Re: [Server-devel] Offline Moodle

[Martin Langhoff]

Tony,

first -- thanks for the work you've done on this so far! There is a
GSoC project on the Moodle side that is looking at an initial GG
implementation.

It'll be interesting to see where it leads to, and I'll be hoping to
co-mentor it (Dongsheng is the main mentor). Students also need a bit
of room, so I don't want to crowd the candidate too much ;-)

If you are keen on playing with it, I have a "plan", based
significantly on what I learned from your code, but with a slightly
different approach. When you're free to play with it we can see where
the GSoC project is at and what we can do.

(My hope is that with my plan we can skip greasemonkey and the extra
work to the teacher setting up a listing of what's downloadable. I am
sure we can make it work like Google Reader does...)

One thing that would be nice is if the Nepal team could take a quick
look at my latest Moodle XS code -- I don't know if you have a test XS
5.x but if you do, and could play with the latest moodle code as seen
in

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/2009-April/003177.html

If you are using ds-backup, that moodle has automagic authentication
(with Browse.xo) and a nice UI to restore your files. And if you use
the admin account, you can "alias" accounts, which is good when a
laptop is repaired/replaced.

cheers,


m
-- 
 martin.langh...@gmail.com
 mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: [Server-devel] Offline moodle notes in moodle.org

[David Farning]

John,
Would you mind forwarding me your notes regard your discussions with google.  I 
am starting a similar discussion with google on behalf of Sugar Labs.
I think that we can leverage the availability of sugar in developed nations to 
offset the cost of creating the services that OLPC is looking for in their 
markets.  
thanks 
David 

On  10/14/2008, 15:08, John Watlington ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:This 
discussion should move to [EMAIL PROTECTED], as it refers to software running 
on the laptop, not the server.  Some context for my comment:  I had told them 
that we were working with schools that were completely offline (although with 
servers).   The problem might have been a mismatch with their business model 
more than a mismatch of technologies.  I'm looking for the name/address of the 
software architect I was speaking to.   But, SJ already brought up this 
question on devel back in February, and cc'ed a gears developer (attached).  
cheers, wad  > From: "Samuel Klein"  > Date: February 16, 2008 1:21:36 PM EST > 
To: "edward baafi" , "OLPC Devel"   >  > Cc: Ben Lisbakken , Luke Closs   > , 
Marco Pesenti Gritti ,   > Dan Bricklin  > Subject: Re: using the browser as an 
activity platform : pyxpcom /   > hulahop / Gears > > The core use here is 
being able to use the browser as activity > platform -- letting web developers 
 good
at JS code and test on most > any platform, and develop something that can be a 
first-class activity > within Sugar.  One example is Dan's javascript 
spreadsheet, anothe ris > a dynamic library (see for instance > 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Dynamic_library), another is an existing web > 
service online that one might want to run locally. > > In addition to pyxpcom, 
let me add Google Gears as a useful piece of > this platform, especially when 
offering local use of popular online > tools.  Off the top of my head, 
MediaWiki, MindMeister, I copy Ben > Lisbakken, a gears maintainer, who reports 
that there is a Gears patch > to make it work without extension support...  
Ben, I'll also introduce > you to marcopg separately. 
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Re: [Server-devel] Offline moodle notes in moodle.org

[Tony Anderson]

Hi,

First, gears is a browser plugin. It provides a capability to 
'go_offline' by copying web pages and resources (jpg, pdf, ...) to a 
local SQLite database based on a manifest. While offline, gears provides 
a local proxy server which responds to http requests by supplying the 
page (with links to resources) from the local database. It is limited in 
that it can only handle urls which exactly match those in the manifest. 
For offline moodle, we need to intercept urls which call php modules 
server side and respond to them from local javascript. This can be done 
by ajax requests. Greasemonkey is a temporary prop to convert the normal 
form 'actions' to invoke local javascript. Later, it should be possible 
to have the pages generated with the 'onclick' javascript calls and 
eliminate the need for greasemonkey.

A way to think about this is that in offline moodle, the server side php 
scripts are replaced by client side javascript.

