[Squeakland] Squeak 'non-starter' in U.K. schools?

[Darius Clarke]

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Alan, 

Thank you _very much_ for those leads. I'll check them out. 

> There are strengths and weaknesses with this view 
> of end-user computing. Some of the strengths are obvious, 
> but can you spot the weaknesses? 

I can think of some weaknesses: 

* Students may not be familiar with the coordinate system - but they play games on grids... a lot. 

* Information overload - which is why collapsing is essential. 

* Extra positioning information stored with every object - Unless positioning information is calculate just for the view port of what's needed at the time. 

* Lack of fine grain control - which is why columns should not be forced to line up with the columns beyond it's scope above and below. Also one should allow as much automatic fine grain adjustments as possible by defining a set of rules on what should be seen. One should inform the system What they want to see and Why, and let the system resolve the positioning. The save the positioning as a named view that the user can navigate to again and reuse.

* Fixed boarders take up too much screen space - icons take up more.

* Lack of aesthetics - allow coloring and other visual clues, hide grid lines, allow graphics in cells for purposes of control (more like thumbnail representations.

* Occlusion at the cell level as when a spreadsheet cell is not allowed to wrap its text - can be handled by hovering or pivoting full info into view.

* It's hard to get multiple tools an the screen at the same time such as System Browsers - More freedom in setting column widths should help this. 

* Navigation can become Disorienting - maps and breadcrumbs would help. 

* Navigating by arrow keys becomes difficult w/o columns lining up- 

Another strength: 
* The car's eye won't see the ScriptEditor on top of the track, even though that is a learning experience too. 

______________

Getting schools to change is a social engineering issue. Rules of psychology can be considered tools in that kind of engineering. Remember, of four major personality types (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Cautious) most of all people fall in the "I want things safe and not to change" catagory. (Using the D.i.S.C. method) We convince them by showing it's safe to change and dangerous/family-threatening to not make this change.
_____________

I had briefly visited Agentsheets before but they didn't seem intuitive to me before. I'll review their sample app again.

My search skills brougt up nothing for "The Analyst" in Google. I'll try further afield.

_____________

Mitch Kaphor is suddenly very interested in open source spreadsheets now. I wonder why.
http://www.osafoundation.org/ - Home page has two articles.

Cheers, 
Darius 


Dominance

getting immediate results 
causing action 
accepting challenges 
making quick decisions 
questioning the status quo 
taking authority 
causing trouble 
solving problems 


Influence

contacting people 
making a favorable impression 
verbalizing with articulateness 
creating a motivational environment 
generating enthusiasm 
entertaining people 
desiring to help others 
participating in a group 


Steadiness

performing an accepted work pattern 
sitting or staying in one place 
demonstrating patience 
developing specialized skills 
concentrating on the task 
showing loyalty 
being a good listener 
calming excited people 


Cautious

following directives and standards 
concentrating on detail 
working under controlled circumstances 
being diplomatic with people 
checking for accuracy 
criticizing performance 
critical thinking 
complying with authority