Talk:Time

Natural Language Time

Do you think we could/should add a part for natural language representation of time e.g. "quarter till five" ? I think it might be useful, but might be difficult to internationalize. Finding enough translators would be difficult, but they would be so simple that even an elementary speaker could do it. Does anyone at IMSA know portugese? Nat

Just popping in to add that the "quarter till" and "half past" are concepts being taught in my son's school. They are also doing "time math" - e.g., Jessica got to the library at five til two, Gina got there fifteen minutes later. Alma was there from one fifteen until forty-five minutes later. Leo arrived at half-past one. Who arrived at the library first? Everyone stayed for fourty-five minutes. Who left at two forty? (Please don't take my made-up example for anything but illustration, LOL. I can get his actual worksheets from his teacher if this idea is useful.) Hope everyone is having a good end-of-year at IMSA. Let's stay in touch over the summer. KayTi 00:30, 14 May 2008 (EDT)

Planetarium and StarGazing Activity thoughts

Hey guys - saw you speak at yesterday's Chicago OLPC meetup. I didn't meet you two in person but did talk to many of your IMSA classmates and teachers/administrators. I wanted to point you to an interesting post about XO Planetarium, an activity for the XO. It's an older post, but there are some interesting comments that might be useful. Planetarium OLPC News Post This is probably just the beginning of my unsolicited input for you - your clock app is a really awesome idea, great project, and perfect for the young end of the 6-12 age range targeted with the XO. As far as I can tell, there are fewer activities designed for the younger set, something I hope to change. KayTi

Thanks. I'll check it out. Jrock 17:00, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Another person developing another star chart type of activity Star Chart Activity Development post in OLPCNews forums KayTi How do you append the date on a wiki?

Another bit from me - someone on the forum.laptop.org site created a clock app and put it on the wiki. Have you seen it? I haven't looked at it yet, but just doing my "connect people together" thing. [[1]]  :D KayTi 00:38, 4 February 2008 (EST)

xearth

Take a look at the xearth program. It can be set to show an image of the world, with the day portion lit up and the night portion dark. This also helps to explain how seasons work. AlbertCahalan 02:34, 25 January 2008 (EST)

Additional Learning Activity

Something that I was interested in doing was creating a "game" to help learn time. I taught ESL classes for the Red Cross at one point and this game helped cover a lot of goals. The game principle was this:

The Game:

1. Say a time(Teacher: "two o'clock")
2. Student would go to blackboard and draw the small hand and large hand in the correct place
3. Optional: in class we would have student speak the the time to practice speaking.

For the XO (Sugar):

1. Text would be displayed ( or as numeric form )

• e.g. "Two Thirty", "Quarter Past Four", "5:45"

1. The student could move the hands on an analog clock graphic and click OK

• The game would then indicate "Correct" or "Try Again" or something similar

1. The speaking step would be left out of the XO implementation... for now.  ;)

Advantages:

1. The game is very simple to understand (minimal help text necessary)
2. should be simple to implement with a "fun" graphic (analog clock, etc.)
3. Translates to other languages "easily"
4. Promotes learning (reading, telling time, angles?)

Make it "meshable" Option:

• Student A could select a time (text, numeric, or using the hands of the clock).
  • This would be step 1 in the game.
• Student B would have to answer (this would be step 2 in the game)
• Repeat with Student B selecting the initial time with student A having to answer
• the game could include a "timer" aspect and students could compete for the best time.
  • A timer being an additional element of the concept of time.

Why is this here? The Game could (should) reuse many of the same elements as this "Time" project. I think the student's overall learning is increased by seeing many of the same elements over many applications. Other time relate games could be created for a whole education suite based around time.

thoughts? Jsarao 16:35, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Once we get the Time application working I could see this being a fairly easy extension. I'll add your idea to the page. Jrock 18:02, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Countdown Timer and Chronograph

You absolutely MUST make this function as the ultimate stop watch for sports day at school! You could make it do countdowns, with audio indicators when time was counting down to zero - great big digital numbers across the screen when you are measuring the fastest runner in the class, lap times, etc, etc! It would be really neat! --Tomhannen 14:07, 30 January 2008 (EST)

We considered this functionality, but in order to implement this we would have to disregard one of the outlines for application's GUI development. You aren't supposed to change the main screen display between the tabs. Jrock 14:24, 30 January 2008 (EST)

there is also a very nice Stopwatch already application available. Combining might be worth while. Jsarao 14:19, 31 January 2008 (EST)