Tony

Ludo (Marc Alier) wrote:
> "This discussion should move to [EMAIL PROTECTED], as it refers to software
> running on the laptop, not the server."
> 
> I disagree. The Gears plugin may run on the laptop, but all the code of 
> the application ( javscript and the php that generates it) is executed 
> and maintained on the server: Moodle in this case.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:08 PM, John Watlington <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > wrote:
> 
> 
> This discussion should move to [EMAIL PROTECTED], as it refers to software
> running on the laptop, not the server.
> 
> Some context for my comment:  I had told them that we were
> working with schools that were completely offline (although
> with servers).   The problem might have been a mismatch with
> their business model more than a mismatch of technologies.
> 
> I'm looking for the name/address of the software architect I was
> speaking to.   But, SJ already brought up this question on devel
> back in February, and cc'ed a gears developer (attached).
> 
> cheers,
> wad
> 
> From: "Samuel Klein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
> Date: February 16, 2008 1:21:36 PM EST
> To: "edward baafi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >, "OLPC Devel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> Cc: Ben Lisbakken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >, Luke Closs
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >,
> Marco Pesenti Gritti <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >,
> Dan Bricklin <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
> Subject: Re: using the browser as an activity platform : pyxpcom
> / hulahop / Gears
> 
> The core use here is being able to use the browser as activity
> platform -- letting web developers good at JS code and test on most
> any platform, and develop something that can be a first-class
> activity
> within Sugar.  One example is Dan's javascript spreadsheet,
> anothe ris
> a dynamic library (see for instance
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Dynamic_library), another is an
> existing web
> service online that one might want to run locally.
> 
> In addition to pyxpcom, let me add Google Gears as a useful piece of
> this platform, especially when offering local use of popular online
> tools.  Off the top of my head, MediaWiki, MindMeister, I copy Ben
> Lisbakken, a gears maintainer, who reports that there is a Gears
> patch
> to make it work without extension support...  Ben, I'll also
> introduce
> you to marcopg separately.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Ludo ( Marc Alier)
> UPC - [EMAIL PROTECTED]  - Tel. +34-934137885
> http://orangoodling.blogspot.com - http://www.dfwikilabs.org -
> http://ososdeviaje.dfwikilabs.org - http://mossegalapoma.cat

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Re: [Server-devel] Offline moodle notes in moodle.org

[Ludo (Marc Alier)]

"This discussion should move to [EMAIL PROTECTED], as it refers to software
running on the laptop, not the server."

I disagree. The Gears plugin may run on the laptop, but all the code of the
application ( javscript and the php that generates it) is executed and
maintained on the server: Moodle in this case.


On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:08 PM, John Watlington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
> This discussion should move to [EMAIL PROTECTED], as it refers to software
> running on the laptop, not the server.
>
> Some context for my comment:  I had told them that we were
> working with schools that were completely offline (although
> with servers).   The problem might have been a mismatch with
> their business model more than a mismatch of technologies.
>
> I'm looking for the name/address of the software architect I was
> speaking to.   But, SJ already brought up this question on devel
> back in February, and cc'ed a gears developer (attached).
>
> cheers,
> wad
>
>  From: "Samuel Klein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Date: February 16, 2008 1:21:36 PM EST
>> To: "edward baafi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "OLPC Devel" <
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Cc: Ben Lisbakken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Luke Closs <
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Marco Pesenti Gritti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dan
>> Bricklin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Subject: Re: using the browser as an activity platform : pyxpcom / hulahop
>> / Gears
>>
>> The core use here is being able to use the browser as activity
>> platform -- letting web developers good at JS code and test on most
>> any platform, and develop something that can be a first-class activity
>> within Sugar.  One example is Dan's javascript spreadsheet, anothe ris
>> a dynamic library (see for instance
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Dynamic_library), another is an existing web
>> service online that one might want to run locally.
>>
>> In addition to pyxpcom, let me add Google Gears as a useful piece of
>> this platform, especially when offering local use of popular online
>> tools.  Off the top of my head, MediaWiki, MindMeister, I copy Ben
>> Lisbakken, a gears maintainer, who reports that there is a Gears patch
>> to make it work without extension support...  Ben, I'll also introduce
>> you to marcopg separately.
>>
>


-- 
---
Ludo ( Marc Alier)
UPC - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Tel. +34-934137885
http://orangoodling.blogspot.com - http://www.dfwikilabs.org -
http://ososdeviaje.dfwikilabs.org - http://mossegalapoma.cat
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Re: [Server-devel] Offline moodle notes in moodle.org

[John Watlington]

I've talked to Google specifically about using Gears on the XO.
Once they understood OLPC's goals and operating environment,
they didn't think Gears was appropriate.   It was really designed
for constant connectivity.

