squeakland February 2012

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12 participants
18 discussions

sixteen items for Squeakland 2012 - item 9: ScratchConnect
by Ricardo Moran 10 Mar '12

10 Mar '12

> 9. Add Koji Yokokawa's ScratchConnect (game controls and game displays) > This will allow kids to create “game controllers” using Etoys Projects on > one set of computers to control a “game display” (another Etoys or Scratch > Project) on another computer. > > Hi, I've been looking at ScratchConnect ( http://www.squeaksource.com/ScratchConnect.html) and I think it would be cool if we can include it in the release. I think the code seems fine. Although it doesn't follow the Etoys pattern of adding methods directly to Player, I don't think this minor difference is important enough to fork it. The other problem is the license, I haven't found any info about it yet. Should we ask the author about it? Cheers, Richo

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Why Is programming an unnatural activity?
by Steve Thomas 02 Mar '12

02 Mar '12

So I am sharing my blog post Why Is programming an unnatural activity?Hoping to get some feedback from the community. For my P2PU course I have been looking at "Novice" programmers. And in one of the papers we were asked to read Mark Guzdial asks: “Why?” Is programming an unnatural activity? Could programming be made easier in a different form? Could programming be taught in a different way that makes learning easier? Or maybe we just have no idea how to actually measure what students know about programming.* (1).* My main problem with the Guzdial paper (this was more my problem than a problem with the paper) is I felt it didn't provide enough details or specifics on "Why it is so hard to learn to Program?" I need specifics and examples to get my head around things. Roy Pea, was a great find and perhaps not surprisingly (for me at least) the Resnick article was very useful. Pea (et al) talked about three classes of bugs: 1. Parallelism Bugs 2. Intentionality Bugs 3. Egocentrism Bugs *Parrallelism Bugs* The Parallelism Bugs, is basically an "assumption of different lines in a program can be active or known by the computer at the same time or in parallel". For example, look at this code: If (Size == 10) print "Hello" For Size in range(10): print Size When High School students. in their second year of programming course, were asked what they thought the program would print 8 out of 15 predicted "Hello" would print after "10". *Intentionality Bugs* The Intentionality Bugs, is the idea in the child's mind that "the program has goals and knows or sees what will happen elsewhere in itself." *Egocentrism Bugs* The Egocentrism Bugs, stem from the belief that there "is more of their meaning for what they want to accomplish in the program than is actually present in the code." Funny, I see these kinds of bugs all the time in my code and those of other experience programmers :) *The Super Bug* He concludes that all these derive from the Super Bug: <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sQRGOhtVBbM/T03XIvqxgvI/AAAAAAAABBg/itlJA6dtKhU/s…> The idea that there is a "hidden mind somewhere inside the programming language that has intelligent and interpretive powers." Not surprising since most of kids experiences are with semi-intelligent beings (aka Parents) MultiLogo: A Study of Children and Concurrent Programming - Mitchel Resnick<http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/MultiLogo.html> Resnick, noted that: "This sequential paradigm does not match the way the real world works: people and animals act in parallel, objects interact in parallel. As a result, many real-world activities can not be modelled in a natural way with sequential programming." Thus developed a concurrent or parrallel version of Logo (Multi-Logo), so they kids had a language/environment that more closely matched their view of the world. Although he did not go "parrallel" enough, and in his lessons learned asked " *SideNote*: I used to think and say that Concurrent Programming was really really hard. I had plenty of evidence to back this up and had heard and read much smarter people than me saying the same thing. Then I encountered Etoys (and later Scratch) and started teaching these to kids. And realized that Concurrent Programming is actually easier (although you do have the added complexity of syntonization issues) . The problem was not the topic/idea, it was the language we use to think about it. Resnick noted that "In general, students appropriated the idea of agents sending messages to one another quite easily." Too bad we don't teach more Smalltalk. He identified three types of bugs specific to concurrent programming: 1. Problem Decomposition Bugs 2. Synchronization Bugs 3. Object Oriented Bugs *Problem Decomposition Bugs* "These bugs arise out of students' difficulties decomposing problems into actions to be performed concurrently by multiple agents." Here there are two types of decomposition: 1. functional decomposition - dividing a problem in to simpler sub-problems (what needs to be done) 2. agency decomposition - dividing the functional pieces among different agents (who does it) *Synchronization Bugs* "These bugs arise out of students' difficulties coordinating and orchestrating the activities of multiple agents." These bugs he divides into two type: Unintended Sequentiality and Unintended Concurrency. In these cases the student expected Sequetiality and got Concurrence (or vice versa). It seems that in designing Multi-Logo to deal with synchronization he provided two mechanisms: ask and demand. Where when you "ask" an agent something (ex: flash light - for 20 seconds) the request is queued up to be executed in the order received. When you "demand" the agent interrupts what is going on to perform the request (or it might simply put it at the head of the queue, I am not sure). It is interesting, at least to me, that Scratch, developed later by Resnick and his team, got rid of the ask and demand and went with a "broadcast" "wait" and "do for X seconds" to allow for synchronization. I believe this simplifies and avoids a number of problems for novice programmers. *Object Oriented Bugs* "These bugs arise out of students' confusion among different types of "objects" Multi-Logo has multiple types of objects: agents, turtle, and on the Lego Interface box (think early NXT) ports and sensors. Part of this confusion may have been the overloading of "halt" which for an agent, Another quote for Guzial: - " our current programming languages do not allow people to program the way that they think about the tasks" - Section: "Making tools better by shifting to Visual Programming" - "having students build their own visualizations had significant impact on those students’ learning." *Resnick's Lessons Learned* "It is a good idea for students to "play agent"--that is, act out what each agent is supposed to do. This activity requires a group of students, each playing the role of a different agent." I really like this approach with novices and often warn students "Step away from the computer and no one will get hurt". Having them act out the program and program each other is a good way to do this. In designing Multi-Logo he realized he did not go far enough in parallelism: "An alternate approach, of course, is to change the design of MultiLogo to match students' preconceptions. For example, I could redesign MultiLogo agents so that each agent could do several things at the same time, in line with students' expectations of "excessive parallelism." He later did have agents that can do several things at the same time. He also discussed the idea of design the environment match the students pre-conceptions. Would be interesting to find out what problems it solves (and those it doesn't) and what new problems it creates. FInally, for a real treat* *at some possibilities for a new programming environment see this: Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle <http://vimeo.com/36579366> from CUSEC<http://vimeo.com/cusec> on Vimeo <http://vimeo.com/>. References: NOTE: If you have limited time, I would recommend reading (2) then (5), then for a real treat watch the Brett Victor talk (7) (1) Why Is It So Hard to Learn to Program - Mark Guzdial (2) Children's Mental Models of Recursive LOGO Programs - D. Midian Kurland and Roy D. Pea (1985)<http://www.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A27_Kurland_Pea_85.pdf> (3) Language Independent Conceptual "Bugs" in Novice Programming - Roy D. Pea (1986) <http://www.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A28_Pea_86.pdf> (4) The Buggy Path to the Development of Programming Expertise - Roy D. Pea and Elliot Soloway (1987)<http://www.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A32_Pea_etal_87.pdf> (5) MultiLogo: A Study of Children and Concurrent Programming - Mitchel Resnick <http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/MultiLogo.html> (1990) (6) Programming Environments for Novices - Mark Guzdial (2002)<http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/guzdial/uploads/18/novice-envs.pdf> (7) Brett Victor - Inventing on Principle (2012)<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQtwI…>

