[Edu-sig] Google SoC mentors?

[Andre Roberge]

On 5/11/06, Clark C. Evans <cce at clarkevans.com> wrote:
> The student's name is Johannes Wollard, <johannes.wollard at gmail.com>
> and an external version of the proposal is at:
> http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie1763/coder-python.pdf
>
> This is the only decent educational proposal that hit the SoC
> program, and it if you all like it... it is time to speak up ;)

I have been corresponding  with Johannes, so I don't feel I should
"vote" on the proposal.  However, I feel I should try to share a few
observations.

For those that read Johannes's initial version, you may remember that
he was proposing a wxPython based project, and that there was no
statement like "the vast majority of educational programming software
has been based on Logo".

In our email exchanges, I mentioned:
1. the existence of rur-ple and Guido van Robot ("hence, the Logo like
statement"), both with included lessons (significantly more for
rur-ple).  = Johannes, rightly so, does not want to reinvent the
wheel.
2. The move for Guido van Robot from wxPython to Gtk (on platform
other than Windows) and the fact that Ubuntu and, more importantly,
Edubuntu would not include any wxPython based app as part of any
"endorsed" distribution.  = Edubuntu should be a natural target for
such project.
3. The existence of "Crunchy Frog", a "desktop web app" designed for
viewing interactive tutorials through a webbrowser.  I mentioned
various aspects (svg graphics for graphics, pygame sounds if run
locally, possibility of remote server if the sandboxing issue is
addressed, etc.).  = It appears that Johannes was influenced by this
in the latest version of his proposal.

I mention those specific details not for the details themselves, but
to illustrate that Johannes appears to be very serious about trying to
work on the right thing, and put the effort into rewriting his
proposal (at least 3 times, I believe).   I told him right off the bat
that I was not involved in the decision making process for this
project, nor could I be an "official mentor" - so he was not doing
this to try to impress me particularly.  In fact, I haven't heard from
him after a flurry of initial email exchanges.  [after this email
exchange with Johannes, I sent an email to the python soc list,
indicating my interest in being a co-mentor for education related
projects.]

In short: Johannes listens to others, and seems to be ready to work hard.

Do I believe that such project is needed?  Since I created rur-ple and
Crunchy Frog, you can guess what the answer is ;-)

I hope it helps whomever has to make a decision!

André

>
> Best,
>
> Clark
>
> On Tue, May 02, 2006 at 03:19:15PM -0400, Winston Wolff wrote:
> | I'm interested.  Would you send me that IDE description?
> |
> | -ww
> |
> | On May 1, 2006, at 11:45 PM, Ian Bicking wrote:
> |
> | > Are there other people here signed up to mentor for the Google
> | > Summer of
> | > Code?  Last year PSF rejected a couple good education proposals for
> | > lack
> | > of an appropriate mentor.  Already one of the proposals is for an IDE
> | > similar to what Andre has described (GUI not web).  (If anyone is
> | > curious about it, I can email you the proposal off list.)
> | >
> | > --
> | > Ian Bicking  |  ianb at colorstudy.com  |  http://blog.ianbicking.org
> | > _______________________________________________
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> |
> |
> |
> |
> | ______________________________________________________
> | winston wolff - (646) 827-2242 - http://www.stratolab.com
> | learning by creating - video game courses for kids in new york
> |
> |
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