Education Project/OOo4Kids
FYI, the main page is now:
Contents
Description
FYI, the main page is now:
The information below is now deprecated
Right now, we are researching in our countries, to understand exactally what they want and need.
Childrens have different growing for different live conditions.
At Brazil we ar researching on public schools, in poor locations and other.
If you want to help us in this research, please contact-us at educational openoffice.org list, or my personal email: linuxdoc@gmail.com
Soon the coding will start.
If you want to help, join us in #education.openoffice.org on freenode.net.
cut: email sent to community on 2008-10-14
The idea of OpenOffice4Kids is turn the openoffice.org interface into something more easier for childrens, specially those between 7 and 12 years.
Some changes are necessaries, and some others (if don't exists) may help other focus than childrens:
- Interface
- Wizards
- Parental Control
- Colaborative work with moderation
- Simplified/Automatized CVS/SVN support ...
- ...
1) Interface
Create support for user configurable splash screen. So if the user has the profile of an children, the splash will be different.
OpenOffice has support for icons and wizards by profile? The idea is give to the user, support for change every button image, and rezise them.
Also change the functionallity of some buttons, like "BOLD" to open an wizard and help the children.
One button for citations is a good idea. If the button can search the citation on google, in a transparent way, will be better.
2) Wizards
Every action may need an wizard. Even "Italic" or "Bold" buttons. Childrens need help in any step of the work. Specially on OOWriter.
3) Parental Control
Parents (or bosses) may have the power of block any profile change, save-as folder, open-from folder... Any action that may distribute or fill the document with a external reference, may be controlled.
Some words may not be interesting to users (read and write). And some documents may need parent password to open and change.
Internet access by openoffice.org may be blocked or filtered, based on the parent/boss rules.
There is many others needs and applications for parental/boss control.
4) Colaborative work with moderation
Any document may be shared online by one group, distributed on many networks, and the owner of the document will work as moderator. For example, the professor create some document, and invite the students, to share online this document. And can pass the control of the document for any student, temporarily. And the document will be automatically created/updated/commited on cvs/svn configured on the profile.
5) Simplified;Automatized CVS/SVN support
Any document will be put on the cvs/svn based on the parent/boss rules. Any change will be saved automatically, without user interation. Parents may consult the svn logs and status of any document using svn/cvs tools or by one wizard, when they open that document.
OpenOffice will have on the file lists all the files on the svn/cvs, even if they don't exists locally.
6) ...
There is many changes and ideas that can be used on openoffice for kids. We do not forget about SCORM standart. Support for SCORM on Openoffice will be very helpful for professors.
Goal
The idea is create some patches / extensions to openoffice, based on the need from childrens between 7 and 12 years.
Syllabus for this demography concentrate on the following skills:
- Social science
- Natural science
- History
The focus of the extension can be on the semantic framework to show a class. Do the development process of introduction of topic, examples, questioning and resolution.
Available features
We need to define properly the need, and what must be removed, kept ..
Pedagogical point of view -> we need to interview some teachers, and notice carefully the need, the objectives.
e.g. : correlate with certification content ?
What needs a 7-12 child ?
- write simple text
- change fonts, size of text, and text style ( bold .. )
- learn styles
- insert images
- insert index
- draw something (simple shapes )
- print easily -> in one click
- create documents with growing complexity ( 7 years old children needs are not the same as 12 years old children needs
- copy-paste / drag and drop
- insert simple tables and computations : twice entries table e.g. , simple calc sheets can be used.
Additional comment :
should be possible to create light version of OpenOffice.org,
- without
- base
- calc (to be discussed )
- starmath
- including
- big icons
- no registration
- simplified and adapted menus
Ericb 21:22, 15 October 2008 (CEST)
Development side
Concerned modules
Feature | concerned OOo module | Comments, information |
---|---|---|
Simplified Menus | every OOo application | postprocess, and every app |
Remove useless applications | scp2 (remove all useless libs, .. and so on), base, sc , starmath | remove useless libs and resources, not build some useless modules
|
Registration | Desktop or officecfg | remove the check for registration, or set the registration as true : first choice is more clean: removing useless code |
Big icons | default_images ? | find the original, or use new iconset |
YYY | XXX | FFF |
Links
People involved
Name | OOo Nickname | Role |
---|---|---|
Eric Bachard | ericb2 | Development, Documentation |
Ben Bois | bbois | Design |
Ricardo Soares Guimarães | soneca | Development, Documentation |
Tiago Dreyer | Tests | User Experience |
Rafael Diniz | Development, Documentation | Documentation |