That doesn't mean Google should support Gears in a BitFrost
environment (for those kids fortunate enough to have connectivity).
But it does call into question building anything for ALL XOs on top  
of it.

wad

On Oct 10, 2008, at 5:51 AM, Ludo (Marc Alier) wrote:

> Gears sounded like a exciting way to go right when Martin L told me  
> on Skype two weeks ago. That's why I've committed a talented guy  
> like Ruben to dig on this task. We are starting to work on it, and  
> it might even work
>
> BUT, in I've been working on a WS architecture for Moodle that can  
> allow SOME features of Moodle to be taken out to offline clients  
> (I'm thinking about Java Phones, iPhones and other no Gears powered  
> machines.
>
> As Martin L. says some things move so fast we will not keep up to,  
> BUT maybe we can choose a part of moodle that makes sense to have  
> in a limited device like a phone or an ipod or nintendo ds, and  
> bring it there. This way will never aspire to take out all the  
> features (due to the development rithms that wise ML tells me )  
> like the gears approach... but hey! is worth a try. So I will put  
> people on both bets. And we are working on WS for other purposes as  
> important as this one http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-12886
>
> Sleeping is optional, sure :p
>
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Martin Langhoff  
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Posted on moodle.org http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=107920
>
> Hi all! I have been away for a while working on other olpc stuff, but
> now my attention is returning to Moodle, and offline moodle is
> definitely in my roadmap.
>
> In the AU and NZ moot I had good chances to talk with Dan and MartinD
> about a cunning plan to get a Gears-based offline moodle going.
>
> When we disscussed architecture for the current moodle-on-a-stick
> (MoaS) based we also talked quite a bit about a Gears-based approach.
> At the time, it looked huge and risky. Google had just released GG,
> and was talking about upgrading Reader to use it.
>
> So there many things stacked against it: Noone had seen Reader doing
> the offline thing yet, Gears had a somewhat restrictive license, and
> it seemed that we'd have to implement a significant chunk of Moodle as
> an AJAX application.
>
> Things have changed between then and now. Google has made things much
> simpler now with a BSD license and Reader shows it can make the
> offline thing work very well.
>
> Reimplementing Moodle as an AJAX app was still a big monster in my
> head until recently. But a volunteer approached me recently saying he
> could take a stab at it, and I thought "what would be the simplest
> thing that could possibly work?"
>
> The answer was suprisingly simple: store the damn HTML, CSS and JS in
> the sqlite DB that Gears provides.
>
> So from the course page, we can "go offline" by
>
> - Storing the html+css in sqlite -
> - Requesting a special 'manifest of resources that are ok to use
> offline' - published by the course-format page...
> - Retrieving those offline resources. Initially, just mod/resource
> contents. Later we can extend this support to work with other modules.
> - When we use the course homepage later while offline, we'll walk the
> DOM to show CSS blocks 'disabled' (by graying them out) and we will
> disable links to resources we cannot support offline.
> - As the user browses the content we do have offline, the JS code
> keeps track of resources visited. Upon reconnection to the moodle
> site, we push back the collected logs to mdl_log(*)
> - Other modules (mod/forum for example) can be supported with ob magic
> and/or more explicit/AJAXy use of JS.
>
> * - we'll need to review the log handling code. So far we've never had
> "out-of-sequence" log entries, and this will introduce them for the
> first time. I'm sure there'll be a few gotchas there.
>
> Hearing this, MartinD suggested that - as long as we go the "store
> html" way (supported with output buffering tricks if needed) then we
> can add the ability to produce a plain old zipfile with a course
> homepage + static resources. I think it's a good secondary goal to
> have -- though I'm not sure what limits we'll have with this.
>
> Tony Anderson - the volunteer who sparked this - has been working on a
> proof-of-concept implementation. It currently uses Gears and
> GreaseMonkey, and requires a few manual tweaks. Unfortunately, I don't
> think that code can be merged directly - we will want to refine the
> approach to avoid GreaseMonkey and other inconveniences. My take is
> that we can either adapt it, or use it as a reference for a more
> moodlish implentation -- Tony is not a moodle dev, so he's not
> necessarily familiar with our odd style smile ).
>
> Tony's code is here
> http://list

Re: [Server-devel] Offline moodle notes in moodle.org

[Ludo (Marc Alier)]

Gears sounded like a exciting way to go right when Martin L told me on Skype
two weeks ago. That's why I've committed a talented guy like Ruben to dig on
this task. We are starting to work on it, and it might even work [image:
guiño]

BUT, in I've been working on a WS architecture for Moodle that can allow
SOME features of Moodle to be taken out to offline clients (I'm thinking
about 
JavaPhones,
iPhones and other no Gears powered machines.

