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List:       kde-edu
Subject:    [kde-edu]: Re: new project / ktimes?
From:       "Mahfouf Anne-Marie" <annemahfouf () hotmail ! com>
Date:       2002-08-04 16:31:10
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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 <michaelhofer@gmx.net>
>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)



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