Jython vs Squeak for teaching multimedia

Mark Guzdial guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
Wed Jun 26 16:26:56 UTC 2002


On Wednesday, June 26, 2002, at 05:21  AM, 
G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl wrote:

> Hi Mark, i read the student comments and have some questions:
>
> 1. I was wondering if their answers are not biased by their concept of 
> ICT
> for architects:  "building a 3D-image with a computer-tool" anything 
> that
> does not fit in that image is not good? So use tools like cosmoworld...?

You're right -- the students' notion of what is programming is weak.  
(I'm particularly struck by the comments, "I think HTML is a fine 
programming language" :-)  It's a careful line to walk, between 
respecting their perspectives and trying to encourage some better ones.

>
> 2. Did you reject Netlogo as construct-tool for the same 
> children-Toy-image?

Yup.  Netlogo and Starlogo are cool, but it's not clear that we can do 
things with them that the students recognize as valuable.

>
> 3. If your wish is to create multimedia while using structuring design 
> with
> the help of scripting languages, did you look for that reason at Flash 
> MX,
> where you can control the scene with "XML-scripts", combining with for
> example php-website/database scripting? (OK, again not really 3D.... 
> and I
> have to read that book next summerholiday myself..)
> Switching to the idea of abstraction (or better: "schematising") for
> XML-reasons (resource description frameworks, etc..) coulkd maybe fit in
> place...?
>
I have looked at Flash.  The downsides are (a) not cross-platform to 
UNIX and (b) it's really, REALLY hard.  The new media people around here 
say that their students give up on learning Flash and instead teach 
themselves Java because they find it easier (!).  I've not learned 
enough Flash to figure out why it's so hard, but I do find the interface 
confusing.

Mark




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