[sq-education] Re: [etoys-dev] popups in project-info

[Timothy Falconer]

On Aug 31, 2009, at 1:24 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:

> At Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:15:40 -0400,
> Timothy Falconer wrote:
>>
>>> The usefulness of the target age is one thing, but pre-set list of
>>> ages is another.  If you say, "8 to 12", or "9 to 11", it means
>>> different things from a region to another with different school
>>> systems.  We can't dictate globally there, I think.  And some put  
>>> the
>>> target age based on the relevance with the school curriculum, but
>>> others put some other criteria.  Some want to put the grade number
>>> but some want to put the age.
>>>
>>> So, having the age part is ok but probably better to be a free-form
>>> field.
>>>
>>> Just my $0.02.
>>
>> Having it free-form, or tag-based, will make it nearly impossible to
>> usefully group, which will be a problem for people looking for
>> relevant content.
>>
>> Think ... 1000 projects and I have twenty minutes to try 5
>> projects ... I'm a 3rd grade teacher in the united states wondering
>> how I could include Etoys throughout my school day.
>
>  Sure.  Are you saying that I don't understand this kind of
> constraint?

Serenity comes from mentally prepending, "It is my opinion that" and  
adding "what do you think?"  (even with cherlin :)

Upset comes from prepending "you personally just don't get it, dude,  
here's why" :)

I see comments to lists are both to the individual person and the  
larger group. Often responses aren't to the poster, but also to the  
series of posters before that poster, and to anticipate further  
discussion.


>> 500 different ways of saying 3rd grade will all but prevent that
>> person from finding 5 great projects in 20 minutes.
>
>  But if you are a 3rd grade teacher in the US and looking for
> projects, you are effectively saying that there should be a better
> tagging mechanism than pre-set age groups.

Better tagging structure = category hierarchy chosen by the education  
team, which is what we discussed (as a team) at length.  (The idea of  
categories, not the specific categories)


>  BTW, Kathleen is a teacher and she described what she does.  What is
> your comment on that?

She's one teacher, with an important voice.  My comment was my  
response to her, along with asking others to chime in as well.

I do know first hand that many teachers find it hard to find  
appropriate content on sites like Scratch & others.   The ones we hear  
from are the "true believers" who keep with it.  The ones we don't  
hear from are the "not for me" crowd who stop looking and stay with  
Imagination Station and Reader Rabbit.

>> You might say, "well, they need to spend more time", but THEY WON'T.
>
>  I wouldn't *just* say that.
>
> -- Yoshiki
>
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