From kde-edu Sun Aug 04 16:31:10 2002 From: "Mahfouf Anne-Marie" Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 16:31:10 +0000 To: kde-edu Subject: [kde-edu]: Re: new project / ktimes? X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-edu&m=102848058432575 Hi Michael, This is an excellent idea, to have a mathematical game against the clock. First, about KTimes: as you said, KTimes is aimed to young children to help them learning multiplication. Current status is "on hold", there is only the tarball for kde2 at the moment, I'll re-start it again in September. The design was not very good and I also just moved from England to Canada with my family. I had some feedback that will allow me to improve it. The main problem we have in the KDE-Edu project is about the GUI design. The practical part is easy to do with Qt/KDE but the concept of the interface is difficult to do. I think it would be better to start a new project with your idea. In the future, it could still be merged with KTimes if we want to. Different levels, child and adult mode would be great, for a multi player feature, it would also be great but I never implement that yet. What I suggest to get you started: - to subscribe to the kde-edu-devel mailing list http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-edu-devel - to ask there about any help you want, about the design you have in mind, to ask any questions you might have,.... I hope this helps you and I would like to welcome you in the project. Anne-Marie >From: Michael Hofer >To: kde-edu@mail.kde.org >CC: annma@kde.org >Subject: new project / ktimes? >Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 14:35:32 +0200 > >Hello! > >I had an idea for a project yesterday and wrote a short description and a >list >of possible features: > >My idea is based on a old DOS-program I liked very much when I was about 12 >years old. We played it in the mathematic-lessons in school. >It was kind of a mathematic-trainer. First you had to choose the type of >calculation you wanted to practise (additions, substractions, >multiplications, divisions,....) and then the difficulty (how many >digits,...). >The reason why this was fun to play was that you had very limited time to >type >in the results - it was a race against the clock. After you typed in the >result, there was a short message saying "right" or "wrong" and immediately >after that, the next equation appeared. >If you typed no answer within the time limit, the program continued to >throw >the next equation on you. The time you had for each equation, got >continuously shorter while playing. > >Looking around on the kde-edu-website, I found "ktimes", which seems to be >similar to my idea. Beside the fact that ktimes operates only on >multiplications while I think of integrating all kinds of basic >arithmetical >operations, there seem to be a few conceptual differences: > >I haven't tried KTimes yet, but it appears to be for younger children (6 to >10), which learn multiplication for the first time (correct me if i'm >wrong). >The program I had in mind would be for "children" from 10 to 99 (at least I >still like playing something like this :-) >I see it more as a "mental arithmetic trainer" than as an "educational >aid". >I want to emphasize the competition-aspect - it should feel more like a >game >in which you try to beat the "highscore". > >Possible features I have in mind include: >- different difficulty levels >- different combinations of arithmetic operations >- point-system (dependent on speed, accuracy, difficulty,...) >- highscore-lists >- 2player-mode (on one pc / network?) > >What do you think about all those ideas? >I don't know if it would be better to integrate all this in ktimes or to >start >a seperate project. >If integrated in ktimes, there could be two different modes (as mentioned >in >the plans for the kcontrol-module): >- a "child mode" for learning (with all the fancy graphics, images,...) >- and an "adult mode" for competition (maybe with a more "conventional" >interface?) > >I have some experience with software design and development under >dos/windows, >but haven't done a unix/kde/qt-project so far. So any help is highly >appreciated.... > >Btw: Where in CVS is KTimes? I couldn't find it in the POST_KDE_3_0_BRANCH >(as >stated on the homepage), nor in kdenonbeta. > >thank you and servus, >Michael Anne-Marie Mahfouf annemahfouf@hotmail.com (temporary mail address, no big messages, no pictures, thank you) Anne-Marie Mahfouf annemahfouf@hotmail.com (temporary mail address, no big messages, no pictures, thank you) _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com _______________________________________________ kde-edu mailing list kde-edu@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-edu