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 Daniel Brookshier's BlogJ2EE ArchivesNew Projects in the Education and Learning ComunityPosted by turbogeek on October 06, 2005 at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Once again, a fine crop of great projects in the Global Education and Learning Community. This time we have some normal fare for our community in terms of math with Algebra and Path Planning plus study aids and teacher aids with a Study Buddy and an Open Gradebook. We also have a student working on a programming assignment, an educational web site, and an online exam. But this time we also have a very cool project called Clicker that aims at creating an open source version of the "clicker" device we see in some classrooms today. As you may know, the clicker is used to get instant feedback to a teacher and can be used for classroom interaction. In essence, it is like an audience participation vote device. Clickers are not always cheap or even well made and many schools put the burdon of cost and care to the student. It is inevitable that a student would see that there might be a better way. I recently was watching a documentary (Scientific American Frontiers?) that used a clicker and was amazed at the contortions of students trying to hit the infrared detectors in the classroom - not a ringing endorsement. There has to be a better way and so open development to the rescue. Let's see if we can create a better system! Here is the summary list. Click below to see the slightly summarized details from each of the project proposals. clicker - Open source "clicker" implementation
Monos - Monos Algebra Software
New Projects in the Education & Learning CommunityPosted by turbogeek on September 07, 2005 at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)The Global Education and Learning Community continues to grow. Again we have a wide range from student-based exploration, teaching tools, Chinese language learning to an innovative healthcare application. The projects are from around the world and include Viet Nam, USA, China, and Brazil. Here are summaries of each of the projects. Click the link below to read more on the details from each of the projects.
compdoc2cn - Component Doc to Chinese
Here are the details of the projects: New: 3D Math, Viet Nam eLearning, Vocabulary & Open Grade Book in Global Education & Learning CommunityPosted by turbogeek on July 15, 2005 at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)This week we have three great projects from three different parts of the world. Here is this week's crop of great ideas from three countries.
o nb-elearning - eLearning Portal Services for Viet Nam
These are some great projects from language to math to helping students and teachers. Since these are new projects in our community, if you find these interesting, email the owners and volunteer to help. We are a community and lending a helping hand makes us a stronger community. Here are a few more details on each of these projects and the email addresses of the owners:
nb-elearning - eLearning Services in Viet Nam
This project is used to developing Elearning services in Viet Nam. This project is just starting, but if you are Vietnamese or can help out, please join this project.
Open Grade Book - Web-Based Grade Book for Teachers
The goal of this project is to create an non-intrusive open source gradebook built for teachers, but accessible by parents and students. The application uses Tapestry as its front-end, Spring and Hibernate for the back-end. Any database that Hibernate supports should work but MySQL is used for development
Dictionary - Learning a vocabulary of an specified idiom
There is a prototype application based on Java ServerFaces technology. The application is used for learning a vocabulary of an specified idiom, like english or spanish. Although the application is a multi dictionary in many languages, the original intention is to be a usefull tool to learn vocabulary.
VICS3D - Interactive Visualizer of Curves and Discrete 3D Surfaces (Portuguese Interface)
Another application from our members in Brazil. Drawing surfaces and curves in three dimensions is not easy but it is a key tool for students are learning Calculus, Geometry and Algebra. The objective of this project is to create a modeller of curves and surfaces with a simple interface that allows the students to draw, manipulate, and to modify curves and surfaces in the two or three-dimensional space. The surfaces and curves would are drawn in the systems of cartesian, cylindrical and spherical coordinates. The orientation of the systems of coordinate and viewpoint can be modified in real time through controls in the visualizer. The current version already has quite a few options. The interface is in Portuguese. but we can only hope they get a multi-language interface soon. Here is a picture of what they have so far:
Sun's Jonathan Schwartz speaks FOSS and opens Sun's Application ServerPosted by turbogeek on June 28, 2005 at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
