smartfox server 2X

Smartfox just released their new version of their server.  I'll download this in the next few days and see if I want to work with this new one or stick to the older Smartfox Pro.

http://www.smartfoxserver.com/2X/index.php

While it could be good to work with this new version, I don't know if there might be less documentation and help with it.  On the other hand, I was only just learning how the old stuff worked, so I may as well learn the newest version from scratch.  Hopefully they have some good tutorials and documentation with it and maybe there will be a lot of people on the forums figuring out the new stuff.

October 25

Downloaded Smartfox server.  Read up on things, looked at examples.  There is an awful lot there to go through.  I will be using the SmartFox server Pro, as it seems to be the version of choice when using action script 3.
A problem is, that they give you a good amount of examples and tutorials but most of them are for AS2, which does not help me very much.  Fortunately, I found a couple of helpful examples somebody posted on a forum somewhere where they turned an AS2 avatar chat tutorial into AS3.
A lot what I saw in the examples is a bit beyond my actionscripting skills right now, but I will see what I can do.  Sometime in the next few days I will try to take some pieces out from the tutorial examples and see if I can make an extremely basic program that just allows two "avatars" to move around the screen at the same time.  If I can do that without hurting myself I will feel a bit more confident about moving on in this direction.
I'll have to hold off on starting to write my proposal until I have a better idea of how the whole social aspect might work and how it will affect the disign and layout of the website.

October 22

Met with tutors.
Although I had kind of thrown the idea of making the website a social thing, I now have an idea of how I might be able to do it using smartfox server.  So I am currently doing some research on that to get an idea of how it works/what it can do/what I am capable of doing using it.
I have sketched out some ideas for my proposal which I will start typing up next week.  Yeehaw.

Hopefully i will get around to putting some images up on this blog.  But I have not yet for two reasons:
1.  I am in the middle of a month long move and I dont know where the printer is.
2.  Most of everything I have so far is messy scribbles that do not make sense to anyone but me and would only hurt your eyes.

More ideas

Ok, I had a think about it a couple of nights ago.
I wanted something that is flexible and still give me direction.  I wrote down a big word map of possible educational themes and where this website should take places (in a house, town, world.)

I found that I was happiest with having the website revolve around a zoo.  You know how most cool zoos give you an illustrated map of the place to help you find all the different places.  I imagine the navigation home would be one of those maps and you can choose where in the zoo you want to go.  Depending on where you go you get to play games to help you with a different subject.  For now I am keeping things open.  So you can go to the Monkey house for math and then the penguin house for geography or whatever.  This will allow me to be flexible in the future, give me direction for right now, and allow me to be creative as I go.

I imagine that there might be little videos you can watch when you go place to place.  Possibly, you could sign in, choose your own character from a few options, and when you complete or do well on a game you could earn a badge/certificate and maybe unlock a video and some info related to either the subject or the animal/part of the zoo you visited.  So, you do phonics with a tiger.  You do a good job on level 1 and you can watch a movie about Tigers in India.  You might have a profile area where you can watch the movies you collected.

Just throwing some ideas out there.  But I think I am getting on the right track now.

October 8

Next steps...


Now that I have turned in my proposal I have to think about the next steps I have to take.  Now let me see...

I need to...
Well, figure out exactly what I am doing.  What the gaol and purpose of the website will be.  That is a big one.  It is also where I am currently stuck.  I kind of need to figure that out before I can move on to anything else.  

I'll get back to you on that, hopefully by the end of the weekend.

first proposal (with links!)

Proposal Title:

Interactive Educational website with quality learning material based on school curriculum and possibly focusing on a specific skill (gardening, computer skills).  

It will be appealing to the target audience by featuring an easy to use interface, a friendly color pallet, and appealing characters.  The target audience will likely be young folk somewhere between ages 3 to 7 and a broader age range within special education.  I would also make it a goal that the website not be overly kiddie as to scare off older students. 

Outline reasons for selecting this proposal.  What inspires you about this topic?  How did you come to decide that this is an area worthy of research and development?

I have a bachelors degree in primary education and worked as a special needs assistant for 3 years.  After coming to Ireland I decided to switch to switch to computers.  I have always had interest in combining my two skill sets.  

I hope to take a look at what is out there and improve upon it, possibly finding gaps such as forgotten age groups or new ways educational websites can be presented.  That might mean to add limited (and safe) social functionality or a unique interface such as a navigable world or storybook.  I also am interested in something that would give me the opportunity to practice animation (specifically character animation) and making simple games. 

From my experience I know that when it comes to websites geared towards the younger crowd, the options tend to be 1.  well done interactive websites with no, or shallow educational content, or 2.  educational websites based on learning standards and curriculum, but they look and feel cheap and occasionally do not function very well.  I found that there is an absence of slick educational websites for the 8 to 15 year old crowd.  There might also be room to create a website that focuses on more specific skills/activities such as learning to garden, play an instrument, sports, computer skills, environment, health, cooking, animal care, languages.  It might be a good idea to focus on such a topic and it would be easy to incorporate other educational elements. 

Briefly describe how you envisage the completed project will operate.  A broad conceptual overview is all that is required at this stage.

I need to get more specific in my goal to get very particular at all with this question.  But I envision that it would be graphic, full of life, and focused.  I have to keep in mind that I cannot create a huge site, like many I have seen, by myself.  

I imagine a user would come into the site and easily be brought right into the world where they can go off and watch videos, play games, or adventure around.  I would like navigation to be easy but possibly maintain a sense of adventure about getting around the site. 

List the textbooks, articles or websites used in preliminary research.  Please include Title, Author, Publisher/ISBN.

Sorry no books right now.  Mostly I have looked on the web to see what is currently out there. 

I did contact 3 teachers I used to work with, 2 of whom are also parents of young children.  I asked them what websites the kids are using these days and what content they like to see.  As popular websites they mentioned ones that are associated with TV channels, pbskids.org , psbsprout, nickjr, disney.  There were also a couple mentions of sites which are more like a resource of educational materials along with games, softschools.com, news-2-you.com.

I also did some googling and looking about to see what is out there.  Websites tend to fall into two categories.

websites based on tv shows, books, etc... (typically prettier, higher quality games, videos.  educational quality varies widely.  From my experience students will just go to the game with the character they like the most and is the most fun, while ignoring other things.  Big surprise.  These sites often have a similar set of games/activities for each show.  Tend to be geared towards younger crowd.  Not many educational and fun sites for older kids.)

CBeebies, PBSkids, PBSsprout, NickJr., Busytown, Clubpenguin

Resource websites(these are usually low budget websites with many many links to games, resources, activities.  Some are divided into useful categories such as age group and subject. It can be very hard to navigate these sites to find good matereal.  Dead links are common.  Games are often simple and of lower quality.  Some games do not work well.  You can often find challenging games for older students.)

bestedsites, kidsknowit, news-2-you, softschools

also US National and, my old friend, Illinois Learning standards 

http://www.educationworld.com/standards/

http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ILS/