Pat and Sebastian are rolling up their sleeves to develop a kinder, gentler Manila. Sebastian says “Much can be done already. And if we pool our ideas and skills together we might be able to get some pressing issues resolved. I have already started to construct a list of Manila weaknesses and issues that really bug me in my design efforts. I think it is important to document and reflect on the reasons why these missing features are important. Then we could try to figure out what it takes to improve our design environment… “ Not to revisit the whole discussion, but I guess this is what I was hoping we could do in terms of making it as teacher-friendly and relevant as possible. Manila wasn’t developed for teachers. Pat and Sebastian and others (all with much more programming knowledge and skill than I) are trying to push it for classroom benefit. Certainly, the opportunities for this seem to be even greater with open source (btw, still looking forward for Joe’s p-machine experiment…). Either way, I’m just really glad they are doing the work they’re doing ’cause I know I couldn’t do it. Whatever I can do to test and give feedback and ideas, I will.
On an unrelated topic, I’ve just been struck in the past couple of days by some weblog as healing type articles. The first, from Wired about Alzheimer’s patients keeping weblogs as a way to slow down the disease (with this uplifting quote: “But a lifelong regimen of cognitive exercise, including journaling, may help delay AD’s onset by up to 10 years — long enough for many individuals to outlive it.”), and another from Glenn Fleischmann who wants to set up free blogging space for those with serious illnesses and their families. What cool ideas.