Johnathan's core message is that FOSS is good for business by bringing new people into relationships and creating a greater need and thus opportunity to provide infrastructure. It made sense to me. Instead of build it and they will come, this is provide them free software and they will buy your hardware and services to support it. "There is no downside to FOSS", he also said. Hard to say. There is one to your competitor or the guy that competes against an open source project. No downside for Sun in the products like Glass Fish, JXTA, Open Office, NetBeans and others. If we saw Microsoft FOSS Office, would that be good or bad for OpenOffice? Opening the Application Server Open sourcing of the Sun application server was a big deal. The code is hosted at Java.net at: GlassFish) Some argue that Sun is not great at software. It is however great at supporting community creation of software. This now means a huge shift in the landscape. JBOSS was becoming a clear leader because we developers choose products we know. How are our software product preferebes made? We know tools that we can afford to use. That's why JBOSS was popular. Download, install, and run but even better, whatever you can do with JBOSS you know you can afford to deploy it with JBOSS. So, free and I know my investment of time won't be erased by the cost of buying a $50,000 dollar app server license. Sun's application server can now play this same game. Sun does have a second advantage. Sun has a lot of support and of course the prepackaged solution. That means when you are ready to pay for professional support, it is there. Seems like Jonathan is pretty smart from my point of view. I Sun a threat to JBOSS? Is JBOSS in trouble? Yes and no\, there is a lot of col and wonderful stuff in JBOSS. It was built by a group of guys with staggering intelligence. The question is that if Sun's application server is open source, how long before it has incorporated JBOSS innovations. Stay tuned. But this is also a big win for education. Believe it or not, universities don't run on 100% open source. Like any business, a university needs reliability and support. But universities also need to build and innovate applications. Now there is no issue to a student of university employee or professor to get Sun's server and do cool things that may get ported to the university's professionally supported infrastructure. This reduces startup and supports student projects and adds future security when the application becomes mission critical. I have trouble seeing a downside here. The only real issue is if Sun has open and closed source. If you have watched NetBeans and Forte, Forte lagged in its release cycle quite a bit. The result is when faced with free software that is up to date, they are going to select the free software. If Sun can support the open source source and shrink wrapped, they won't have an issue. What do you think about releasing GlassFish? Is it the right thing to do? Is it Genius. I want to know what you are thinking? Want to have your brain explode? Meet Me at JavaOnePosted by turbogeek on May 31, 2005 at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)Meeting people is always interesting (frightening sometimes, but interesting). Meeting people that you know from the internet is very interesting. I can not remember meeting one person that seemed like they did on the internet. The real-time experience enhances what you know and it is usually a little disorienting (ok, you will not really explode). But then there is a whole other class of meeting people: Meeting someone that wants to meet "you". I am one of those kind of people that wants to meet as many quality people as I can at JavaOne. Why? First, the more people you know, the more you know about the world. Knowledge is how the world works. Most of you I have no idea that you exist or what you do. Are you doing something interesting I could use in my job? Are you doing something cool I could write about? Will you make me think, or just laugh out-loud? You never know, so you meet as many people as you can. If we are in line, I am going to talk to you. If I am at the Community Corner booth at JavaOne I am going to do my damnedest to strike up a conversation if you are walking by. I'll also be at the community leaders weekend and Java Technology Communities in Action, and the JXTA Town Hall, plus many other events. Look for me and introduce yourself. Give me your business card and let me know what you do and what your passions are. Maybe I know someone you should know (perhaps it's me). Maybe we have something in common. You never know. It is said that if there are no lucky people, only people open to opportunity. If you find a twenty dollar bill on the ground, it is not that you and the twenty are in the right place, but that you were open enough to see that bill on the ground when others have blissfully walked by. People are the same way. You never know if the next person is going to make your day, year, or life better. The best solution is to say hello. What am I interested in? Writing (blogs and books), Java, JXTA, Java.net, and of course the Global Education and Learning Community (GELC) which means all things educational or experimental. I also juggle so I am looking for few fellow tossers too. There is much more and I'll be sure to be interested in hearing from you. Look me up at JavaOne!
Daniel Brookshier
Say hello and keep your head! Project Graduation of TapestryWebcomponentExamples from Global Education & Learning Community IncubatorPosted by turbogeek on May 23, 2005 at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Project Graduation and Project Spotlight Interview with John Reynolds, project owner of TapestryWebcomponentExamples One of the cool things about the Global education and Learning Community (GELC) is that we promote education of developers by fellow developers. In this case, John Reynolds, project owner of TapestryWebcomponentExamples, has offered up his time to manage examples concentrating on Jakarta's Tapestry's Java Web Components . Tapestry's Java Web Components are usedto create web applications in terms of objects, methods and properties instead of URLs and query parameters. So far there are two examples (with more on the way to explore the technology The TapestryTables.war demonstrates several features of the contrib:Table components that were authored by MindBridge. The TapestryTrees.war is an entry level introduction to the contrib:Tree components that were authored by Ceco.
This project is a great complement to Tapestry Better Pet Shop project or the docclerk projects which are also hosted here on java.net.
