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| ---Topic for #schooltool set by mgedmin at Fri Jul 16 18:15:52 2004 | 11:14 | |
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| **** BEGIN LOGGING AT Fri Aug 20 16:10:33 2004 | ||
| -->You are now talking on #schooltool | 16:10 | |
| ---Topic for #schooltool is www.schooltool.org || IRC logs at http://stone.tuttlesvc.org:880/logbot/ | 16:10 | |
| ---Topic for #schooltool set by mgedmin at Fri Jul 16 18:15:52 2004 | 16:10 | |
| -TomLogging-This channel is logged - http://stone.tuttlesvc.org:880/logbot/ | 16:10 | |
| -->bskahan (~bskahan@h-66-167-234-8.mclnva23.dynamic.covad.net) has joined #schooltool | 16:28 | |
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| bskahan | Greetings | 16:57 |
|---|---|---|
| bskahan | This is Tom and Brian here. | 16:57 |
| th1a | Good morning. | 16:57 |
| th1a | OK. | 16:57 |
| th1a | Let's see... my browser is acting weirdly. One sec... | 16:58 |
| bskahan | no problem, our internet access is a little spotty right now. | 16:59 |
| th1a | Have I pointed out the page at http://www.schooltool.org/Members/hoffman/hth/HthOutline | 16:59 |
| th1a | ? | 16:59 |
| th1a | That outlines what we'll be doing in the most detail. | 16:59 |
| bskahan | yeah, | 16:59 |
| bskahan | mentioned in the last email | 17:00 |
| th1a | OK. | 17:00 |
| bskahan | as I read it, milestone 7/8 will be a web interface to replace the current client | 17:01 |
| th1a | But only focusing on calendaring. | 17:01 |
| bskahan | ok | 17:01 |
| bskahan | have you ever seen "Easy Grade Pro"? | 17:01 |
| th1a | The focus will be on the web interface, though. | 17:01 |
| bskahan | commercial gradebook application | 17:02 |
| th1a | I haven't worked extensively with any particular grading software. | 17:02 |
| th1a | I did a lot of work with standards-based assessment of projects. | 17:02 |
| th1a | But not grading, because our school doesn't use grades. | 17:02 |
| bskahan | just wondering, I spent some time with it this weekend, it has quite a few nice features, but could be alot better | 17:02 |
| th1a | It is an odd problem, because teachers often grade using weird systems. | 17:03 |
| bskahan | yeah, it ends up being very complex to set up | 17:03 |
| th1a | How many points is a check mark worth, etc. | 17:04 |
| bskahan | a lot of up front work in the first week (when teachers have full plates allready) | 17:04 |
| bskahan | having it integrated into the scheduling app would reduce alot of that | 17:04 |
| th1a | Yeah. | 17:04 |
| th1a | Also, we | 17:04 |
| th1a | will only have to fill the needs of one school by April. | 17:05 |
| *bskahan nods | 17:05 | |
| th1a | Hopefully they are semi-rational about their grading. | 17:05 |
| th1a | I don't want to try to create the definitive gradebook on the first pass. | 17:06 |
| bskahan | ok, that's not till M9 or so anyway, right? | 17:06 |
| th1a | Gradebook won't happen until early 2005, I'd guess. | 17:07 |
| bskahan | ok | 17:07 |
| th1a | April is the deadlline for the HTH stuff. | 17:07 |
| th1a | So Etria is the two of you, right? | 17:08 |
| th1a | You don't have any other developers. | 17:09 |
| bskahan | yes, 2 full time developers, we have some sales staff and consultants | 17:09 |
| th1a | We're trying to figure out our time estimates, which are possibly overly optimistic at this point. | 17:10 |
| th1a | I have to get SteveA and/or the POV guys to have a look at them. | 17:10 |
| th1a | But regardless, it is going to be pretty steady work from late September-ish through April. | 17:11 |
| bskahan | we'd like to talk to steveA about the server architecture at some point in the near future | 17:11 |
| th1a | OK. | 17:12 |
| th1a | I can perhaps answer some questions. | 17:12 |
| bskahan | what sort of proposal do you need from us? Timeline, specification based on http://www.schooltool.org/bounties/SchoolBellStories | 17:12 |
| th1a | That's a good question. Well, at this point I'm thinking of this more like I'm hiring staff, although we're not literally doing that. | 17:14 |
| th1a | I'm trying to find the best team and assuming that we'll work out some of the details as we go. | 17:14 |
