Education category

Genius is great tool but I miss some elementary tools. For instance, function for solving equations, function for finding extremum of function, function for expanding formulas,...

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this is not another idea about video tutorials, this is completely different from them

recently i installed kubuntu for my friend, and after it, i had to teach him the basis for the system

i could not leave him with tutorials only, because, although they are usually clean and nice, but not 100% easy.

So i had to show him, how to change appearance, desktop background, how to copy files etc

most of the very basic actions are similar to windows, but many of them are improved, comparing to XP, like splitting view in dolphin or using other view modes

once i played Harry Potter game, on one level, you had to learn the spells - tutor showed you a shape you had to repeat (by using mouse)

Something like this would be really nice for beginners,

For example this is how tutorial of changing desktop background could look like:


1. the program takes the screenshot, and put is as a background
2. (tutor says) Welcome. Now we will learn how to change the background of your desktop.
3. (virtual cursor moves to "start menu" button) Now please move your mouse to lower left corner and click once
4. (virtual screen dims and user have to move real mouse on real desktop)
5. (tutor says) Great! Now click "System Settings" (virtual cursos moves to that icon)
6. (virtual screen dims and user have to repeat what tutor has just done)
7. (tutor says) Great! Now go to ...

and so on

[....]

The nutshell of this idea: Design better ways to teach programming (such as through interactive teaching tools) and implement these educational resources in Ubuntu's default repertoire.

To be more complete is somewhat of an essay...

Programmers are doubtlessly a resource that we can not have too many of. All the money in donations is worthless if not for people to turn that into programming work. All of the sense of community does us no good if the community dies due to unusable software.

Obviously, Ubuntu is currently in a better position than this right now; and I don't mean to imply that we may have a shortage of people to keep it working in the future. However, there is clearly a very strong desire for more programmers

We have developed things like 5-A-Day to better concentrate programmer efforts and better utilize time. A good deal of the proposals on brainstorm are ways to further that. There are also quite a few proposing ways to entice programmers to Ubuntu; such as by making a gaming SDK, or even outright hiring and paying people. The entire idea of brainstorm is basically people jumping up and down, saying "Programmers! Developers! Check out this idea! Check out how many other people like this idea!".

Basically, what we have right now is the equivalence of people looking to reduce, reuse, and recycle programming talent. While these are not bad ideas, they pale when compared to the ability to create new energy.

What I would propose is the creation of a program to
teach and train programmers. This could include many things.

IRC Channels: This would be the easiest to set up and run; all you need is "#ubuntu-programming-school" and to get some teachers to show up. This may well already exist.

Documentation: There are many free, open source, guides and learning materials; as well as plenty of sites collecting them. The best thing that could be done with them would be to pick one or two particularly good and thorough guides and include them in ~/Examples/. This would be an appropriate use of the space, and doubly useful in drawing people in to programming.

[....]

Well idea is quite simple, there are Bible and Quran reading tools which could be equated with electronic books.
But gnomeSword and BibleTime only support Bible.
Wouldn't it be better if this tools would be linked with Project Gutenberg which "ports" books in electronic version.
I'm not a religious person but I would like to use "Bible" tool to read any other book. And project Gutenberg has thousands of books.

It will be really lovely and more useful, if Dictionary could show images related to Word with it's definitions, if available.

In order to make the dictionary grow faster and a lot bigger, I think that a wiki-like system should be implemented.

There should be, in the gnome-dictionary, an action to suggest a word and a meaning to it, that would be automatically added with a tag explaining that the word is not yet approved. Simultaneously, a team selected to supervise this would recieve notifications to approve the new word suggestions.

Similar to some of Eldmannen's recent suggestions (of virtual physics and chemistry labs), Edubuntu should have a virtual electronics suite.

This is not the same as a PCB builder... there's already free software versions of those. This is more like croc clips (now called Yenka http://www.yenka.com/en/Yenka_Electronics/). I'm into amateur robotics, and have looked for an open source program like this for a long time, but have been unable to find one.

