Fwd: Re: RE: RE: Authoring tools: Squeak in the classroom

[Kim Rose]

Hello,

With the permission of Sebastian Hergott from Don Mills Middle School 
in Ontario, Canada, I share with you an email I received from him 
today which I found exciting and inspiring. I believe it may help in 
the initial explorations of others using Squeak with their students, 
and children.  I think the idea of having the students create their 
own projects with accompanying tutorials for new learners is 
wonderful!  I hope we can create a clearinghouse for such materials 
to share around the world.

We look forward to continued reports and sharing from Sebastian, 
Maria, (a parent volunteer who has been instrumental in the project 
thus far) and the students at Don Mills!

   Kim

>
>
>Here is a summary of how I've integrated Squeak into my core 
>classroom (Eng, Geo, Math, Art, ICT) over 10 -12 weeks. I believe 
>it's important not to teach "hammer", (or computers, or Squeak), but 
>to teach goal setting, questionning, problem solving, reflection, 
>revision, communication and collaboration.
>
>My students have been working with Squeak since about mid October. 
>Each had individual goals - highly idealistic to begin with - and 
>set forth with small steps to achieve/solve/explore/build/create 
>them. A parent volunteer in our class, Maria Cvetkovic, was 
>instrumental in presenting Squeak concepts via BJ Conn's Tutorials 
>to a small group of my students, who quickly became the class 
>experts that shared presentations with others. For a couple weeks 
>they explored and "presented" weekly discoveries. My passion was to 
>see them explore, learn, share and build confidence. My role as 
>teacher was always to observe and ask "How can this be open ended, 
>creative, constructivist and yet be assessed according to Ministry 
>strands?" Eventually, I came up with the
>summative task of each student writing their own Tutorial for the 
>project they created. BJ Conn's Tutorials were great models for us. 
>Each would have screen shots, numbered steps, a summary and a 
>reflection. Students would learn not only how to use Squeak, but 
>also how to communicate their learning in a more transferable medium 
>through procedural writing and basic desktop publishing. It seemed 
>to make sense to me that since we were part of a community that was 
>developing ideas/uses/dreams for Squeak, that what we did with it be 
>shared in an appropriate way.
>
>My students are currently "beta testing" each other's tutorials and 
>will upload .pdf versions when revised and finished. We will also 
>teach Squeak to a grade 7 class with these tutorials. Though it has 
>taken time, they have learned/developed many other skills in 
>addition to problem solving and Squeak scripting: file sharing, 
>screen captures, image editing, text wrap, windows to mac to windows 
>conversions, e-mail, attachments and file transfers, file formats, 
>file management, footers/headers, among others. As well, they have 
>all built relationships and confidence; designed a world and 
>controlled aspects of it and discovered a community of users/fans 
>for their projects. They have learned and developed goal setting; 
>problem solving, critiqueing,
>reflecting, revising, communicating and collaborating with peer and 
>adult experts. I think some even understand the concepts of "open 
>source", "random" and "netiquette".
>
>Pretty impressive for grade 8. I'm very proud of them.
>
>As for the implementation of Squeak throughout the board... not 
>everyone needs a hammer, but for those that do, I'd like to know 
>that it is available and supported for all.
>
>
>_._._._._._._._._
>Sebastian Hergott
>Teacher/Intermediate Program Coordinator - CyberARTS
>Arts and Information Technology Convener
>ASA (Academic Services Associate)
>Don Mills Middle School, tel. 395-2320
>17 The Donway East, Don Mills, Ontario, M3C 1X6, Canada
>sebastian.hergott at tel.tdsb.on.ca


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