KDEEdu/BofAkademy2013

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KDE Edu BoF, Akademy 2013 in Bilbao

Attendees: Albert, Aleix, Andreas (CoLa), Antonio, Baltasar, David, dmaggot, spacetime,...

State of the Projects

  • KGeography (Albert)
    • It's OK
  • Blinken (Albert)
    • will be ported to the Playbook.eventually
  • KStars (spacetime)
    • added new interface for beginners
    • UI needs a lot of work but is useful
    • Needs for polishing
  • Kig (David Narvaez)
    • Promote algebra and geometry
    • Add support for geogebra files (read only)
    • Replacing the math that happens behind X
    • Expect to port it to a mobile device (maybe a playbook) / Interface is too mouse oriented
  • Antonio (Khipu)
    • Change the UI in Khipu
    • Khipu will replace Kmplot eventually
    • It does more things that kmplot
    • KAlgebra -> For students to work (homework)
    • Khipu -> For teachers to demonstrate
    • dmaggot: We should have demos that illustrate the use cases of the applications Cantor, Kalgebra, Khipu etc
    • apol: Already working on an artwork project that will help to unify our math applications
  • Rocs (CoLa)
    • Rewrote scripting API
    • In program documentation for the scripting API
  • Artikulate (Andreas)
    • Pronunciation improvement application
    • Early stage
    • Already 2 students working on it
    • Estimates a fully usable version in 1-2 months
    • Wants to support a set of languages (begin with Bengali, Polish, French, English)
    • In fall will do a lot of advertisement for language recording contributions (workload for single language ~20-30 h)
    • Try to ship a windows version also in fall

Current Topics

  • Application Request (Baltasar)
    • It would be a nice idea to write a program to make a 'Rubric' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubric_(academic)
    • How do you find out a student's presentation is good or not?
    • Criterea: eg. Clarity of Speech: rating 0 - 10 (say)
    • apol: We need to encourage the model where the teachers request features/apps
  • Language Learning
    • CoLa and Frederik have a BoF tomorrow morning about Parley, Artikulate and KLettres and how they can be used together to learn a new language.
    • Features of Parley and KWordQuiz are nearly identical: one should be deprecated
  • Windows Support is getting better
    • KTouch now works
    • Step still doesn't work
    • Separate installers for separate applications not encouraged
    • spacetime may try to create a simple installer for Windows for only KStars
  • Kig
    • Can C++11 be used?
    • GCC 4.5 is the baseline version for compatibility
    • Need to ask the teams (Windows etc) if GCC 4.7 C++11 can be used.
    • The project needs to decide if it needs newer features by compromising on platforms that may not support GCC 4.7
  • dmaggot: how about packaged files for use by teachers directly using our software.

Teachers' Real Life Problems

  • David (teacher): Document Sharing
    • Teachers need to share documents with tags like "Exams, Presentations, Examples" for each Topic.
    • Teachers need to quickly locate and upload these resources
    • apol: We have bodega which could be extended, it's a server side application
    • KDE Spain can help with the adoption and communication
  • David (teacher): organization of class rooms
    • the person who has to organize and allot courses, teachers, classrooms has a lot of problems since the classes are limited.
    • CoLa: It's a real problem, computationally hard to solve, but a real-world problem for schools that is important
    • There are open source alternatives maybe (Fet) but the UI is horrible.
    • Need a adapted application with specific UI?
    • David will write a detailed specification, he says
  • Problem:
    • How do you get documents from teachers?
    • A lot of professors share information/files that should be interesting to use in KDE Edu
    • Most spanish teachers use 'dayclick' which is a simple tool to create simple games
    • We have to adapt to the situation we have at hand
    • Teacher: We can also develop programs to help kids to specific problems like dyslexia. These programs are very expensive for schools and mandatory.
    • spacetime: How about an easy way to submit files?
    • We've had a GSoC Project resembling this in a past that didn't work out.

KDE Edu Sprint

  • Could happen in Spain, A Coruña
  • We should conduct research on what direction the projects should take first