[MWForum]Thanks, Wendy

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:14:54 -0600

What a wonderful summary of the development of OWL / MIA. I loved reading
about the ins and outs and the turtle in the pond. Slick and professional
isn't always the best way to go. I found your pages very inviting.

Craig

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wendy Petti" <wpetti@mathcats.com>
To: <mwforum@lists.mathcats.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 6:38 PM
Subject: [MWForum]RE: OWL and MIA

> Craig, may I answer your question on behalf of Daniel and Chris Myers and
> myself?
>
> OWL (OpenWorld Learning) is a small educational nonprofit organization in
> Colorado.  Daniel is the webmaster and I am the Director of Curriculum.
> Chris Myers is the executive director who hired both of us.  Daniel lives
> in Ecuador and I live in Maryland and we both work long-distance for OWL.
> I've made a few trips to the OWL computer labs in Denver, but none of us
> has ever met Daniel.
>
> I think you must be referring to OWL's MicroWorlds in Action website, yes?
> http://mia.openworldlearning.org
>
> MIA was Chris's brainchild, and Daniel and I brought his idea to life.  A
> little more than two years ago, I asked on the LogoForum if anyone would
be
> interested in helping me create a website of materials to help teach
> teachers and students how to use MicroWorlds.  Chris contacted me and
asked
> me if I would create the site with OWL's backing and the help of Daniel's
> awesome computer skills, customizing the site to meet the needs of OWL's
> teachers and students.  I was happy to come on board.
>
> It was Chris's idea to have an online project library with thematic
folders
> containing related projects of increasing difficulty.  He wanted even
> beginners to be able to work through projects without getting frustrated,
> and that is why each folder is broken up into a sequence of projects; a
> user can dabble in all of the "easy" projects, jumping from folder to
> folder, or can work through progressively more complex projects within
each
> folder.  It was also Chris's idea to have three types of extension
> activities accompanying each project.  The three of us together over a
> period of some months gradually agreed on the interface for each folder
and
> each project.  It was a bit complicated since we had decided to provide
two
> versions of each project:  one with a screenshot and one with an
> interactive MW project.  I'm pretty sure it was Chris's idea to indicate
> the approximate difficulty of each project using the symbols found at ski
> resorts.  We also agreed to have a resources section, including "How do
I?"
> questions and some sort of search capability or vocabulary table/index.
>
> Chris pretty closely monitored our work on the first one or two folders,
> and after that he left it up to Daniel and me to continue building the
> site.  I have created pretty much all of the content and graphics for the
> site - with some helpful input from Daniel on some of the trickier code
and
> explanations - and Daniel has done all of the work in turning the
materials
> into a website.  It is pretty amazing, in my opinion, what he has
developed
> behind the scenes.  I send him a MicroWorlds project which contains, on
the
> procedures page, not just the procedures but also a list of vocabulary
> words, project notes, and extension questions.  Daniel has created some
> sort of code that takes this information and automatically turns it into a
> web page.  I think he has also automated the process of creating the image
> of the project map, although I'm not quite sure about that.  He has
written
> a program that automatically builds the web page as the user accesses it.
> And I'm pretty sure that the main page for each folder is created
> on-the-spot each time a user accesses a new folder.  It automatically
> creates all of the folder tabs, and the colored border around the listing
> of projects and sample screenshot, and the difficulty level symbols, and
so
> on.  As I understand it, the shapes pages are also created automatically
> from a program Daniel wrote.
>
> Daniel also obtained permission from LCSI to use the vocabulary
information
> from the MWPro help section and wrote a program that automatically created
> the printable hyperlinked vocabulary table in the resources section.  (The
> MWPro vocabulary cannot be printed except perhaps one primitive at a time,
> but MIA's vocabulary table provides a concise summary of all of the MW
> primitives with definitions, sample code, and where the primitives have
> been used so far on the MIA site.)
>
> What also amazes me is that Daniel is using a very very very old computer
a
> nd a very very very slow Internet connection from Ecuador.  But he has
also
> developed an incredibly sophisticated database program to track the
> progress of hundreds of students using OWL's computer labs, and he can
> create beautiful, informative reports from this data.
>
> I only work part-time for OWL and I've been involved with quite a few
> offline activities on OWL's behalf too, so progress in building the
> MicroWorlds in Action website has been rather slow, since I take my jolly
> time about creating new materials!  I'm very happy with the new "How Do
I?"
> section, and we plan to add lots and lots of additional questions in the
> coming months.  We would be very happy to include your questions in that
> section, so ask away!!
>
> While MicroWorlds in Action has been designed with OWL's teachers and
> students in mind, it was very important to me that we provide a website of
> materials that would be useful and accessible to MicroWorlds users
> everywhere.  So even though there are in existence some offline OWL
> materials for the exclusive use of OWL's teachers and students, the MIA
> website is OWL's gift to the worldwide MicroWorlds community.  We hope you
> find it useful, and we certainly welcome your suggestions and ideas for
> future developments.
>
> And (sigh) one of these days we will probably begin adapting the site to
> take into consideration the brand new version of MicroWorlds, MW Ex!
>
> Oh, by the way, MIA's silly home page with the turtle in a pond full of
> rocks was meant to be temporary until a professional web designer or
> graphics artist could render a more polished home page that was more
> compatible with OWL's home site (at www.openworldlearning.org ) but over
> time I think my silly drawing has sort of grown on us, and maybe we will
> just let our little turtle keep his pond!
>
> Wendy Petti
> OWL's Director of Curriculum
> and MIA's content developer
> http://mia.openworldlearning.org
> also creator of Math Cats (which has a MicroWorlds section)
> http://www.mathcats.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mwforum-admin@lists.mathcats.com
> > [mailto:mwforum-admin@lists.mathcats.com]On Behalf Of cy
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 6:01 PM
> > To: mwforum@lists.mathcats.com
> > Subject: [MWForum]Thanks, Daniel
> >
> ..
> >
> > By the way, I just recently discovered OWL online. What a
> > fantastic resource
> > for teachers. I really appreciate the work that has been done
> > and the style
> > in which the information is shared. What is your role in OWL?
> >
> > Craig
> >
>
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