[Edu-sig] (no subject)

[Charles Cossé]

Thanks for keeping this discussion alive, Sebastian.

>There are plenty of "portal" and LMS and such web software around. What is
the need for a new one?

"You can lead a child to quality educational resources, but you can't make
them care" -- *me* :)
So, the credit-meter gets them to *care*.  And not only *care*, but
actually *ask* for more work ... math, science, geography, language,
whatever ... they want internet access and it is suddenly in their interest
to make an effort, regardless of material.  I think that is the goal of any
teacher, i.e. having students give a hoot about the material.

Also, I think "caring" is a prerequisite to real learning and retention.
In my experience this form of "caring", i.e. caring about earning credits,
is enough.  They don't have to love math, but after they are compelled to
"care" in this way, they still come-away with the information and the
skills.

I think the following condensed overview is useful, and also *this new
overview graphic
<http://www.asymptopia.org/media/project_images/AutoTeachInfoGraphic.png>*:

> This project is about teaching kids, first and foremost. It became
> web-based so I could create and assign lessons from my office. The
> credit-meter is what I was forced to resort to in order to get their
> attention. Soon I recognized the system's potential for any subject, and so
> made it possible for others to contribute. But how to get others to
> contribute? Money! I would have paid for this. Other parents probably
> would, too, but there would be trust issues on both sides, parents and
> developers. And it could be messy ... unless you let parent break-down and
> distribute their subscription fees to the developers of their choice. Trust
> issues solved, clear for take-off, next stop synergy!
>

>In other words, how to handle "internet credit" and access control and
portal provider, etc?

Well, the good news is that these have all been solved and the solutions
are up-and-running.  Portal provider ... I've got it running on a cloud
server in San Jose, California.  Subscription payments are handled through
PayPal.

Here is the new user procedure:
1. Goto autoteach.net/subscribe and purchase a subscription.  You can also
buy the router pieces from me, and a pre-loaded SD card, or you can
download the SD image from Github and buy the R-Pi & other pieces (antenna,
power supply, case, SD) elsewhere.  If you buy from me I will just send a
box of parts, else if I assemble it would require FCC certification etc.
So I'll send an instructions page along with.  Anyway, the PayPal process
redirects you back to autoteach.net, which auto-instantiates your parent
account and sends you an email with your AccountID (=username, password).

2. You can immediately login and play around, but that's not required.

3. Assemble your R-Pi and boot-up the first time.

4. Navigate to 192.168.66.1 and you will see a Setup screen.

5. Enter the AccountID from the email and push "Setup".

6. Your R-Pi will pull your account info from autoteach.net, including all
accounts you have setup there and your router configuration (default if you
haven't logged into autoteach.net yet.)

At this point, if you have never yet logged-in to autoteach.net, then
you've just sync'd with your lone parent account.  The Username and
Password for both your parent account online, as well as your parent
account on the router, are all just = AccountID.   AutoTeach.net is
whitelisted by default, on the router, and the firewall is open by default
as well.

You can configure everything on the router-side, but my colleague convinced
me to spend 180 days implementing this web-sync capability, so now the
recommended procedure is to do everything at autoteach.net and push the
"sync" button on the router.   It is much easier like this, indeed.

By default you can create one more parent account and 2 kid accounts.

Then, you the parent can login to autoteach.net from anywhere over-the-net
and create assignments and assign to whichever kid(s) you want.

Your kids connect via the AutoTeach R-Pi router (at home) and visit
autoteach.net (because it's whitelisted) ... they each have their own 2
accounts, one on the router, one on the autoteach.net site.  When they
login to autoteach.net they see their list of assignments and perform
whatever they want, as per the way you have configured for them (i.e.
repeatable, do this first, etc).

Once complete, then they login to 192.168.66.1 (AutoTeach R-Pi router at
home) and push "Transfer Credit" ... which transfers the credits they've
earned from the online site to their account on the router.  Then they push
"Connect" on their account interface at the router, and this causes the
router to open-up the firewall to their list of WiFi devices (XBox, laptop,
phone, etc) ... and they have full access for all devices until credits run
dry .. then back to the "credit-feeder" website (i.e. autoteach.net) to
take another assignment and earn more credits.

Really I assure you that it's more complicated in writing than actually
doing it.  I am gearing-up to make a couple short videos demonstrating all
of the above.

This is turning into a short book ... so I'll AutoSilence myself ... in a
moment ... :) ... but lastly, let me just add that my *Kickstarter
<https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2035655858/autoteach>* campaign is
launched and there are 18 routers left.   It's being sold at cost, possibly
less than cost (!) .. in an effort to seed the parent community.

Also important to mention are the benefits of being web-based: No setup, no
dependencies, platform-independent, always current, use from anywhere,
parents can compel kids from work/office/beach, centralization and
strength-in-numbers (ie. developers)

I also think the platform can serve as a "glue" between parent-users and
plugin-developers, without which the two communities just drift separately.

Finally (I PROMISE):  As a developer your open source application can be
made available outside of AutoTeach.  There's no lock-in or anything like
that.  It's just an additional revenue stream for you.

I hope that I HAVE NOT answered all your questions, such that you and
others will continue to keep this conversation alive!!  If you've made it
reading this far then thank you!  Hope to hear from more people on
edu-sig.  Don't be shy ...

Charles Cossé
Asymptopia Software <http://www.asymptopia.org>
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