Content projects

The contents of this page are considered outdated and some of the information may be stale. Please use information here with caution, or update it.

Projects and proposals    +/-
Content ideas	Content projects
Hardware ideas	Hardware projects
Software ideas	Software projects

NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change! This page is a draft in active flux ... Please leave suggestions on the talk page.

This are many open content projects underway, by libraries and groups and individuals, developing and formatting materials that will be available to laptop users.

Ongoing projects

Trying to set up categories of content-work to preserve a balance between them, facilitate easier keeping-track. Projects listed below are current; ideas, comments, and half-baked projects should be listed in italics.

Note: If a wiki page exists for your project (which it should), use the task template to tag it as an open content project. If you do this, your project will automatically be listed in the catalog of open tasks.

Communication

I'm pretty sure Kathy has more projects we should put in this section. Mchua 01:36, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

Blogging

Any other blog projects we should start? Focus on?

• http://planet.laptop.org - see cjb and Ivan
• http://olpc-cambridge.blogspot.com - see Lauren Klein, SJ Klein, Mel Chua

Sharing news with the active community

• Ongoing wiki maintenance - see Administrators list and active editors; including Xavi, SJ, Walter, php5 and others
• Xoxo - see SJ Klein, Xavi Alvarez, dirakx
• Mailing lists - unifying dormant lists; we have 5x too many.

• Subproject: a physical xoxo whiteboard, a meme Mel is trying to start

Sharing news with OLPC enthusiasts

• Press release, guidance for how to write a
• Walter's weekly newsletter - contributing/culling relevant notes from the community
• Regular activity and content-bundle and generic-bundle updates : a vault for related materials
• A low-key tiered newsletter for community and open content events : cf. xoxo, Quarto: something based on wiki events and other short snippets of contribution, possibly grown with some automated tools Xavi is making, some summaries from blogs, lists, irc logs, whiteboards, and so on.

  Write a daily version, do weekly and monthly summary editions. Could be a new way of spreading news, worth working with the Knight Foundation on it.

Music

On the one hand there are great music tools and games from Csound and TamTam groups. On the other, artists and performers recording and releasing materials for free reuse. In between there are archives of beautiful old recordings. See Jamendo, Antenna Alliance, and the Free Music Project.

Design

• Web design: What can we do here? Currently being handled by Community:Art, although it probably should be a spinoff.
• Community:Art - see Nikki Lee and Jessi Murray

Interface design

Aligning new categories (content creation, community/network site creation) with the interface guidelines.

Designing lickable and accessible views into the school library and specific collections. Making this process modular and easy to hack and contribute to.

Curriculum

• Educators community - cf. Lauren Klein and Mitchell

  todo: improve and expand notes at User:Sj/Curricula, for instance

Lessons and course plans

• Mel notes: We may want to at least quasi-formally announce projects with WikiEducator, because Wayne Mackintosh is awesome.

Activities

• Curriculum Jam - owner Mel Chua

• Curriculum Jam Fall 2007 - owner Mel Chua

• Content Releases - owner Lauren Klein

Long-term projects

• Summer of Content - owner Mel Chua, other contributors SJ Klein and Wayne Mackintosh

• Summer of Content 2007 - owner Mel Chua, other contributors SJ Klein and Wayne Mackintosh

• Jams - owner Mel Chua

• How To Run A Jam cookbook - owner Mel Chua

Proposed projects

The projects below are important projects proposed or started to date. Eventually each of these will be supported by its audience of creators and participants, though some will begin through direct work by OLPC.

Open library exchange

The open library exchange will be

• A site and interface,
• A set of standards, and
• A distribution system

The interface will offer default views of available materials -- one global, with a variation present on every server. There will be an implementation of indexing and searching across participating libraries and repositories. The distribution system will comprise the infrastrucutre of school and regional servers, and a method for updating same, from both directions [from the Web at large and from offline groups with sporadic connectivity].

Wikireader software

Our wikireader will be a wiki that can read the default document format on the laptops, crossmark, and edit or add annotations / discussions about what is being read. It will be one of the default ways to create books or learning materials for friends or students, with emphasis on being lightweight and supporting the creation and synchronization of text with simple layout and embedded images.

