A Dynamic book for education

At present time, in the XXIe centuries, students and teachers are still mostly operating on an analog paper-pen base environment, mainly because of the ubiquitous nature of this setting. It results in heavy and some time huge bags for the learners, particularly the younger ones at secondary I. When digital environments are used it is most of the time cumbersome, fragmented, non ubiquitous, lacking interactivity, closed source with few liberties to extend the system, with non dedicated hardware and few added value for the local economy.

The Dybo project takes both a software and hardware approaches to bring efficiency to teachers and students to manage their job of teaching and learning. We want the same efficiency observed in other sectors of the economy where the digital transition brought important benefits for efficiency and agility.

To emphasis the importance of both dedicated software and hardware carefully designed to improve the teaching and learning experiences of educators and learners, we like to use the analogy of the cash register, a streamlined computer designed for efficiency within a restricted context.

The Dybo application -- DyboApp -- provides both business[1] and pedagogical means to improve the user experience of learning and teaching. Putting out anxiety from the persons improves their wellness and ability to conduct tasks. The Dybo application is developed in Cuis-Smalltalk, it ensures rapid prototyping, agile development, portability to different hardware architecture, step-by-step control by the user.

The application operates under a GNU/Linux operating system, it provides the needed third-party supports.

• Business. This software layer is the main gate for the teachers and students to interact with the system. Its features are interconnected to maximize user comfort and to save time. It anticipates the user needs depending on the location in time and space: home, school, class, with which collaborators.

• Pedagocial. The pedagogical documents are based on hand annotated pdf documents (with a stylus) and dynamic knowledge model objects plugged-in when needed. These learning materials are organized in topics and binders. The plugged models are retrieved from existing libraries of scripts, used as is or edited by the user with the Smalltalk programming language.

The Dybo hardware overall look is a digital analogy of a 210x297 (mm) textbook -- roughly a 14.3 inches display -- designed for longevity with the following features:

• handwriting on one or two of its screens, may be one e-ink screen and one color screen
• RISC V or ARM architectures
• Cylindrical battery cells
• Easy to repair

The interim Dybo will have a different settings. Its purpose is to explore the concept with prototypes build with off-the-shell components.

Dybo is a free software and hardware project, this makes it easier to adapt to local needs: freedom to modify, to update, to repair and to assemble.

Administrating a fleet of free software systems proved to be easier by avoiding undocumented features often found in proprietary systems. There are no such things as shadowed area in free software and hardware.

Being a free project, it eases the collaboration with individuals, groups, institutions, corporations without the fear of the project being privatized. Each participant contributes in respect to its own interests.

While it is both a software and hardware project, the DyboApp software could be installed on your own device, preferably a GNU/Linux system to enjoy all its features.

We encourage people with different type of experience to join this exciting and versatile project where you can gain tremendous experiences.

Educators and learners to test and to bring pedagogical feedback on the design. Teachers experience is invaluable in the design of pedagogical contents in the form of digital courses and ideas of dynamic knowledge models.

We welcome developers in agile software development[2], GNU/Linux system development and administration and hardware specialists to design and to prototype the interim Dybo. Read our doc for more information.

Visit our Dybo GitHub organisation's repositories.

The Dybo project is build with enthusiastic persons for whom the values of free software and hardware are central. We cherish agile development thanks to our Cuis-Smalltalk development system. With this system we explore new way to design both end-user applications and dynamic knowledge models for the educators and the learners.

Moreover, our development models[3] make these end-user software learnable, modifiable and driven by script. We truly believe in empowering the end-user by providing the appropriate environment and tools.

[1] Old English bisignis ‘anxiety’ (see busy, -ness); the sense ‘state of being busy’ was used from Middle English down to the 18th century.
[2] Smalltalk is by essence an agile language and development environment.
[3] Smalltalk and free software