol 2, Issue 39 > ********************************************** _______________________________________________ FourthGradeMath mailing list [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/fourthgrademath