It will include

• client software for viewing and editing
• a simple editing interface for children
• ways to annotate and edit; and to see the changes of others
• a server platform and mechanism for synchronizing changes on- and offline.

Synchronization will need to work well in situations where people are offline for long stretches of time.

Layout and publishing

A second publishing tool should be able to pull together images, text, layout templates, sound, and video/animation, to make a simple package with hyperlinks and narrative flow. This might rely on a server running on a school server, but would have a light reader that would run on laptops. TK3, Sophie, and even Etoys explore facets of this kind of publishing. This will be another default way to create new materials, with emphasis on supporting styles and color and media, and intuitive free-form ways to manipulate layout.

It will include

• Client software for viewing [v2: and simple editing]
• Storing of a work in reusable sections (layout definition + metadata + wikitext sections + images + media), for other software to use
• Server software supporting editing and collaboration

A global collaboration site

A default space online for laptop users to put materials for public viewing and collaboration. This will be:

• A site for hosting and working on shared materials
• A place to develop community around specific projects

This will also be a place on the web (as opposed to in the pratly-offline library network, or in one's laptop journal shared by a few friends) to put up a quick note or web page that can be shared. This may well be a dedicated section of an existing general hosting site online. For comparison, the library exchange will include an interface to the World Digital Library (curated by libraries around the world), and a site for storing non-collaborative work. cf. UNIWiki.

Classification and review

Review, critique, and classification are all important aspects of learning through collaboration. A classification system will be

• A software framework supporting tagging and revie of materials, by different readers and groups
• A way to search through existing librarie of content, using their native clsasifications and any additions
• A set of standards for metadata supporting such contributions and queries

The design of this project will guide parts of the indexing and interfacing with existing libraries of materials... bearing in mind that almost every publisher and digital collection is now in some ways its own tiny library.

Barnraisings

In each language and region, there is a need for barnraising of materials suited for the laptop medium and audience. A barnraising project will be

• A process for hosting a barnraising
• Contacts with others who have successfully hosted one before, with project ideas to cover specific needs

Initial barnraisings can be carried out through constructionist schools around the world, by young students for their current or previous year's curriculum. cf. low-income private school in Newton.

Language exchange

A framework for identifying language skills, offering to provide language exchange or assistance, learning new languages, and sharing experiences and ideas with others across language barriers. This will include

• A site, supporting user accounts that keep track of language skills for users, and project definitions that keep track of language needs.
• A tool for matching up needs for language exchange, interpretation, localization, and translation.
• A mechanism for mediated discussion -- the ability to call in a third-party to help mediate or interpret a discussion; with the option of automated real-time translation to help.

Other optional ways to improve this system would include building in ways to practice language on your own... but why do that when you can practice with another person?

Specific collaborations

A children's encyclopedia

A global children's encyclopedia, on the model of Wikipedia, with materials suited for primary school students. This should be:

• A site and design for younger audiences
• A community of participants
• A client interface for younger authors
• A set of authoring standards

This does exist in some languages (One encyclopedia per child) and similar efforts hopefully will raise it in other languages.

A children's picturebook

Pictures of things of interest to younger children, or galleries of images taken by them.

documentaries and video

• Three clips from Jason Scott's text/bbs documentary: 1 2, 3
• more from PBK's video archives (cf. intelligent television)

Pictowiki

A 100% wordless pictographic wiki. To promote global collaboration through universal communication.

External sites

Authoring

• Wikibooks

Learning

• Wikiversity
• e-Learning for Kids

Reference

• Wikipedia
• Wiktionary
• Dicologos
• Glossopedia

Geography and the world

• Openstreetmaps [1]
• Wikitravel
• WikiAtlas
• Glossopedia

Audio

• Librivox

Media

• Sound: Freesound, CCMixter, Wikicommons
• Images: Flickr (filtered into CC-BY)
• Video: Wikicommons
• Glossopedia

See also

• Content projects/websites/details
• Category:Content