Project Name: TapestryWebcomponentExamples
Tell us a little about yourself. I have an MSCSE from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a BSEE from Rice University in Houston. I've been a professional programmer/development manager/architect since 1980. What schools/universities did you attend? University of Texas at Arlington, and Rice University in Houston Are you a member of any Java user groups? Austin Java Users Group Tell us a little about the project and why you started it. I published some Tapestry examples in my blog, and the feedback was very positive. Setting up a place for people to share examples seemed like a good next step. What is the project's current status and plans for the future? Keep adding examples as I get time. What kind of help are you looking for on this project? I'm looking for folks to "adopt" specific Tapestry components, and add examples for those components. Thanks, Richard!
If you have a project on Java.net and could deal with a little extra press, please contact me for a spotlight interview - Daniel Brookshier
New projects in the Global Education and Learning Community for February 15th, 2005Posted by turbogeek on February 15, 2005 at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
More projects added to the GELC. For mid-February of 2005 we have the following new projects:
Octopus - Time-sheet manager for schools with a rules approach
The Global Education and Learning Community welcomes these great projects. Take a look at theprojects and join them if you can help them out. Here are the details of each of the projects:
This project will use new tecnologies and development process metodologies for learning. The project will allow the build of a school timesheet with n teachers and n classes. The system will Rule Based looking the n possibles facts to resolve. The initial idea since project is, finally, to form a group of studies with the purpose of the construction of a product that can be used in real applications, of great usability and necessity of the business based on rules.
ini4j Java API for Windows .ini style files.
Project ini4j is a simple Java API for handling configuration files in Windows .ini format. Additionally, the library includes Java Preferences API implementation based on the .ini file.
java4web
Java4Web will be focused on the use of different frameworks and tools for web applications development
jedi
Owners: itogruet@dev.java.net, jppetines@dev.java.net, rferia@dev.java.net Development of Java courseware and curriculum for Computer Science and Information Technology education.
Project to design a POST terminal for sales log and receipts
To design a POST terminal to keep track of sales logs and print receipts for each transactions. Interview with Dana Nourie, project owner and founder of New2Java at Java.NetPosted by turbogeek on January 14, 2005 at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Want to learn about Java and you need a place to go to start learning? What about a project with forums, email list groups, lots of source code, tutorials and people like you and a few experts willing to answer questions. Dana Nourie, a Project Leader and Writer for java.sun.com has a group called New2Java in the Global Education and Learning Community. New2Java is currently the most popular project in the Global Education and Learning Community. I thought it would be a great idea to talk to Dana and find out what her project is about and why it is so popular.
Daniel: First, tell me about yourself and what you do for a living.
Dana: I am a staff technical writer for sun, still learning all I can about Java technologies. I've also been a budding programmer for sometime, and enjoy the Java programming language because of it's wonderful diversity in application, such as being able to use it for desktop applications as well as web applications.
Why did you start the New2Java project?
We have the New to Java Programming Center on java.sun.com, but that is an information outlet for developers new to Java technologies. For the new2java project, I wanted to create a community for these developers where they can get information to get them up and running, but also where they communicate with one another and people more experienced in working with the technologies. So New to Java on java.sun.com is the information source, where as new2java on java.net is the community of people with the common interest of learning Java technologies and putting them to use.
Tell us about the type of content you have for new Java developers.
At this point I have several articles, tutorials, quizzes, and code samples that developers can use to begin learning the Java programming language and various technologies. Soon I'm going to add a dive log application I wrote as a tutorial some time ago with the hope that developers and students will dissect it, add to it, change it, improve it, use it as a communial guienea pig Java project. I also hope that others add their coding projects to new2java so other people can add to it and help improve it. I feel we can all learn more by coding together, critisizing each other's attempts in useful ways, and seeing how others approach the development process.
What kinds of questions to you get asked about by your project members?
So far it's mainly been about where to find information or what specific Java technolgies are used for and requests for more code samples.
Are there active project members adding new content to your site?
Not yet, and that's what I hope will occur soon. That's really what a comminity is about, so I hope to see code sharing. When I add the dive log project, I hope others will be inspired to critisize it, add improvements, and make big changes. If this happens, then I'd like to write articles about the changes made, show examples that demonstrated how the code was orignally and how someone improved the code. This is a dynamic process I feel we, as budding developers, can all learn from.
You have the most members of any other project in the GELC. Any thoughts to why you project is so popular?
Many people want to learn Java and just don't know where to start. Many are coming from C or C++ backgrounds and just need a quick tour, while others are new programmers, and Java technologies is their introduction to the world of application development. I think the articles, tutorials, quizzes, and code samples appeal to everyone in this group. Now, I hope they come together as a community and share their problems, their solutions, and their insights.
Anything else you would like to say?
