EduTainment Titles

[Sivakatirswami]

Lynn and Richmond:

Thank you so much for all the insights into the "industry standards"

All very useful. I have added this to my respository of production 
standards resources. You have offered some really useful points.

A few simple replies before I go off the deep end of musing.

1) I totally agree that content is king, not software wizardry. Thanks 
for the reminder.

2) It's not that I'm "focusing too much on the techology here." as Lynn 
saw it... rather I'm interested in the *delivery channel/ mechanisms* 

3) My original request was: can I buy some/see some titles? Richard? Let 
me see your stuff! (smile)

One could conclude from you comments (simplistically)

"Make and deliver standalones; forget about the internet except as a 
shopping mechanism"

i.e. If you can get the client(s) to download (purchase, get on CD... 
whatever) a standalone that has excellent (even if technically simple)  
content, clearly branded which runs easily on any machine, without an 
internet connection, then probably you will be reaching a larger 
audience in the long run because the connectivity issues are bigger than 
anyone wants to admit.

<deep end dive>

But this simply leads to more questions

Au contraire... , I already have a number of titles, for free, on the 
internet. If you look at access logs, I see a lot of traffic to these 
pages, but not a lot of downloads.

http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/dws_youth/
http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/yamas_niyamas/

(I think if you try these you will have to agree I'm not into super 
technology... the one complaint being they lack sound...)

Meanwhile:

PDF's here:

http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/SaivaHR_course/

on the other hand are downloaded at the rate of 2000-3000 a month 
consistently year after year.

Our Vedic Calendars "http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/panchangam/"  
get (and this is no exaggeration) 200,000 plus downloads a year. (my 
goodness we should start charging something, if only $1.50 each)

What does this tell us? I don't know for sure. Perhaps our "packaging" 
is just lousy, or the resistance to downloading executables is higher 
than  one might expect, which then militates against your thesis that 
people will only use a product that can runs off the internet, but they 
don't want to "get" it off the internet, but I don't want to go into 
physical CD production (sales packaging, shipping order handling 
etc...), catch 22.

 Our Hinduism Today Digital Edition (Rev desktop thin client, PDF 
manager) on the other hand has been downloaded 15,000 copies. Why? 
higher profile, strong need?

Sidebar: I deal with an asian/indian/malaysian/mauritian/singaporean 
audience, which is frankly (sorry to say it but it's true) easily 10-5 
years ahead of the US "admin" establishment in terms of moving forward 
in the digital revolution, at least at home...if not always in schools, 
but even in some schools, where you may have a high resistance to 
internet connections in  a US context, there will be little to none in a 
similar Asian context where the admin is so technically advanced they 
have no problem dealing with filtering content etc. So whether the 
paradigm of a paranoid "protect our kids from porn" edu, universe should 
inform our decision moving forward is yet another question mark.  Well 
obviously we want to protect our kids, but there are lots of ways to 
protect without shutting down the pipeline completely.

But, if Flash is any model to measure by, even a modicum of success in 
getting people to download a plug-in to run stacks in a browser is 
likely to blow away the "numbers" of those who may never download an 
executable, which, by our experience so far, is still quite low/high 
resistance. Since band width is still an issue, obviously a "small 
modules" model will be needed.

 So, there I came full circle: I would like to see some e.g titles of 
good edutainment ware.



