Hi yourself, Yoshiki,
I loved what you said, but I take issue with one point.
Dick
On 2007, Jan 18 at 15:00 (-8), Yoshiki Ohshima yoshiki@squeakland.org wrote:
... I was going to write how you would do step by step, but I guess it is not what you would like, but just check the "Demon Castle" tutorial which is currently bundled with the Etoys on the laptop. Demon Castle uses BookMorph (or Book), which is surely accessible to any user. (And it has reasonably high production value.)
Begging your pardon, kind sir, but a step by step procedure would be very welcome. My hope would be that if someone provides a sufficient tutorial for using Book and BookMorph to create a narrated slide show, then someone (else?) can put that tutorial into that very mechanism so that others may use it as an example and a tutorial.
The nature of open source permits participants to contribute usefully with quite minimal commitments of time and effort. Wikis enhance this property and can grow wonderful results using volunteer labor. Once an example tutorial is available, its sources could be installed in a wiki for extended discussion and possibly to build whole families of derivative facilities.
Isn't this a useful foundation for participating language groups to "morph" into material which would be useful to the student speakers of each language. Wouldn't such a facility be extraordinarily useful in the initial months of the introduction of the XO machine in the various communities involved? Easy to build. Easy to pass around. Easy to watch, listen to, learn from and replicate to other ends.
In other words, I would love it if you suggested as much of a step by step tutorial as you have the energy and time to accomplish. Then someone can put it in a wiki so that those who try to follow the tutorial and create their own Book can flesh out the wiki and then, ultimately, the tutorial itself to reach wider audiences and assist more teachers and students toward their own goals.
If you do decide to do this, it would be useful, I think, to collect a continuing history of who tries to employ it and what happens when they do. This is such a generic facility that I believe that the lessons learned and experience gained would be of value to the OLPC project as a whole.
Am I talking through my hat? Is a better approach already in progress?
Richard Karpinski, World Class Nitpicker 148 Sequoia Circle, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 dick@cfcl.com Home +1 707-546-6760 Cell +1 707-228-9716
ps Put (or leave) "nitpicker" in the subject line to get past my spam filters.