| bskahan | Ok, some background on Tom & I, (resumes in 3 lines or less) | 17:15 |
| bskahan | My educational background is in Urban development, (Econ & Poli Sci with CS minor), my work experience before Etria is in the nonprofit sector, systems administration, database design. | 17:18 |
| bskahan | I've taught Science, American government and Leadership development at the highschool level as a long term sub. | 17:19 |
| th1a | In Baltimore public schools? | 17:19 |
| bskahan | yes | 17:19 |
| th1a | That's good. | 17:20 |
| bskahan | Tom's edu background is in Comp Sci, work experience is in the corporate sector, developing intranet's for GE subsidiaries | 17:20 |
| bskahan | he's the primary (95%) author of Etria's Public Action Center | 17:21 |
| th1a | How's that coming? | 17:21 |
| bskahan | its launched | 17:21 |
| bskahan | one sec | 17:22 |
| bskahan | looking for the url of an active action | 17:22 |
| bskahan | http://www.publicknowledge.org/take-action/open-access-action | 17:23 |
| th1a | Is this Archetypes based? | 17:24 |
| th1a | I need to download some of your code. | 17:24 |
| bskahan | Yes, its AT based. | 17:25 |
| bskahan | You can browse our source repository at http://svn.etria.com/ , and releases are available via http://developer.etria.com/ | 17:25 |
| th1a | What is Athens? | 17:26 |
| bskahan | The GPL'd PAM code is currently at RC1 because we need to break out some Public Knowledge specific details in the code. | 17:27 |
| bskahan | Athens is the soon-to-be new name for the PAM | 17:27 |
| th1a | Ah. | 17:27 |
| th1a | So it uses a relational database? | 17:28 |
| bskahan | Right now the PAM relies on the ProjectVoteSmart product which can only be used with explicit permission from Project Vote Smart. The final release will drop that dependancy. | 17:28 |
| th1a | Ah. | 17:28 |
| bskahan | yes, the primary database (MySQL) was supplied by Project Vote Smart. | 17:29 |
| th1a | OK. | 17:29 |
| bskahan | This was one of the primary reasons for creating the Open Government Project, so we can create those databases in a way that anyone can use them in a GPL'd project. | 17:29 |
| th1a | Sure. | 17:30 |
| bskahan | Project Vote Smart is a great organization but they have internal requirements for that the database be used only in a non-partisan way, which restricts its usefulness when it comes to candidates and partisan grassroots organizations. | 17:31 |
| th1a | I need to try out Quills. | 17:31 |
| th1a | So what's your schedule for the next few months? | 17:32 |
| bskahan | We will be making a much improved Quills release very soon. | 17:32 |
| bskahan | We are committed until mid-September, after that we have ongoing contract commitments that take up less than 15% of our time. | 17:33 |
| th1a | That's about right for us. | 17:34 |
| th1a | So it looks like I'm going to be in Pittsburgh/Morgantown next week instead of Central Pa, so I won't be as close to Baltimore as I thought. | 17:35 |
| bskahan | when next week? | 17:36 |
| th1a | All next week. | 17:36 |
| bskahan | do you know how long the drive is from Baltimore to Pittsburg? | 17:37 |
| th1a | The drive from Baltimore to Pittsburgh is, I think, long enough that it would be easier for me to fly down on Southwest from Providence some time soon. | 17:38 |
| bskahan | ok, | 17:38 |
| th1a | So would you guys be able to bring another person or two on board in the spring if things were running behind -- that is, we'd be paying for extra people, but do you know other Python developers who could work with you? | 17:40 |
| bskahan | yes, we've used subcontractors in the past, and know quite a few good ones | 17:40 |
| th1a | That's good. | 17:41 |
| bskahan | we also have a part time consultant who helps us with school related projects | 17:41 |
| bskahan | she's the retired technology director for Baltimore City COllege | 17:41 |
| th1a | Good. | 17:41 |
| th1a | Well, I guess there's not a hell of a lot more we can do right now. | 17:42 |
| th1a | Next steps: | 17:42 |
| bskahan | she's was an English teacher for 20 years before becoming the technology director by default, and is very good at keeping us focused on teachers | 17:42 |
| *bskahan nods | 17:42 | |
| th1a | I'll send Steve an email about chatting w/you. | 17:42 |
