Re: Welcome, and let's start planning!

[Ray Catzel <computerpals@xxxx>]

I think Wendy's suggestion of involving LCSI with
hosting investment is an excellent one. I am convinced
that LCSI will benefit substantially from this
activity. (I noticed one of the new participants
already committed to migrating to MW!) 
Mike, Shawn, Joanne, Brian, Seymour - how about it!

Concerning the problem with different versions of MW,
I suggest the author should state clearly which
version the course module was based on. Version change
is too frequent to rewrite courses the moment there is
a version change. Ultimately older versions become
obsolete - but this happens over an extended period of
time. On the other hand, many old logo routines can be
used with minor modifications.
Cheers
Ray Catzel 

WendyPetti@xxxx wrote: Hello, everyone! (I am
delighted to say that I am writing to at least 12
people besides myself, which delights me, considering
that this group was established approximately 12 hours
ago. I'm expecting more members shortly, since most
of the original people who expressed an interest in a
cybercourse have not yet signed on.)I think everyone
should feel free just to plunge in and say what they
can offer... and if you already have articles or
newsletters which you have written for the benefit of
your students' parents, for instance, and you think
they might contain helpful ideas, please send them our
way!Jeff, you have already made an incredibly useful
contribution in your information about question and
answer. I consider myself a "near-expert" in
MicroWorlds, and yet the example you gave is one which
had me entirely stumped. Even if we do nothing else
in the cybercourse but offer our own specific
troubleshooting tips such as this one, it would be a
valuable resource.I don't think we necessarily have to
wait until we've assembled an entire course, from
beginner to expert level, before we start posting our
helpful information. Maybe we can just start posting
what we've got, and continue to fill in the gaps and
refine it as we go. We don't need to announce it to
the world at large until we think we've got something
fairly coherent, but we could at least be helping a
select group of MicroWorlds users (i.e., ourselves),
as we go along.That raises the question of hosting
logistics. I am open to any and all ideas, and here
is one from me which I will readily abandon if someone
has a better idea:I have my web hosting at a site
which gives me up to 8 gigs of file transfer per month
without incurring extra charges. I am using 2 - 3
gigs per month for my Math Cats site, so I have 5+
gigs "to spare," at least for now. I could set up a
separate area for this cybercourse. I would not
establish a link from Math Cats to this area; we'd
just use it to build the course. When it is finished,
either we could move the whole course to a site of its
own (and we could agree to share the web-hosting and
domain name registration costs), or we could leave it
where it is developed, or we could move it to another
Logo-related site. For instance, I don't know if the
Logo Foundation would be interested in hosting it, but
that might lend it some "legitimacy" and
universality... sort of like neutral Logo turf. Or
perhaps the LCSI folks, the developers of MicroWorlds,
would be happy to host it. We would want to clearly
credit each contributor for each portion of the
course. We do have to be aware that if we want to
continue to update the course after (hypothetically)
moving it, this would be more difficult logistically
if we moved it somewhere (such as the Logo Foundation
or www.microworlds.com) where none of us have any
special access privileges for changing file content. 
We would also want to clarify who would own the
copyright to the material. I am assuming that we
would each like to feel that we own the copyright for
the portions we each contribute. Would this mean that
we could also each post our own portions on our own
websites, whether or not these portions were also
included in the cybercourse in another location? If
we ever turned this course into a published book and
sold it, would we share the royalties in proportion to
our contributions? (Or should we not even think about
things like that at this point? I ask only because I
think a printed book on MicroWorlds is sorely needed;
I have been unimpressed with the few offerings
available so far.)Another logistical question is: 
which version of MicroWorlds are we going to use in
screenshots? There are certainly substantial
differences between MW 2.03 and MW Pro in terms of
layout and operation. There are visual and slight
functional differences between the PC and Mac
versions. Or should we provide links on the table of
contents page so that the user can choose the
preferred version and platform, and then provide
different versions of the course for each of these
choices?I'm sure that is more than enough questions
for the moment! I hope you weigh in with your
opinions.And by the way, I've written to Dale
separately about possible project-loading difficulties
at Math Cats, but I would appreciate it if you would
let me know privately-- not on this forum, where it is
really off-topic, but by e-mailimg me
atwendypetti@xxxx --if you have experienced any
difficulties loading the projects he mentioned or any
others. (Of course you would need the MicroWorlds
plug-in installed first.) Those specific URLs
are:http://www.mathcats.com/microworlds/polygonmaker.htmlhttp://www.mathcats.com/microworlds/symmetry.htmlThanks
for joining us, and I look forward to your
contributions!Wendy Pettiwendypetti@xxxx
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