some chess, anyone?

some chess, anyone?

by Ian Usher -
Number of replies: 13

Hello!

This might be completely off the rails, but hey! smile

[note: all links open in new windows]

One of our (primary/elementary) schools (who is leading the way in our primary Moodling) has a keen chess club and was wondering if it was possible to embed a chess tool within Moodle. We had a look round and decided that it wasn't, so he's now using a third party online chess tool (sponsored by a food company), which may or may not be around for ever.

Sooo... it got me thinking. In terms of typical Facebook™-type applications, has anyone looked at SomeChess (or something similar)? Anyone interesting in (co-?)exploring how it might be possible for users on a Moodle site to be able to plug in to something like that, either as an FB-application-style thing or a module? Simply using the online SomeChess service isn't an option, since it puts kids in an environment where they don't know who they're playing, and they only want to play one another at the moment.

Don't worry if the answer's "you must be joking"!

Ian.

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In reply to Ian Usher

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Well, I think you are off the rails, but only because you prefer Chess to Go wink

I can certainly see the use of a game server in Moodle that thereby restricts things to people within the school. And an asynchronous interface like the Dragon Go Server, would certainly be implementable as a Moodle interface.

If you want real-time play, then you hit the problems that HTTP is not a very good synchronous protocol. This is what makes the Moodle chat module not very scalable. It would still be possible to do something, but it would be harder to do something good.
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In reply to Ian Usher

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Anthony Borrow -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Ian - I like the idea. As Tim mentions there are some challenges; however, if you would like to play with creating a plugin Chess block I think it would be a fun and good project. I'll have to look more into the SomeChess project and see what type of integration we might setup with Moodle. Let me know if there is anything I can do to support you. I'd start by reading about how to contribute by writing a custom block. Maybe over the holidays I can begin playing with this. If you would like to create an issue in the tracker requesting the creation of a SomeChess block that would get it on my official to do list; however, there is no guarantee that I would be able to actually do it. So if you are willing to work on it I'll do what I can to support those efforts and perhaps some others will want to jump on board (sorry for the puns - they were not intended). Peace - Anthony
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In reply to Anthony Borrow

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Ian Usher -

Hi Tim and Anthony,

Thanks for replying! cool

I don't think real-time play is necessarily an issue - and I wouldn't want to base a hypothetical mod around just one of our school's needs. However, the facebook Scrabulous interface (and similar near-real-time games on FB) are very appealing. The school is currently using Nabisco Chess (yes, really...) but the usual "game open to anyone in the world" stuff is in there.

Good things about a mod:

  • the school can tell who's playing one another;
  • the potential for a "ladder" exists within a course (displayed as a block, like the High Scores from a Quiz);
  • SomeChess has done all most of the chess work for us!

Bad things:

  • a lot of work (and, oh, I'm not a coder... just a harvester of ideas... so I'm the most annoying sort of person around here smile)

I'm sure there are others...

i.

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In reply to Ian Usher

Re: some chess, anyone?

by kathy hooper -
Hi
on our school site I put compwebchess http://www.compwebchess.com/
which is a separate piece of software. It is data base driven and a game can be played over a number of days. Email messages indicate when a move has been made. I run it on my own site as well - www.dogscience.com/webchesss2
I suspect it could be easily integrated into Moodle.
kathy
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In reply to kathy hooper

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Christian Blumhoff -
Hi,

have you considered phpchess? There is no pre-build integration to moodle yet but maybe that can be done. you can find it here

We are now working towards a flash based chess classroom script which will drop into moogle, but it is going to be a few months before it is released.

Kind regards
Christian
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In reply to Christian Blumhoff

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Sharon Goodson -
I love this idea! I wished I could help, but I'm afraid I belong to the same annoying club Ian does.

I can be a great cheerleader, too, though! big grin
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In reply to Christian Blumhoff

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Jamie Tinley -
Christian, can you please post when you have created the chess plugin. I would be interested in using it when you complete it. Will you post your chess module here or in moodle add on page or both? Thanks

James
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In reply to Ian Usher

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Adam Cree -

We have pondered this for a while at a simpler level and wondered about a chess wiki.  Had some issues about the structure of the board but has anyone else thought along this line?

Not sure how easy it would be to make a table with chequerboard in-fill and then cut/paste pieces as you played the game?

Might this work?

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In reply to Adam Cree

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Colin Fraser -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

A game server may be a better approach, that way you could add in php based mods like Sudoku, find the word, and so on. They too use grids, but I would suggest that javascripted games that are open-source, easily integrated into a Moodle would be a better idea than  wiki based things..  Be interesting if kids used Sudoku rather than Facebook in class..smile 

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In reply to Ian Usher

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hiya

Just to let you know, I've installed phpchess version 4.1 on my web server. Installation is quite straightforward. You can see it in action here:

http://www.moodurian.com/chess/chess_members.php
Username: frankie
Password: chess
ENJOY! tongueout
You can even play against the resident AI Opponent.

Just wishing that I could integrate phpchess with Moodle ala LTI-style. That way students who are online could also play chess with each other...after all, chess is educational, right?
And why stop at chess? Why not have other games like checkers or go or chinese chess or backgammon where students can play online?

Cheers
Frankie Kam

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In reply to Frankie Kam

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Doug Moody -

This is excellent Frankie. Thank you for your contribution.

Now, if you could give step by step instructions to install that would be great.

For me, as a teacher, I would like to make this a separate part of my main course. Maybe a course by itself that would allow students to access when they have done their regular activities. In other words, I would like to make access to the game section of my moodle accessible only when certain core activities were completed. Furthermore, it should reset itself daily, so that students have a limited time to get to the games section and have to re-earn rights to access the games. In other words, the games would be an incentive to get their acaemic work done first. This could be a major feature of moodle I think.

Can you think of a way to achieve this idea?

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In reply to Doug Moody

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

Installation Steps

Step 1: Got to http://www.phpchess.com/

Step 2: Click on the Download section

Step 3: Download phpChess 4.1 alpha test

Step 4: Extract the downloaded file named phpchess41.rar into a local folder

Step 5: Change the folder name to 'chess'.

Step 6: FTP the chess folder to your webserver

Step 7: Extract the zipped file phpChess 411 Update and FTP the contents to overwrite the folders and files of phpChess 4.1 alpha test core files in your webserver.

Step 8: Use MySQL Database Wizard (in CPanel) to create a MySQL database and an admin user (all provileges)

Step 9: Install phpChess by going to:
            http://www.yoursite.com/chess/install

Step 10: Enter the necessary data (see example below)

Step 11: Click the 'Install Command Center".

The installer will create this account automatically
User: ANYONE
Password: 20091111

Step 12: Surf to http://www.yoursite.com/chess/
which will redirect to 
http://www.yoursite.com/chess/chess_members.php

Step 13a: Login using 
User: ANYONE
Password: 20091111
or 
Step 13b: Login as Admin by surfing to Admin Dashboard at 
http://www.yoursite.com/chess/admin

You can use this Video Tutorial as a guide:http://www.phpchess.com/tutorials/phpc_tut1.html

Hope this helps,
Frankie Kam

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In reply to Doug Moody

Re: some chess, anyone?

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Doug

The next step (a toughie) is to ensure Single-Sign-On (SSO) so that the Moodle user can login automatically as a phpChess player.

What you are describing reminds me of the Conditional Activities in Moodle 2.x. And it can act as a motivating factor for the chess-playing student to complete his online homework/assignment on time so that the user can enjoy some games to improve his or her PhpChess rating.
Which begs the question: what about the non-chess playing Moodle users?

Your ideas will be useful for a chess learning online course.

Regards
Frankie Kam

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