[squeak-dev] Squeak Oversight Board election self nomination

Hannes Hirzel hannes.hirzel at gmail.com
Fri Apr 1 12:23:54 UTC 2011


Gary,

Many thanks to you for running for the board. You being a candidate in
addition will give us a real choice. And the results of the vote will
be an indicator where we would like Squeak to head for in the upcoming
one year period.

--Hannes

On 3/31/11, Gary Dunn <garydunnhi at gmail.com> wrote:
> I saw a request for more victims -- err, volunteers -- so I'll toss my
> hat into the ring. What I lack in Squeak proficiency I more than make
> up for in age and experience.
>
> Here is my bio, just a few improvements over the last one.
>
> My name is Gary Dunn. I am 61, married with two sons, and live in
> Honolulu. I have a very demanding full time IT job. My formal training
> is in music, including a Masters in Composition from the University of
> Illinois. I enjoy cycling and fixing old cars. I am the leader of a
> still struggling project called Open Slate, about improving the use of
> computers in education. More about me at:
>
>
> http://www.facebook.com/garydunn808
> http://e9erust.blogspot.com
> Twitter @garydunn808
> http://openslate.org
> Twitter @openslateproj
>
> Many years ago I used a Windows version of Smalltalk at work. My best
> effort was a GUI front-end to our Unix mail system which we used until
> we were forced to implement Exchange. I added word wrap to the
> supplied text editor class. It had a personal address book, forward
> and reply, and even supported attachments by way of an implementation
> of uuencode I wrote in Smalltalk. Those were the days!
>
> My reason for running for the board is to advocate for the role of
> Squeak in education. In this regard I am deeply inspired by Alan Kay.
> I am a big fan of Etoys, but my main interest is in high school and
> college aged students and in using Squeak as a unified platform for
> educational software, to include classroom activities, course content
> delivery, team collaboration, grades management, ... everything
> related to so-called E-Learning 2.0. (see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning).
>
> Where the trend in E-Learning has been towards a web-based design, my
> preference is for each student to collect and retain locally the
> information they need, so that they do not rely on continuous Internet
> access. I do not see E-Learning as a way to teach students to use
> popular office automation software. I do embrace the concept of social
> constructionism (see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism_(learning_theory))
> and have long pitched the value of small, individually owned,
> self-made slate computers as tools to foster communication between
> students. Many of my concepts that were unfamiliar ten years ago are
> becoming commonplace. Some, like open-source textbooks, have
> encountered unanticipated resistance. In the long view, I see the
> future of educational software in Open Cobalt ... take the interaction
> in WoW and recreate it in a learning context. Powerful stuff.
>
> --
> Gary Dunn
> Honolulu
>
>



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