Very simply you have a raft of electronic components (battery, capacitors, resistors, LEDs, simple mass produced chips, etc.), and you can connect them together by clicking the mouse to create virtual wires.

You then "turn on" the simulation, and it displays what would happen in real life - you can check voltage and current at every connection, etc.

I propose to develop a virtual chemistry lab, it could be included in Edubuntu.

It comes with virtual chemicals like water, ethanol, ammonia, butane, helium, kerosene, acetone, calcium sulfate, acids, etc.

Then the user can mix two or more chemicals into a bottle and observe the following chemical reaction.

This would be a quick, easy, safe, cheap, and fun way to experiment with chemistry.

I propose to make an application for physics experiments. It can be included in Edubuntu.

It should be an application where you can create/define objects that act and interact according to the laws of physics.

It should let you to aero dynamics, fluid dynamics. Ballistics, floating, collision, etc.

We could have a toolbox from which the user can drag-and-drop objects and stuff, and where he can define properties for the object.

We could also have possible for the user to create a script where he defines properties.

environment.gravity(9.8)
environment.humidity(34)

mybox = new Object.Box()
mybox.dimensions(120,80,40)
mybox.mass(14000)
mybox.luminosity(1.4)
mybox.magnetism(-13)

unobtainium = new Material()
unobtainium.phase(solid)
unobtainium.density(7.21)
unobtainium.melting_point(1519)
unobtainium.boiling_point(2334)
unobtainium.hardness(196)
unobtainium.thermal(conductivity=318, emittance=17, expansion=35)

Mockup

This idea is very straightforward. Just like is OSX, where the dictionary triples as a thesaurus and an encyclopaedia, my idea is to add a tab or just list encyclopaedic and thesaurus references in addition to the definitions. This could be done by working together with Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Thesaurus.com or a variety of sources to provide succinct but informative entries on searched terms and words.

I would actually PAY MONEY to learn Ubuntu from the ground up. Like an on-line class room that would teach all aspects of Ubuntu Desktops,Servers and the programs associated with Ubuntu!

Everything is out there scattered all over the place and there are a few who are pretty knowledgeable of Ubuntu along with far too many who like myself don't quite know enough. I don't know where to start. It would be nice to have kind of an online "Ubuntu University" where once completed, we could actually work at Conacle.

I speak for a lot of people who currently have other careers and haven't the time to enroll full time into a University to get the skills they need to adequately contribute to the GNU projects.

As an example, I have a wireless nic card in my desktop. After several hours of trials and tribulations, i finally got it to work, unfortunately; I don't have a clue how I could help anyone else with the problem because of the complexity (on my part) of making the card work.

I think that in Rhythmbox (I prefer Exaile,I don't really know if it's implemented yet or not) it would be cool if,after adding the mp3's of your collection,you could be offered with an option to convert to free formats.

This could be applied to movies too,if Totem either asks on adding a file in the playlist(with an option to disable asking,of course) or if Totem gets an library function(it would be cool)

As I said earlier,I don't really use Rhythmbox,but I do use Totem for movies and do prefer free,open-source formats.
(oh,and you forgot to add Rhythmbox to the "Related" list :-) )

Previous versions of Octave (until 2.9 for Gutsy) included an Octave-forge package with contributed functions. This package disappeared on 3.0, and reappeared as a lot of contributed packages (which are available for Intrepid).

My idea is to make a dummy package depending on all these packages (octave-audio, octave-image, octave-splines...) so installing "octave-forge" would install all of them.

when we format the drive we lose all the data of that drive. but some recovery s/ws recovver that lost data but they have some problem. it is very lengthy process and they cant recover .dat .avi means the movie files. i want to reciver the movie files how?