> Dear Sivakatirswami,
>
>  In all the institututions I have worked in where I have
> prepared education content delivery and reinforcement programs
> over the last 15 years the following have held true:
>
> Most programs have been held on a local server (SIUC,
> UAE University) or on individual computers (St Andrews,
> My school). In the case of the UAE that was because that
> is a conservative society with a conservative educational
> ethos who did not want their students to have internet
> access.
>
> At SIUC and St Andrews the applications were for use by students
> on specific programs in specific computer labs.
>
> In my own school I have no internet access at all as it is not required.
>
> At St Andrews we ran some tests and found that programs on individual
> machines tended to run faster, and load more quickly, than when stored on
> a server. As Hard Drives are not the most expensive items on an 
> educational
> institution's budget storage space never came up as a problem.
>
> Lynn Fredricks wrote:
>> Hi Sivakatirswami,
>>
>>  
>>> With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there is 
>>> interest here in our shop with the idea of doing educational stackware.
>>>
>>> The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do well 
>>> compared to
>>>
>>> a) distributing printed materials
>>> b) PDF's of the same
>>> c) Some Browser app
>>>
>>> led to us never putting any energy into educational stackware.
>>>
>>> The "run a stack in a browser" changes the equation, big time.
>>>     
>>
>> You might be focusing too much on the techology here.
>>
>> Almost every major educational software company and major academic press
>> house in the USA has licensed Valentina. Most of them are using 
>> Director, a
>> few Ive pursuaded to get into Revolution.
>> One thing is clear to me though is that they choose solutions that 
>> have lean
>> tech requirements and focus almost entirely on the content itself. 
>> Here's
>> sort of a short list of what I see in common between them:
>>
>> 1. Focus on the content. Almost all work they do is towards making the
>> content compeling to their audience - really rich audio, interesting
>> graphics and video and the like. "Interesting" meaning, it may either be
>> very special and on topic, or it could be fun or exciting on the 
>> branding
>> side.
>>   
> Yes, Yes, Yes: your first goal is to engage the student, and, 
> presumably, not
> have them so "turned on" by the jazzy technology that they lose sight of
> the content you want them to focus on.
>> 2. Minimize recommended configurations. They make sure the titles can 
>> work
>> without a web browser, best even without any internet connection at 
>> all. A
>> lot of school labs which account for very profitable volume sales 
>> will have
>> highly controlled internet access. If it cannot run without an internet
>> connection, its often a "no buy".
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>
> My own applications are "bog basic" in terms of technology: I could,
> if I wished, have all sorts of jazzy extras (and I take out my 
> frustration
> in not being able to use them by lobbing them at Use-List members).
>
> However, an exercise in self-discipline is required here, and one must
> eschew the bells and whistles lest one lose-sight of the rationale
> behind the whole exercise (I believe the Sanskrit term for this type
> of distraction is 'Maya' - and, about 5 feet from the keyboard I am
> using right now I have a statue of Lord Shiva with his foot firmly
> placed on the back of a Mara; an agent of Maya).
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>
>> 3. Easy to use local management. If its an application that benefits 
>> from
>> "lab" level administration, make the teacher side of it easy to set 
>> up. A
>> lot of Valentina customers get our Bonjour add-on because they can 
>> simplifiy
>> a lot of lab level configuration by using it.
>>   
> Just bung the programs on the classroom server.
>> 4. Protect Privacy. This is a big one - if your software tests
>> understanding/comprehension/etc, then make it secure.
>>
>> 5. Branding. Just one title doesn't really cut it; come up with several
>> titles that can have a shared brand. When you ship your first title, 
>> make
>> sure you can transfer your branding efforts to new titles.
>>   
> And, something that I think is very important here; a fairly 
> standardised,
> and recognisable interface style. So that when a student fires up one of
> your applications s/he can say "Ah, one of those programs" and feel
> comfortable and relaxed; and, as a consequence, open to new
> instruction.
>
> Once in a while I go "funny" and try out a new interface style in a
> program - always a mistake - the kids I teach, have, over a period of
> time, got used to the 'Richmond style' and respond well to it - and when
> faced with a new interface get seriously discombobulated. Now as my main
> aim is to "shoe-horn" some English into the kids' heads, a change in 
> interface
> is merely churlish and counterproductive.
>> In most cases - these companies do not push the limit of what 
>> Director (or
>> Revolution) can do - they don't want to, because it means they won't 
>> be able
>> to be used in so many schools.
>>   
> Push the limit?  Everything I do could be done with RR version 1. 
> Surely 'pushing
> the limit' is beside the point: most children who have access to 
> computers are
> having their heads stuffed with (pardon the expression) COMPLETE CRAP 
> that
> pushes the technogical limits of whatever it is developed in everyday, 
> at home.
>
> Now children have rather better criteria than adults normally give 
> them credit for;
> and, very quickly, if the content of your applications is engaging and 
> interesting
> they will fast forget that is doesn't push the limit.
>
> I have interleaved my remarks here as a way of showing how, oddly 
> enough, they
> largely coincide with those of Lynn Fredricks.
>
> Richmond.
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Lynn Fredricks
>> President
>> Paradigma Software
>> http://www.paradigmasoft.com
>>
>> Valentina SQL Server: The Ultra-fast, Royalty Free Database Server
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