I would like to encourage the members to use the forum to have conversations about their programming struggles, and encourage more advanced developers to help these folks resolve the issues. I'd also like to see students post their homework issues. This is an area that is heavily critisized in most forum formats, but I think sharing homework problems can be productive. I don't mean to imply that solutions should just be handed over, but people can encourage others to think about programming problems in new ways and to help the student figure it out. I'd also like to encourage teachers to post challenges or homework that they've used in their classrooms. I think it'd be fun to have a teacher do this, then to have the members crunch the solution right there live in the forum, and have other students say, Yes, but you can also do it this way!
I would like to hear from the new2java members about what their needs are and suggestions about how the new2java project can be used to help them learn. They can email me directly (dana.nourie@sun.com), or better yet share their requests with the community by emailing the mailing list: users@new2java.dev.java.net
New Projects at GELC for January, 10 2005Posted by turbogeek on January 10, 2005 at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)The Global Education and Learning Community welcomes its first projects of 2005. This month we have an automata tester (from a Chinese developer), an eLearning platform based on SCORM, a MIDP RSS client, a virtual console for teaching Java to teenage students (from Mexico), a federated exchange of digital content and rights management, and a set of tools for teaching Algebra in High Schools with a graphical symbolic tool. It is quite interesting that several of these tools already have code and working versions (or soon will have) because they were created elsewhere and have hosted their code at java.net. Take a look at these great new projects and join them if you can help them out.
http://automata-platform.dev.java.net/
AutoMata is a very important course in computer scince subject. AutoMata Platform is a auto machine tool for test your automata arithmetic implementations.It provides state map view ,state trees,and a powerful extendable achitecture. The users (mainly students and teachers)can use this toolfor demostration and argumentation the auto machines. they can also implement their own automachine or layout arithmetics to enhance this platform to fill thier requests. Chinese Version: 《形式语言与自动机》是一门很重要的计算机专业课程。本项目——自动机平台，起源于北京航空航天大学计算机学院《形式语言与自动机》课程。 现阶段，平台提供了自动机中的正则表达式识别、正则表达式转NFA、NFA转换到DFA以及DFA化简，并使用图形化的状态图来帮助使用者进行跟踪学习。同时平台提供了强大的可扩展性，使用者可以使用java语言实现自己的自动机，并利用本平台提供的图形化状态图来进行测试和研究；也可以实现自己的布局算法，来扩展有关自动机状态图的布局等。
eLearning Java Platform based on ADL's (Advanced Distributed Language) SCORM standard. Develop and Build a Portal with Java2 + XML language under rules specified by SCORM XML Controlling Document Specification, IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Specification and Sharable Content Object Reference Model Specification.
http://ienjinia.dev.java.net/
It was relatively easy for a teenager to fully understand all the hardware and software in computers such as the Apple II and Commodore 64. Now it has become quite hard to understand how everything works, even in a "simple" PC. The IENJINIA Virtual Console and Devkit emulate hardware similar to an early 80's video games console to provide a better environment for learning how to write software. Note that this project is a product of developers in Mexico.
http://jatse.dev.java.net/
JATSE is a set of tools for teaching, learning and playing with algebra. They will provide a broad range of symbolic algebra functionality including a GUI to manipulate algebraic functions, components to render functions in a mathematical format, and classes that can "intepret" and describe arbitrary functions. This project is targeted at the mathematics used in high school, although these classes can be extended to cover either more or less advanced math.
This project currently consists of prototypes(Please see the Algebra prototype in the "Documents & files" Section) including:
Much of this work is part of my employment with The Concord Consortium. They have graciously agreed to let me release this work as Open Source. I am spending a good deal of extra time extending this work.
http://mitmuml.dev.java.net/
mitmuml is an MIDP RSS client.It is nearly 90 % about document for user. mitmuml is an MIDP RSS client.The User can read headlines from a number of news sites and have the link emailed to him via mobile client.Major,it will read information about medical history of patient in format RSS. RSS is a widely used XML format for news to feed their headline contents to aggregators.It is readable by users and can be parsed by XML parser.
http://voyager.dev.java.net/
A Java-based brokerage system for the federated exchange of digital content and rights management. JavaOne - Day Three - More friends, JXTA, epackaging of an app server and open sourcePosted by turbogeek on July 01, 2004 at 02:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)Greetings!