As Martin L. says some things move so fast we will not keep up to, BUT maybe
we can choose a part of moodle that makes sense to have in a limited device
like a phone or an ipod or nintendo ds, and bring it there. This way will
never aspire to take out all the features (due to the development rithms
that wise ML tells me ) like the gears approach... but hey! is worth a try.
So I will put people on both bets. And we are working on WS for other
purposes as important as this one
http://tracker
.moodle.org/browse/MDL-12886

Sleeping is optional, sure :p

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Martin Langhoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Posted on moodle.org http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=107920
>
> Hi all! I have been away for a while working on other olpc stuff, but
> now my attention is returning to Moodle, and offline moodle is
> definitely in my roadmap.
>
> In the AU and NZ moot I had good chances to talk with Dan and MartinD
> about a cunning plan to get a Gears-based offline moodle going.
>
> When we disscussed architecture for the current moodle-on-a-stick
> (MoaS) based we also talked quite a bit about a Gears-based approach.
> At the time, it looked huge and risky. Google had just released GG,
> and was talking about upgrading Reader to use it.
>
> So there many things stacked against it: Noone had seen Reader doing
> the offline thing yet, Gears had a somewhat restrictive license, and
> it seemed that we'd have to implement a significant chunk of Moodle as
> an AJAX application.
>
> Things have changed between then and now. Google has made things much
> simpler now with a BSD license and Reader shows it can make the
> offline thing work very well.
>
> Reimplementing Moodle as an AJAX app was still a big monster in my
> head until recently. But a volunteer approached me recently saying he
> could take a stab at it, and I thought "what would be the simplest
> thing that could possibly work?"
>
> The answer was suprisingly simple: store the damn HTML, CSS and JS in
> the sqlite DB that Gears provides.
>
> So from the course page, we can "go offline" by
>
> - Storing the html+css in sqlite -
> - Requesting a special 'manifest of resources that are ok to use
> offline' - published by the course-format page...
> - Retrieving those offline resources. Initially, just mod/resource
> contents. Later we can extend this support to work with other modules.
> - When we use the course homepage later while offline, we'll walk the
> DOM to show CSS blocks 'disabled' (by graying them out) and we will
> disable links to resources we cannot support offline.
> - As the user browses the content we do have offline, the JS code
> keeps track of resources visited. Upon reconnection to the moodle
> site, we push back the collected logs to mdl_log(*)
> - Other modules (mod/forum for example) can be supported with ob magic
> and/or more explicit/AJAXy use of JS.
>
> * - we'll need to review the log handling code. So far we've never had
> "out-of-sequence" log entries, and this will introduce them for the
> first time. I'm sure there'll be a few gotchas there.
>
> Hearing this, MartinD suggested that - as long as we go the "store
> html" way (supported with output buffering tricks if needed) then we
> can add the ability to produce a plain old zipfile with a course
> homepage + static resources. I think it's a good secondary goal to
> have -- though I'm not sure what limits we'll have with this.
>
> Tony Anderson - the volunteer who sparked this - has been working on a
> proof-of-concept implementation. It currently uses Gears and
> GreaseMonkey, and requires a few manual tweaks. Unfortunately, I don't
> think that code can be merged directly - we will want to refine the
> approach to avoid GreaseMonkey and other inconveniences. My take is
> that we can either adapt it, or use it as a reference for a more
> moodlish implentation -- Tony is not a moodle dev, so he's not
> necessarily familiar with our odd style smile ).
>
> Tony's code is here
> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/2008-September/002101.html
> together with some discussion around it.
>
> I also hear noises from Barcelona -- Ludo and Ruben may be able to get
> involved. This could start getting interesting.
>
> Getting this from a PoC to something shippable will take a bit of
> work. Right now I still have a ton of work to do on other aspects of
> Moodle that are more urgent for OLPC, but I wi

Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Tony Anderson]

Hi,

Currently I am working with a development lash-up which I hope will 
allow me to get the basic offline moodle capability running (or, at 
least quickly expose the speed bumps).

I envision adding an 'offline' block to the moodle course. This block 
would give a menu of course chunks (e.g. topics), which could be taken 
offline. The student would go to this block, check the topics (chunks) 
needed, and Gears would cache them for offline access. When the student 
has access to the server again, he/she could use the block to go online. 
At that time, the cache would be erased and the work done offline would 
be posted to moodle.

