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.)