Integrated Writing Environment

Project Goal

To develop a new Activity for the XO laptop oriented around Language Arts and Writing. The primary desired outcomes are:

• Increase user's motivation to write,
• Improve user's ability to write, and,
• Increase user's sense of creativity while writing

In particular, the Activity will focus on Creative Writing, although the application should be flexible for other kinds of writing.

Title

Currently, a suitable name for this software has not been found. For development purposes, I have been referring to it as the IWE - Integrated Writing Environment. Potential finalized names are:

• Write-o!
• The Write Stuff
• Write-on!

Learning Theory

• Intrinsic Motivation - It's not enough for a game to be educational, it must also be fun to play; students shouldn't see it as a chore.
• Constructivism - Children should feel they are making something, and have an artifact at the end of a playthrough.
• Multimedia Learning - Multimedia should be a key element. Mostly it will be a combination of textual, pictorial, animated, and audible content.
• Social Cognitive Theory - Collaboration should be key. Highest preference is given to working side-by-side in person. However, artifacts need to be freely transferable between mediums (between XOs, teacher computers, public servers)

Methodology of Writing

Recognize that there are not discrete phases to the writing process - at times, different parts of the created artifacts will be in different phases.

• Pre-writing
• Drafting
• Revising
• Editing
• Publishing

Review Process

Ideally, students should be able to either physically pass their XO to another student for peer review of their artifact, or to pass their artifact digitally. Any revisions or notes or marks should be clearly visible and distinguishable from the original. Feedback can also be given in person.

Motivating Features

A blank text file is not a fun and engaging game for (most) children. An activity designed to increase motivation to write needs more. The IWE will have several different modules that act as different subgames. The following are examples:

• Play Writing: Very similar to Broadway, this is for writing a play that can be acted out on screen by actors. This will be a serious expansion of Broadway with many new features, and deep integration into the other features of the IWE
• Line Writing: Similar to the game Wacky Writer, where students work together to write a story by each contributing a line. As a twist, students can only see the previously written line.
• Madlibs: Similar to the classic word game, you are given sentences and must put in words.
• Inverse Madlibs: You are given words and must write sentences using them. (Integrate into the other games, so that teachers can give students a list of words to use)

Use Cases

The scope of this Activity should be highly scalable to account for all of the following use cases

• Individual child with laptop using software on their own
• Teacher with classroom of students following a specific curriculum
• Community of users online

In addition to those use cases, there is also the question of connectivity cases:

• Constant: The XO is constantly able to connect to the internet
• Delayed: The XO might be able to connect to the internet every few sessions, but not constantly.
• Indirect: The XO is unable to connect to the internet on it's own, but has connections to other computers that do (through Mesh or Sneakernet).
• Never: The XO is unable to connect to the internet on it's own, and has no other method.

Feature List

• High undo level
• Copy/Paste
• Spelling/Grammar/etc. checking

Development

The application will be written in Python, using the PyGTK library. In addition, Pygame may be used for certain aspects.

Similar Work

This application will draw on aspects of other Activities, including Write, Labyrinth, Broadway, and Wacky Writer

Timeline

Phase	Time Range	Name	Description	Status
1	June 1 - July 13	Inception	Plan out project, including required features, timeline, community reactions, etc.	Ongoing