KDE Promo's Goal: Create materials we can use to convince more schools, educational boards and teachers to us GCompris in schools
KDAB's Goal:
| Status | Assigned | Task | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open | None | T5781 [Planning] Long term plan | ||
| Open | paulb | T13737 Promote KDE in niches: Education | ||
| Open | paulb | T13711 Improve promotion for GCompris | ||
| Open | paulb | T13734 Improve promotion for GCompris: Stats/Facts for Social Media posts | ||
| Resolved | None | T14859 Improve promotion of GCompris: KDAB video project |
The history (some dates):
What GCompris is/isn't:
Migrating from great Gnome community to KDE another great community:
Code architecture:
Challenges:
"Opportunities": (not sure on how to call it)
Next challenges:
Points I noted during the meeting:
What is GCompris?
Why Bruno had to rewrite it and why he chose Qt?
Not only a Fun Game to play cleverly but also a school tool.
How is it used in school ?
Could be nice to have a Timeline showing how GCompris graphically evolved:
1- gtk 2- First Patreon Work by Tim 3- Tim overal work 4- Multipledataset introduction
Aman's Story: from village to Google Varsovie via Amazon
Importance of GSoC
Future:
This is the Outline so far. It has changed somewhat from when we spoke. Robert and I hope to talk with Bruno before Christmas to get some of his part down, and test the BBB concept. The rest will come later after various house moves have taken place, and, we hope, some of the background film material mentioned above has arrived.
Happy for feedback but please email me as I'm unlikely to notice anything here (sorry!).
<outline start>
GCompris and Qt, Outline Plan
– “how” we film it undecided as yet. BBB maybe best option due to distances/Covid.
Video 1 – draft 1 (3 pages)
[Part 1: Intro (Robert, visible at first, then as voice-over with film of pupils in class, GCompris content. KDE, KDAB, Qt logos somewhere around?)
“Hello, I’m Robert Brock from KDAB and I’d like to tell you about a free and open-source, high quality, educational software suite for kids aged 2 to 10, that’s built with Qt.
GCompris is used as a teaching aid worldwide. It is available in [39?] languages, at the time of filming, and global users are estimated to be in the millions. With its multiple datasets, GCompris activities can be adjusted to fit student’s learning needs, allowing teachers to integrate over 50 different available subjects into their existing lesson plans. Pupils can learn at their own pace, separately or in groups, set up by the teacher. GCompris’ largest known user base is in Kerala, where the government has introduced it into all their schools.
Aside from those benefits, as an addition to any teaching curriculum, GCompris is proven to be especially helpful for children with learning difficulties or neurological differences, as its content is less violent, quieter, and free from distractions like pop-ups or advertisements.
GCompris was originally written in C and Python using the GTK+ widget toolkit, but a rewrite in C++ and QML using the Qt widget toolkit was initiated in 2014.
These days, GCompris exists as a project under the umbrella of KDE, an international team co-operating on development and distribution of Free, Open Source Software for desktop and portable computing.”
[223 words @ 125-150 words per minute]
[Part 2: Interview with Bruno]:
Robert: “I asked Bruno Coudoin, the creator of this project, what inspired him to get started, and what he hoped to achieve.”
[Bruno replies . . . This next section will either be just Bruno talking, or interacting with Robert, asking questions, talking about their kids. Some bullet points to trigger content:
· Mention it was 21 years ago.
· Talk about the perceived educational need that triggered it.
· Is there a personal element in it? (concerning Bruno’s kids perhaps?).
· What attracted you to computer-based learning?
· What made you choose opensource?
· What were the challenges along the way?
· Did you do it all alone or did you get help?
· When did you switch to Qt and why? [we may use this in the second video].
· What part does KDE play in this?
· What else should be included here?]
[Note: We can use material from this for both videos if it makes sense to, so it’s OK to talk about what’s natural. The bullet points are triggers in case needed, and to remind us of what we want to cover.]
[END OF SECTION WITH BRUNO]
[Part 3: Robert: Introduces Tim, Aish and Emmanuel]
[Robert] “I asked three people who’ve been involved in the GCompris project for some time to give us a little more insight:
Emmanuel, what it’s like using GCompris in the classroom? How does it help you with your students and what do you like the most about it?”
[Emmanuel replies]
“Aish, tell us about GCompris in Kerala, what you’ve witnessed about its spread?”
[Aish replies.]
“Timothée, can you tell us a bit about your role . . .”
[Timothée replies, focusing on graphics not from software POV but what they represent/the quality, how they are chosen/designed. At the end, he can hint at the content to come in Video 2 where we’ll talk more specifically about the software content and maintenance, also with Johnny and possibly also Bruno.]
[Again, it’s OK if they get into conversation independently. Let it run as it will. We can edit afterwards. KDE can use it if we don’t.]
[Robert to round off by thanking all contributors and adding a plea from KDE along the lines of: “It’s free, it’s open source, it relies on contributions. Get involved!” [tbw]
[What they can get involved with: software development, contribute to the translation, to the activities, try out the activities in class (teachers) and feed back - see your changes getting implemented. Message: Free Software is always a two-way street, there is no hard divider between "end-user" and contributor.]
</outline>