Spreading the word.

[richmond62]

Over the last 5 years I have had 2 articles [well, 'squibs'] published here:

https://helloworld.raspberrypi.org/

And I am currently working on an article about OXT . . . BUT, at the risk of being a pain in the bum, I should like to upload sections of it [in .ODT format] here, first, so that it can be read by contributors here, and, possibly returned with edits [preferably as Track Changes], so that it ends up as something rock-solid.

Of course whether 'Hello World' [whose main audience seems to consist of English Primary teachers who follow government curriculum guidelines in a fairly slavish and unthinking fashion . . .] will publish the thing or not is another question: however I do not want to send them anything unless it is fairly polished and 99% accurate.

Obviously the 'trhust' of the article will be the role of OXT as an intermediate step between 'plastic bath toys' like SCRATCH and the commercially sought after languages such as Java, Python and C++.

The Python bit is particularly relevant in that both England and the E.U. [don't start me on Brexit] have decided that Python is 'the thing' for secondary school pupils: but how the 'purple sausages' they expect 11-12 year olds to perform the conceptual leap from SCRATCH to Python escapes me completely: OXT should be the thing that links the 2.

I am currently being distinctly retro and working out the sections of my article in an exercise book with a pencil (!), but, this weekend, hope to get the first chunk digitised with the odd picture, at which point I shall upload it here and ask for comments (both 'pozz' and 'neg').

[richmond62]

What can I say?

Except, 'One has to start somewhere'.
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Don't know how I could be so glaikit as til spell 'feasible' like that.

[tperry2x]

I'd like to replace the entire 'Resources' button on the toolbar with our own user-created content.
Examples, notes... we can go mad with examples. All ideas welcome.

I think we are moving toward something that can now be considered separated from Livecode.

We should now be able to start making our own custom content, lessons... all sorts.
By putting meaningful content and examples together, (commented throughout), we can really make it something that anyone can get into and start using.

[richmond62]

Please can "all and everyone" (about 5-6 people at last estimate) give my stuff a read-through, and feedback and suggest.

Obviously this is just a chunk towards something that might develop into either a paper for the 'Hello World' magazine, or something a bit more complex (perhaps a monograph for teachers) . . .

If you want to change anything I have written please open the document in your WP-program of choice (LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice, the unmentionable commercial thing), turn on track changes, and then resave in .ODT format, ZIP, and attach here.

[tperry2x]

May I suggest a few possible edits:

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I've removed the section about Livecode older versions, as this may just "muddy the water" with teaching staff or Heads of department, who aren't interested in the technical details. They essentially want to know what it can offer, and what it costs.

I've put the fact that Livecode ceased their community versions in a call-out box, so anyone interested gets a bit of backstory.

I think we need to be promoting OpenXTalk over Livecode at every turn, so little visual cues (making the OpenXTalk phrase stand out) may help.

Just my initial thoughts.

One thing that may prevent uptake in schools (particularly those with an over-arching centrally-controlled model), would be any vulnerabilities. These need to be squashed - which can only be done via a new engine. My hope is including new updated libraries / dependencies will allow OpenXTalk to function on newer systems.

Side note: I didn't know that OpenXTalk / LC 9.6.x was incompatible with Windows 11?

[richmond62]

Thank you for reacting so quickly.

It took me a couple of minutes thought to work out why you had made the changes you had, but I cannot really fault them.

[tperry2x]

No problem, glad to help where I can.