Who's Doing What

Tommy has been our head programmer since the beginning. He knows Java better than all of us and also happens to be quite good at disseminating that knowledge to the rest of us. A good programmer and a good teacher, he has been an invaluable member of the team. Recently, he has also taken lead on the complete conversion of our GUI system from one API to another.

Carl has always had excellent input and possesses a noteworthy ability to put himself into the shoes of the end-user when discussing the implementation of various features. He is familiar with all sectors of the code and has recently taken lead on the implementation of our client-server network software, which requires integrating our software with an external API called Java Game Networking.

Bobby has saved our asses several times. For example, without him, we would never have been able to set up an SVN repository (which took us four hours of pain and suffering until we finally decided to call Bobby--after which we were done in five minutes.) He's a Linux expert and has also been working with databases for years. So naturally he has solved many of our platform-related problems (because we develop on Linux), and he has helped integrate our software with an external Java database API.

Kyle will be working on the database system, which is a fairly young component of our game and will have plenty of opportunities to grow. I assume he will also become extremely familiar with the portions of our software that come into close proximity with the database component: the network system and the game entity system.

Matt will be working on the entity system, which means he will become very familiar with our process of loading 3D models and 3D animations. He will also probably take part in building the aspects of game-play that involve interactions between the player and objects (entities) in the game's virtual world.

Jon hasn't told me what he's doing yet. But he managed to build our project on a Window's box, which is quite impressive. And I hope, at the very least, that he will help our artists build the project on their Windows machines too. This is something we haven't been able to do yet; and I think our artists would really like to be able to get and build the latest version of our software whenever we make updates.

Project Manager

The best job description I can think of for being a project manager is that I do everything that no one else wants to do. For example, I deal with paperwork and hassles associated with purchasing our computer and various softwares. I also research and test new APIs before using them, which is often a futile pursuit if those APIs turn out not to meet our needs. I organize meeting times for working on our project, and I try to keep those meetings structured and productive. I wrote and submitted the grant proposal for King Creativity Funding. I serve as a liaison between the Art Department and the Programming Team. Essentially, I do a lot of the non-coding, housekeeping kinds of jobs that keep the project running smoothly.

One thing I DON'T do is call the shots about the future directions of the project. These directions have historically been decided by discussion and with equal input from everyone involved. My job is not to say, "Here's what we're doing next." Instead, I say, "Where should we go from here?" And I try to facilitate conversation to that effect.

Article (Week 1)

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/DigitalGameBasedLearningI/40614

First Post

Report on meeting with Glenda Carl

Dr. Carl's thoughts were very insightful, and I'm glad she's thinking about what kind of features would make our game useful to her. I hope we can have a similar kind of dialog as we move through the semester. In particular I'd like to see us use more extreme programming (XP) methods, where we meet with Dr. Carl and nail down the next few story-points we're going to work on. Also it might be helpful for Dr. Carl to meet with the artists on the project and talk about what kind of models would be useful to her.

In particular I think Dr. Carl's suggestion of ways for a teacher to examine students' progress during the game (or during game sessions) was very interesting. An in-game chat that logs what students say to each other would provide a record for teachers to assess how well students seem to be using the language they are supposed to be learning.

What I Could Contribute to Dr. Buchele's Project:

To be honest, I don't know enough about the project to make a reasonable guess as to how my skills could be useful. If the “digitization” of textbooks took the form of converting them into a web-application, then the I could possibly use the skills I’ve gain from developing web-applications for NITLE. However, it is my understanding that the project will not involve web-applications as much as it will involve creating an on-board resource for the laptops running Sugar.

I think this project has definite social significance and should be further developed. It is a shame, however, that the Ministry of Education in Ghana is opposed to the idea of using freely available software rather than porting their pre-existing textbooks to an electronic form (which will be costly and probably not as advantageous to the children who are supposed to the using the software.)