Sure knowledge is great, but the problem with people is that they do not know how to think. A lot of people do not know how to think, they were never taught how to think, and a lot of people think incorrectly and fail to logical fallacies. Example, "Cheese is food. Food is delicious. Therefore, cheese is delicious." or "All birds have beaks. That creature has a beak. Therefore that creature is a bird". This is dangerous, it can lead to prejudices and intolerance.

I propose that Edubuntu should teach people how to think (preferably in a fun way, perhaps using some sort of game).

The primary thing people need to learn is logical reasoning.

Everything is not always what it appears to be.
Not all sources are credible.

People need to be taught deductive reasoning, open world assumption, etc.
"All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal."

I tell you "Mary is a citizen of France", now I ask you, "Is Mary a citizen of Canada?", you would probably say no, but you don't know - she could have a dual citizenship.

It would be nice to have a Rubik's Cube puzzle game for Edubuntu.
It is widely known as an intellectual and challenging puzzle game.

It can hopefully be fun and challenging to kids, and make them smarter and teach them how to solve problems.

It could also have features such as timing, and counter for amount of moves. Also be able to use different type of cube such as 2×2×2, 3×3×3, 4×4×4, 5×5×5. etc.

This is an idea I've been tossing around, and is very similar to Keduca and Keduca-editor but on a much bigger scale.

Imagine an online school to complete school before you ever arrive and pay for classes. Do and pass the exams with the knowledge you've earned for free on your own time with the assistance of an open source community network by assessing your self (where you are now), picking a career (where you want to be), and then pick from a list of rated user-made course packages the peer-made online-class of your choice to prepare yourself for taking a real school exam and passing without spending a dime on the real courses. This would be a monumental study guide for college students and a world wide community driven homeschool.

The idea consists of three elements. A Server Network to manage one of two packages. A sleek User Client for students. And lastly a user friendly Course Creator for teachers.

The two packages are as follows.

The first is a Course Package which includes within it all the media required for the course (Lecture Videos, Text-Books, Homework, Quizzes, Exams, Tests, and Final Exams) in an interactive linear layout separated into different Units where users can study material, complete quizzes and optionally review material before taking tests and exams and be graded by the package. Each unit in a package will have a Final Test, and each course package will have a Final Exam. Authors may specify credentials and references to be put on your printable certificate. You will be given a certificate upon completing and passing the Final Exam for a Course Package.

The second package is a Advisory Package acting like a school advisor at a college or university. It would consist of the user inputing what career they wish to get into, and taking an assessment test to place their current skills. After completing the Assessment test the package would then bring up a list of Course Packages that are recommended to be completed for a degree or certificate at a real college. Of the courses recommended there will be varying versions by different authors as with the Advisory Packages. Again authors may specify credentials and references to be put on your printable certificate. You will be given a certificate upon completing and passing all the required Course Packages and their Final Exams to show you learned based on these packages.

[....]

project outline.


“UbuntuLive” – cooperate
By The Sustainable Media Co-operative
spiritual technology
a sustainable media system
community television


What?

“UbuntuLive” is a transparent networking tool for cooperative business and sustainable media systems working with SANE (South African New Economic) systems and normal money systems built in to facilitate individual or cooperative transactions.

It allows the user to create and manage structures of cooperating individuals or groups in any arrangement, helping them to operate sustainably by operating within simple self-evident universal laws, thereby serving all life every-where and always. That is to say that people cannot do anything that is patently against life by ensuring content:

Is at least trying to cooperate in a more environmentally way and that the products and services available or advertised within the ‘UbuntuLive’ system are sustainable
Refrains from promoting or containing material that is: Untrue
Refrains from theft, taking what isn’t freely given
Promotes killing or harm to others
Promotes sexual misconduct
Promotes intoxication of the body or land

(for a full explanation and other principles, see the SUN Cooperative Principles page)


[....]

Sugar, an award-winning education platform, was originally developed for OLPC's XO laptops, but is now an independent upstream project: http://sugarlabs.org/

It should be packaged and enabled as a login option.