I think the course creator/teacher will need to be involved in defining 
the 'chunks' and in defining the 'manifest': list of pages and other 
resources needed to be cached for those chunks. This manifest (similar 
to the one required for building an xo package) could include external 
(to Moodle) resources as well since the caching includes a 
javascript-php script connection. In fact, I think it may be useful to 
be able to store some resources (e.g. wiki pages, glossaries, ...) more 
persistently than course specific content (lesson pages, quizzes, ...).

Tony


Bryan Berry wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 15:10 +1200, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> 
> good to hear we're on the same page.
> 
>> AIUI, the user only has to get to the initial moodle page, and GG
>> should take care of the rest.
> 
> you've reached beyond my geek lingo, what on earth does AIUI mean? :)
> 


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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Michael Stone]

On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 09:31:04AM +0545, Bryan Berry wrote:
>On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 15:10 +1200, Martin Langhoff wrote:
>
>good to hear we're on the same page.
>
>> AIUI, the user only has to get to the initial moodle page, and GG
>> should take care of the rest.
>
>you've reached beyond my geek lingo, what on earth does AIUI mean? :)

"As I understand it..."

Michael
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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Bryan Berry]

On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 15:10 +1200, Martin Langhoff wrote:

good to hear we're on the same page.

> AIUI, the user only has to get to the initial moodle page, and GG
> should take care of the rest.

you've reached beyond my geek lingo, what on earth does AIUI mean? :)

-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Technology Director
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org

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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Then I have several questions, how many courses would offline moodle
> cache locally? And how could a kid dump one course they took offline but
> keep others? To browse to a cached course would gears have to cache all
> the pages on the way to cached course? Or for the kid to bookmark the
> cached course and use it to access it later?

I don't have all the answers for that - but your questions are good -
that's the kind of "workflow" that users would have to use. I hope
that the GG code can show a basic "moodle homepage" with a course
listing that shows the cached courses in a distinctive manner.

> I think a bookmark wouldn't be very intuitive.

AIUI, the user only has to get to the initial moodle page, and GG
should take care of the rest.

I'm not saying that this is what Tony's implemented -- I'll review the
code asap -- but that's the kind of workflow that GG seems to support,
and it looks good to me.

> Sure, but my focus is making it easy for the kids to easily view
> multiple courses offline. I am only interested in Offline Moodle insofar
> as it supports that goal.

What other goal could possibly offline moodle have? ;-)

we're all on the same page wrt that.



m
-- 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Bryan Berry]

On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 12:43 +1200, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > hey Tony, this is a good start. I have a somewhat different workflow in
> > mind. Here is a narrative that describes what I am thinking
> >
> > User Story 1: Intermittent School attendance and School Server Outage
> 
> Your user story is roughly what offline moodle is aiming for, except
> that by the magic of using GG, step 5 'downloads' content  (and JS
> code) _to Browse_. Content that Browse can navigate locally, even if
> the network server is not available.

Then I have several questions, how many courses would offline moodle
cache locally? And how could a kid dump one course they took offline but
keep others? To browse to a cached course would gears have to cache all
the pages on the way to cached course? Or for the kid to bookmark the
cached course and use it to access it later? 

I think a bookmark wouldn't be very intuitive. 

> So instead of opening a dedicated 'activity', users go to Browse and
> when they click on the 'Schoolserver' link Gears takes over (if the XS
> is not reachable) and they can use offline moodle.
> 
> > The key here is that we need to package each offline moodle course
> as
> > an .XO Activity Bundle. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_bundles
> 
> IMO that path would be a huge amount of work, and a bit of a dead end
> WRT updates and such. Cant' really recommend it. It is also a bespoke
> effort- nothing else supports activity bundles, so there's no
> incentive for Moodle to remain compatible to it.

Sure, but my focus is making it easy for the kids to easily view
multiple courses offline. I am only interested in Offline Moodle insofar
as it supports that goal.


-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Technology Director
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org

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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[David Van Assche]

Have to agree with Martin... the concept of offline moodle is to get a
functioning offline version of moodle running locally... If then, the
teacher directs students to download .xo bundles from a repo or
something, sure why not, but no need to automate this into offline
moodle. It complicates and goes against what offline moodle is
supposed to be... Offline moodle is just a website... running locally
instead of over the network, as much for the teacher as the student,
they'll get all the content they need for the set period of time (this
set period of time is something that needs to be worked out... is it a
variable value, or what?)