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magic tank storybook translation
by Timothy Falconer 01 Mar '12

01 Mar '12

Hi everyone, http://squeakland.org/showcase/project.jsp?id=11786 Just posted an Etoys storybook that I attempted to translate from English into Portuguese, Spanish, German, and French with Google. Please let me know if Google's translations are off so I can correct them. Also, please comment if you like it so the authors may hear from the world. -- Apenas publicou um livro de histórias Etoys que eu tentei traduzir do Inglês para o Português, espanhol, alemão e francês com o Google. Por favor, deixe-me saber se as traduções do Google estão fora para que eu possa corrigi-los. Além disso, por favor, comente se você gostar dele de modo que os autores podem ouvir o mundo. -- Acaba de publicar un libro de cuentos Etoys que he tratado de traducir del Inglés al portugués, español, alemán y francés con Google. Por favor, hágamelo saber si las traducciones de Google están fuera para que pueda corregirlos. También, por favor comente si le gusta lo que los autores pueden saber de todo el mundo. -- So erzielte ein Etoys Märchenbuch, dass ich aus dem Englischen ins Portugiesisch, Spanisch, Deutsch und Französisch mit Google übersetzen versuchte. Bitte lassen Sie mich wissen, wenn die Google-Übersetzungen aus sind, damit ich sie korrigieren kann. Auch, bitte kommentieren, wenn Sie es so die Autoren aus der ganzen Welt hören mögen können. -- Juste un livre de contes posté Etoys que j'ai tenté de traduire de l'anglais vers le portugais, espagnol, allemand, et français avec Google. S'il vous plaît laissez-moi savoir si les traductions de Google sont éteints pour que je puisse les corriger. En outre, s'il vous plaît commentaire si vous le souhaitez afin que les auteurs peuvent entendre le monde.