| bskahan | great | 17:43 |
| th1a | It might be a little while before that happens. | 17:43 |
| th1a | I'll poke around your code more... | 17:43 |
| th1a | Timeframe... | 17:43 |
| th1a | Jeez, we're almost through August, aren't we? | 17:44 |
| th1a | There's going to be a lull at POV through most of September. | 17:44 |
| bskahan | yes, pretty much into the school year | 17:44 |
| th1a | They've got some other work they're committed to, due to the leadership vacuum at SchoolTool before I came on. | 17:45 |
| th1a | So there isn't much point in trying to get the second team going before then. | 17:45 |
| th1a | But I guess we really need to make a decision in about two weeks. | 17:45 |
| th1a | Good to focus on actual dates... | 17:46 |
| bskahan | Ok, that would be good for us | 17:46 |
| th1a | So really, we should pick a date to meet in Baltimore. | 17:46 |
| th1a | You are really interested in this, right? | 17:47 |
| bskahan | We're going to be under time pressure from September 5-10, outside of that we're pretty flexible | 17:47 |
| th1a | Hmmm... | 17:47 |
| th1a | Perhaps the 3rd? Let me look at flights. | 17:48 |
| bskahan | Yes, we're interested, we'd like to make schooltool our primary project for the next 6 months. | 17:49 |
| bskahan | We've been discussing a zope based school intranet project for some time now | 17:49 |
| bskahan | from a slightly different angle - primarily, integrating with terminal server labs - but its something that could be done with schooltool in the future | 17:50 |
| th1a | Yeah. What distro are you using for the terminal server labs? | 17:51 |
| bskahan | the 3rd would work for us. | 17:51 |
| bskahan | k12 | 17:51 |
| bskahan | fedora based | 17:51 |
| th1a | Yeah. Did you look at SkoleLinux or debian-edu? | 17:51 |
| bskahan | we've been active in the UserLinux discussions because fedora hasn't cut it | 17:51 |
| th1a | What is UserLinux? | 17:52 |
| bskahan | a debian based commercial disto still in the planning phases | 17:52 |
| bskahan | so far, it hasn't born much fruit | 17:52 |
| th1a | Ah. | 17:53 |
| bskahan | we're hoping to look a warty next | 17:53 |
| th1a | Yeah. | 17:53 |
| bskahan | I've been working on LTSP debian packages for the last few weeks since there's no maintainer currently | 17:53 |
| th1a | Are you a Debian maintainer? | 17:53 |
| bskahan | no, I have enough on my plate | 17:54 |
| bskahan | ;) | 17:54 |
| bskahan | but I'd like to get LTSP debs back up and running | 17:54 |
| th1a | I may end up having to do that. | 17:54 |
| th1a | Hm... Have you looked at SkoleLinux? | 17:54 |
| bskahan | no, I hadn't even heard of it | 17:54 |
| th1a | I think they have Debian based terminal servers going. | 17:55 |
| th1a | It is Norwegian. | 17:55 |
| bskahan | I'll take a look at it | 17:55 |
| bskahan | that's pretty exciting, one of the big selling points for the LTSP labs is the ease of maintenance, and Debian is better than Fedora in that department | 17:56 |
| th1a | Although Fedora is a nicer desktop out of the box, imho. | 17:56 |
| bskahan | Fedora is nice, but I'm hesitant to rely on it too heavily until they've worked out how the community involvement is going to work | 17:57 |
| th1a | Understandable. | 17:57 |
| th1a | OK, so I'm going to book a flight on the 3rd... | 17:57 |
| bskahan | ok | 17:57 |
| bskahan | just give us the flight information and we'll meet you at BWI | 17:58 |
| th1a | Cool. | 17:58 |
| th1a | Can we skew this later in the day? | 18:01 |
| bskahan | yes, | 18:02 |
| th1a | I could arrive at 2:05 and leave at 9:10. | 18:02 |
| th1a | I'll be awake that way. | 18:02 |
| bskahan | that's no problem | 18:02 |
| th1a | OK, let's do that. | 18:03 |
| bskahan | great, sounds good. You have our telephone contact info if anything comes up | 18:03 |
| th1a | OK. Sounds like a plan. | 18:04 |
| bskahan | see you on the 3rd | 18:05 |
| bskahan | anything else for today? | 18:07 |
| th1a | Nope. We're done here. | 18:08 |
| th1a | Thanks. | 18:08 |
| bskahan | You too, | 18:08 |
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| **** ENDING LOGGING AT Fri Aug 20 23:01:58 2004 | ||
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