That said, there were positive comments concerning Tony's work to date
by others, and the South American effort to make the offline moodle
using gears. They want to move away from using air to using gears
along lines of what's being done here. I shall link up Tony with them
so you can work out some sort of plan. I believe right now, the South
Americans are a bit close to getting their 'fin de curso' (end of
course) work done, but they want this to be a project that is not just
something for their school, but a global thing They are fighting
hard to let us see the code :-) but their university is against that
until they complete the project.

Kind Regards,
David Van Assche

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 2:43 AM, Martin Langhoff
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> hey Tony, this is a good start. I have a somewhat different workflow in
>> mind. Here is a narrative that describes what I am thinking
>>
>> User Story 1: Intermittent School attendance and School Server Outage
>
> Your user story is roughly what offline moodle is aiming for, except
> that by the magic of using GG, step 5 'downloads' content  (and JS
> code) _to Browse_. Content that Browse can navigate locally, even if
> the network server is not available.
>
> So instead of opening a dedicated 'activity', users go to Browse and
> when they click on the 'Schoolserver' link Gears takes over (if the XS
> is not reachable) and they can use offline moodle.
>
>> The key here is that we need to package each offline moodle course as
>> an .XO Activity Bundle. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_bundles
>
> IMO that path would be a huge amount of work, and a bit of a dead end
> WRT updates and such. Cant' really recommend it. It is also a bespoke
> effort- nothing else supports activity bundles, so there's no
> incentive for Moodle to remain compatible to it.
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
> m
> --
>  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>  [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect
>  - ask interesting questions
>  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first
>  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
>
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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Martin Langhoff]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> hey Tony, this is a good start. I have a somewhat different workflow in
> mind. Here is a narrative that describes what I am thinking
>
> User Story 1: Intermittent School attendance and School Server Outage

Your user story is roughly what offline moodle is aiming for, except
that by the magic of using GG, step 5 'downloads' content  (and JS
code) _to Browse_. Content that Browse can navigate locally, even if
the network server is not available.

So instead of opening a dedicated 'activity', users go to Browse and
when they click on the 'Schoolserver' link Gears takes over (if the XS
is not reachable) and they can use offline moodle.

> The key here is that we need to package each offline moodle course as
> an .XO Activity Bundle. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_bundles

IMO that path would be a huge amount of work, and a bit of a dead end
WRT updates and such. Cant' really recommend it. It is also a bespoke
effort- nothing else supports activity bundles, so there's no
incentive for Moodle to remain compatible to it.

cheers,



m
-- 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: [Server-devel] offline moodle

[Bryan Berry]

On Tue, 2008-09-02 at 22:57 +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My apologies - I need to do some research on how to setup the 
> repo.or.cz. As an immediate expedient, I have attached the relevant 
> files to this email. When I get a little time, I will set this up 
> properly. The readme tries to describe the files and how they are used.
> 

hey Tony, this is a good start. I have a somewhat different workflow in
mind. Here is a narrative that describes what I am thinking

User Story 1: Intermittent School attendance and School Server Outage

Monday
1. Kid goes to class
2. Teacher directs kids Moodle site
3. Kid navigates to Moodle Module for Class 2 math for the current month
4. Kid clicks 'download' link next Moodle module
5. This action downloads a the moodle module as a ".xo" bundle and
locally installs it to the XO
5.1 Inside the module are readings, pictures, animations, etc. all
available offline
6. School ends on Monday

Tuesday
Kid can't go to school. Mom and little brother are sick, has to take
care of them. Kid opens up XO and offline Moodle activity he downloaded
the day before. He does lessons that show him basic concepts, introduce
him to basic animations using activities like Etoys, and reads
explanations that answer some of the things he doesn't understand.

Wednesday
Kid still can't go to school. Has to help out in the fields. Later that
day the kid spends some time w/ the Moodle module

Thursday
Kid goes back to school. Kid isn't behind the other because he followed
the lesson plan at home. This has social importance that shouldn't be
understated. 

Over night there was an electrical surge that fried the school server.
The teacher can still instruct using the XO because she has it installed
locally as an activity and so do the kids.


The key here is that we need to package each offline moodle course as
an .XO Activity Bundle. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_bundles

Getting started, we only need the most basic features of Moodle.
Basically page navigation and the ability to display flash animations
and embedded pdfs for the supplementary readings. 

In time we can look at adding more dynamic stuff like access to the
gradebook but that can wait. In Nepal's context, our kids have no
libraries and maybe 4 small coursebooks.

Hope this helps and sorry I haven't been able to provide you w/ more
feedback earlier.

Pls post our correspondence regarding Offline Moodle to the
Server-Developers mailing list.
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel



-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Systems Engineer
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org

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