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SQ-1013 - button to show script (How to make scripts "visible/discoverable" without having your screen covered with scriptors all the time)
by Steve Thomas 29 Feb '12

29 Feb '12

Scott, I like the idea in SQ-1013 <http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-1013>, but have some other thoughts on solving the problem which I prototyped in Etoys (using tile scripting only, Etoys Rocks!!!). Am sharing with the dev list and the rest of the community to get their ideas and input. The project can be seen here<http://www.squeakland.org/launcher?http://tracker.squeakland.org/secure/att…> . Couple more changes to the prototypes in my project I would suggest: 1. The "Collapse/Uncollapse" button should be right next to the script name, so you don't get that visual jerkiness of the button moving when you click it. 2. Instead of just changing length and folding up, you could fold in to (ie: set the width to just past the "Collapse/Uncollapse" button to have more visible screen real estate. 3. We may want a Show/Hide all scripts option (perhaps with a keyboard shortcut.) FYI, I misnamed some of the buttons in the project as "Show/Hide" when they were really "Collapse/Uncollapse", then realized we need both. 4. It would be nice to have a more visually appealing "Collapse/Uncollapse" method, where instead of changing the length of the Script Editor, we "glide" the change over a period of time. (I started playing around trying to prototype this and ran into other issues, but separate subject and a separate email will follow). Thanks for all your work (and Richo's and Karl's, Bert's, Subbu's, ...) the next version of Etoys will be even better with bug fixes and new features, can't wait!!! Stephen

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eToys questions - creating a sketch for a backdrop image - 'stage'
by R.D. Latimer 27 Feb '12

27 Feb '12

I have a 'racetrack' sketch that is supposed to work as a 'stage' as in Scratch. The car drives on this racetrack and needs to leave a pen trail. The pendown writes onto the main screen area, underneath this racetrack 'stage'. How do I create two sketches - one serving as a 'stage' /background, and the other as the 'sprite' to move and leave pen trails on the first sketch. Thanks Randy Latimer

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Keyboard support
by Ricardo Moran 22 Feb '12

22 Feb '12

Hi, I know this is not in the 16 items list but I made a very simple project to enhance the keyboard support and I would like to get it considered for inclusion. It's based on the suggestions from Bert for my old project in GSoC. It's now a single-key morph and it compares the keyStrings (I don't know if this is good or bad). I hope it works across platforms (even if you have to reconfigure the keys when you open the project). I only have windows here so I would appreciate if someone can tell me if this works on Linux and Mac. Thanks, Richo

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Re: [squeakland] Keyboard support
by Bert Freudenberg 19 Feb '12

19 Feb '12

Okay, so here is the project, changed so the keys also work on a Mac. I committed the changes to MacUnicodeInputInterpreter, but for now they are included in the project, too. - Bert - On 17.02.2012, at 16:08, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > Having this would be very nice. However, it's more complicated than that. It assumes the same keycode will be used for stroke events as for key up/down events. That is not how the VM delivers these events. It only works "by accident" on Windows, possibly on Linux, but certainly not on Mac. > > I guess the easiest way to work around this would be by making the printKeyStringOn: method take into account Mac key codes. > > This probably would still have problems with international keyboards but maybe for stuff like cursor keys it would be okay. > > - Bert - > > On 17.02.2012, at 05:07, Steve Thomas wrote: > >> Wow, I can actually hold down two keys at the same time and both are "executed"!!! >> >> This has been a big problem for two player games. Nice work. >> >> Unfortunately it doen't work on my Mac, I tried with Etoys 4.1 and 4..1.2 alpha 5. >> >> So I am personally coming to Argentina to complain!!! >> (Okay, I am actually heading to Buenos Aires next week on business and hopefully I will be able to get time away from work and we can connect.) >> >> Keep up the great work. >> >> Thanks, >> Stephen >> >> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 3:40 PM, karl ramberg <karlramberg(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Works great for me. >> >> I only have Windows so I can't tell if it has platform issues. >> >> Maybe we can mix it with this so the script can be triggered with a >> #keyDown or #keyUp 'event' ? >> http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-331 >> >> With this the script does not need to be ticking to execute. >> >> (On second thought I'm not sure if it's a good idea. But it can be >> good to discuss :-) ) >> >> Karl >> >> >> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Ricardo Moran <richi.moran(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> > Hi, >> > >> > I know this is not in the 16 items list but I made a very simple project to >> > enhance the keyboard support and I would like to get it considered for >> > inclusion. It's based on the suggestions from Bert for my old project in >> > GSoC. >> > It's now a single-key morph and it compares the keyStrings (I don't know if >> > this is good or bad). I hope it works across platforms (even if you have to >> > reconfigure the keys when you open the project). I only have windows here so >> > I would appreciate if someone can tell me if this works on Linux and Mac. >> > >> > Thanks, >> > Richo >> >

