[Aslug] Fwd: FW: Python Aboriginal ebooks for 3K OLPC laptops

[ninti at internode.on.net]

Comments by Tom Honeyman (unimelb) on Krys H's original posting to this list.  
I and probably Dennis have his email address if anyone needs it: 
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
 
I'm sorry I can't respond to this in more detail, but seeing as I'm 
interested in educational software, I had a quick look. And so my comments 
might be a bit misdirected, given I couldn't read over the documentation and 
view the source code in detail. 
 
My understanding, is that you don't need to modify the source code, but 
rather you need to develop new reading activities (there are other activity 
types too that may be relevant). The "reading activities" are like plugins 
that add extra content. Once these activities are created then configuring 
which activities you want to load is actually configured in the running 
software, not in the source. 
 
Documentation for creating these "activities" is here: 
 
http://gcompris.net/wiki/index.php?title=Adding_an_activity 
 
If I had the time I'd download the source and check out the 
"pythontest-activity" and see how tricky it is. 
 
These activities are created, for some inexplicable reason, in Python, 
presumably so that you can bundle content with programatic logic. However, 
its pretty rare that programming skills, education skills and language 
skills are all bound up in one person, so perhaps I might be so bold as to 
suggest the following solution: 
 
One way forward would be to employ a python programmer to develop a template 
system which produces "activities", in consultation with an educator. The 
educator would generically describe the format of the reading task. The 
educator would work with a language specialist(s), who would 
translate/provide content (stories with multimedia) in a special format 
(xml, markdown, or whatever is easiest for the language specialist). The 
programmer would take that content and translate it  into "reading 
activities" in python code (using the projects terminology). 
 
Then as a final step, share the template format and code used to translate 
that template into reading activities with the rest of us so we can all code 
the languages we're working on in the special format, so that they can be 
turned into reading activities for use in other schools and language 
communities! 
 
In fact, separating content from programming logic seems like such an 
obvious solution, I'd be amazed if somebody hadn't already done it. Again, 
if I had the time, I'd google it. 
 
And in fact it has been done for the separate task of translating the 
interface of the software. There is specialised software for doing this, 
should you wish to, so that all the interface elements  such as menus, 
preferences, warning dialog boxes and so on, are in whatever language you 
want it to be. You probably don't necessarily have to be a programmer to do 
this either. You'd have to translate the following file: 
 
http://l10n.gnome.org/POT/gcompris.master/gcompris.master.pot 
 
Basically everything between the double quotes. Or you can use graphical 
applications to help you. 
 
Finally, I would definitely warn against re-inventing the wheel. It's a much 
much much bigger task to modify the source code to make a specialist 
solution, than it is to build upon it by adding activities. Even if the 
existing system doesn't do everything you want it to, there's some real 
advantages in building on existing software rather than branching off into a 
special corner that doesn't contribute to the main project. If that is what 
Krys is proposingŠ I'm not actually sure. 
 
Anyway, hope this helps. If it sounds OK (ie someone will have to check that 
this is actually what Krys is after), I might have some friends who know 
python. 
 
-tom