I got to attend Brad Neuberg's tech session on P2P Sockets and Paper Airplane. Paper Airplane is a Mozilla plugin written with JXTA. It is a great example of extending a known metaphore into the P2P world. Brad talked about a shared Wiki and other services like SOAP via the JXTA network. Check out http://p2psockets.jxta.org/ and http://paperairplane.dev.java.net/ for more info. I really think this is a great way of doing things. There is a freedom from servers and a freedom to communicate. There are a few things to work out, but Brad has a lot of great ideas in this area that need to be explored. Email==Face Got to meet more people today. From the JXTA community, to my book readers, to business customers. Most I have never seen or talked to except via email. Some of these people have been emailing me for years and this is the first time I have seen them in person. JavaOne is getting to be a watering hole where everyone meets. Forget the sessions, it's about meeting the smart people of the world in person. UML I also got to teach a short class on UML today for NoMagic and ExitCertified (Sun's education partner). I had room full of people willing to learn UML and we had some fun too. Speaking of UML, I overheard someone say that the white-board is the best place to do UML. All I have to say is that is misleading. Using a white-board to think about a design is nice, but you need to capture the design for the long run. A white-board can't be emailed to your customer. A white-board can't be filed away to be referenced years later by a maintenance developer. You can't edit the same white-board to change the design over the course of ten years of maintenance. Use tools, free or otherwise and be a professional. Creating an Artificial Einstein with JXTA One of the more visionary people I met today (well... yesterday because it is now 2:00am) was Jeff Zhuk of ITS Inc. Jeff is using Open CYC and JXTA to create a distributed knowledge system and expert system. How cool is that? I have done similar things, but Jeff is going for a massive solution that integrates thousands of people to build an expert system via peer to peer computing. In addition, Jeff teaches Java, JXTA, and JINI. He has all the pieces and is looking for help. Einstein and Java Enterprise Server Spent the morning at Sun looking at Java Enterprise System (JES). JES is a new way to deploy and license the infrastructure of an internet business. Sounds innovative, but I would say it just shows that there are finally some smart people at Sun thinking about doing things right. JES is built on the idea that most portals are really built of a dozen or so applications like the portal application framework, web server, application server, calendar, email, instant messaging, LDAP, single sign on and many others. All of these pieces are usually put together one at a time and with a lot of work dedicated to getting them to actually work as a single unit. My past is littered with the with the wasted and long hours or complete failures because of applications not mixing well. What Sun has done is create a clean integration of all of these tools that runs smoothly and is tested as a unit to discover integration problems. The end result is a lot of the core business software is up and ready to use in a few hours. Think about the Integration of all the software components that make up the infrastructure. They are like building an airplane from little pieces and a blueprint. Instead, JES is a fully assembled and tested Lear Jet. Like I said, not really innovative, but it takes a lot of work and politics to integrate all your standalone products into a single install, with a single interface for management, and one application to license, and get maintenance agreements on. My hat is off to the guy that proposed such a departure in the Sun way of doing business. But now to the second part of the innovation of JES that might give JBoss a run for their money. The JES set of componenets in the common install management tools is available with a cool procing model. Think about having it all with a portal application framework, web server, application server, calendar, email, instant messaging, LDAP, single sign on and many others for just $100 a year per full time employee. This is just the business model for pricing and not some magic number that is part of the CPU count, the number of gigabytes of storage, email accounts, your first born child, and a chariot that turns into a pumpkin at midnight. The key is that this is just a way to price the system, it is not the price for the number of actual users. This just buys support for the tool and your software updates. This is more cool and obvious if we look at a company that has 100 employees for a cost of 1000*$100 (it is free up to 99 employees but there is no maintenance). Now even though the company bought the 1000 employee license, they can have a million customers and their 1000 employees use the system without any additional costs(except for the pesky hardware). A good example is Google with 5,000 employees and 7 million customers would only need to pay for the 5,000 employee license. The economies of scale look like open source with maintenance. The tools are all based on open standards, not open source. Seeing and modifying code is not an option. But when you have a good maintenance agreement, the risk and cost of maintaining open source verses a maintenance contract is about the same or better since most of the components are usually used as is and not customized. Because they are tested as a suite, there is even less need for the IT department to be fiddling with code that should be considered infrastructure rather than custom applications. Of course this is still a modular system and you can swap out almost any piece with an open source or commercial alternative (like the application server). Is Sun really a winner with JES? Hard to say at this point. They have happy customers so far with the first release and a model that is hard to ignore. The application server and all those component parts are newly rewritten and running fast and seem scalable. They could be a market leader in their own J2EE market. Really! Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned. One more day One day to go here at JavaOne. Time to pull out all the stops and meet as many people as you can and collect ideas and business cards. Make friends, learn from them, and help them as much as you can. We are all in this together and we are a community. Get out there and make the Java world a better place!
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