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Camera working in Windows?
by Ricardo Moran 16 Feb '12

16 Feb '12

Hi, Patricio Acevedo, a chilean teacher asked me about the camera in windows. He says it works on the XO but not in more powerful computers. I think I recall seeing it working sometime ago but I can't remember when or in which version. Do you know if it works in windows out of the box? Or does he need to do something else? Thanks, Richo 2012/2/15 Patricio Acevedo <patricio(a)educalibre.cl> > Hola Ricardo: > > Soy un Profesor chileno, sigo con interés la > lista de correo de squeakland y quería hacerte una consulta referida a > Etoys. La haría yo mismo, pero mi ingles es demasiado básico para > hacerme entender. Ya se no eres el servicio de soporte, pero creo > debes entender mejor que yo este problema. > La caja de provisiones tiene en la sección herramientas una elemento > llamado camara. En la xo de olpc (linux, sugar, etc) funciona. Pero en > sistemas mas potentes se niega a hacerlo. He buscado forma de hacerlo > trabajar bajo windows, sin éxito. Me parece un error extraño, pues en > las últimas versiones de scratch (no te digo que tb son squeak, pues > claro que lo sabes desde mucho antes que yo) el soporte para la camara > funciona correctamente. > > Investigando por la web encontré esto, pero tampoco logro que trabaje > http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/2411 > > Sospecho que es info desactualizada, de cualquier modo. > > Con llevar mi inquietud a la lista de correo es suficiente. Veo el > increible trabajo que haces reparando "issues" y por esto me anime a > preguntar si sería posible considerar esta funcionalidad entre las > reparables en próximas versiones de Etoys. > > Agradecido por tu valioso tiempo > > Patricio Acevedo > Profesor Primaria >

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How to put eToys projects in a browser to run, like Illinois?
by R.D. Latimer 16 Feb '12

16 Feb '12

I'd like to run eToys projects through a browser, like Illinois has done with their Library Collections - http://etoysillinois.org/library?tags=CS4K5%20Grade%201 How do they do this. It looks like with the eToys plugin, clicking on the link to the project in my browser will open up eToys software. The Illinois version looks like it's running within the browser, that looks like a better way. Scratch has this capability with a jar file to include in the website's folder. Thanks for any help, Randy Latimer

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Waveplace Video Blog
by Timothy Falconer 15 Feb '12

15 Feb '12

Hi everyone, Quite a lot has happened at Waveplace over the last year or two, though you might not know it, given how little we blog or post videos these days. In summary, we've brought laptops to 33 schools, most of them in Haiti. We've trained 165 adults to become mentors. We've created 16 weeks worth of courseware using Etoys and Sugar. All of that is prequel, though, to what we comes next. I often joke that Waveplace's mission is "Nice laptop, now what?" (training) Well, now it's become, "Nice training, now what?" The answer is ... Assessment, Courseware, Outreach, Reflection, Network ... aka, Project Acorn. As Project Acorn unfolds, I'll make video logs instead of written blogs, posting them in rough form to keep folks informed. You can follow along here: http://waveplace.org/news/ or here: http://youtube.com/waveplace or here: http://www.facebook.com/waveplace (please like us) or here: http://twitter.com//waveplace (please follow) I'll be posting a new video every weekday, always at noon, New York time. My hope is to use the videos as a vehicle for recording some of the experience we've accumulated in the last 4+ years, so that others may benefit. And no, I don't like seeing myself on video or hearing myself talk. Quite the contrary. But it's the simplest fastest way to do this. Take care, Tim

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squeakland February 2012