[Squeakland] Assessment

Sat Apr 3 10:42:55 PST 2004

 Hi,

About 

'Another truly important idea about children which should be part of 
any learning environment, is that different children learn 
differently and for different reasons. Though this seems like an 
unremarkable observation, most learning environments do little to 
nothing to deal with these most important facts. '

Last year I was using ToonTalk with very weak students (12-13 -14 year old,
normal age 12).

I was surprised, after a month,  to hear in the meeeting of the teachers
teaching in this class that some students were the weakers  of the class and
have great difficulties at school.

For me they were the best students.

The I used E-toys with them and they easily transpose notions.
The object's book becomes script viewer and scipts are like description of
the actions of robots.

This year I have these weaks students mixed with others ones for computer
sciences.

Using E-toys  they get very good results (5 or 6 , best note is 6) while
some others with good school results  get 2.5 or 3.

The reason is that  in school most assessments are made  with tests on
papers.
Answering questions or speaking about things is quite different then doing
things.

With ToonTalk   there is no more difficulty with texte  or language.

With E-toy we are only using reading , Composing (not writing scripts) needs
only reading competences.

Logo needs writing and correct spelling  therfore it  is very difficult for
weak students.

With the conversion of scripts to smallTalk  kids have a chance to gentlly
towards writing ,by  writing small changes.

With ToonTalk , as I suggested once to Ken Kahn, it  would like beeing able
to flip a robot and get an editable  text  of  what a robot is doing.

No people comes to university without knowing reading and scripting, so that
the way of thinking for most teachers is based upon semantic and lexical
memory.

With ToonTalk we are using procedural memory. 
E-toy is in an intermediate level, since many things are done by copying and
assembling objects.

 Best regards   

-----Message d'origine-----
De: squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org
A: Doug Wolfgram; squeakland at squeakland.org
Date: 26/03/04 19:21
Objet: Re: [Squeakland] Assessment

Hi Doug --

Interesting comments ....

The simplest thing I can say here is that there are now enough 
examples from the last 100 years or so to convince at least me that 
children are generally capable of much much more than most adults 
(and especially most schools) suppose. Thus, there is a very sad 
sense in which "adults are children's worst enemies" since the adults 
tend to control the environments in which children can learn things.

I see the Squeak etoys as trying to build on the idea that children 
are capable of much much more. However, I think there are many 
routes, including low-tech ones, in which much better assessment of 
what children are capable of learning can be done.

Another truly important idea about children which should be part of 
any learning environment, is that different children learn 
differently and for different reasons. Though this seems like an 
unremarkable observation, most learning environments do little to 
nothing to deal with these most important facts.

At this point in time it would be great to have either much better 
teaching (which includes much more understanding by teachers of the 
arts they are supposed to be teaching) or much better computer 
environments that can help children better than most adults can. 
Right now, we have neither, and there is great need for work and 
resources for both.

Cheers,

Alan

At 8:13 AM -0800 3/26/04, Doug Wolfgram wrote:
>I hope this isn't off-topic, but it occurs to me that e-toys and 
>Squeak are the perfect tool for what I would like to see change at 
>our school...
>
>Recently, we invited Jill Tarter to come and speak at my daughter's 
>school.  She was very well received and her promotion of math and 
>science was close to my heart, as I believe that all children should 
>have a good foundation in the sciences.
>
>Then I started thinking about Alan's demonstration of Squeak and the 
>gravity exercises, etc. I realized that from my experience (please 
>correct me if I'm wrong) most lower school math and science 
>assessments assess only what a child has already learned, whereas 
>with Squeak and e-toys, we can assess what they are CAPABLE of 
>learning.
>
>Isn't this more valuable information? Do those of you who are 
>educators think this way?  Am I just behind the curve here and all 
>of you regular squeakers are saying "duh, we've been doing that?" :)
>
>This has special meaning to me because my daughter, like me when I 
>was in lower school, tends to make careless errors on math tests 
>from going too fast. So this keeps her out of some of the advanced 
>math pull-outs. Yet the kids in those pull-outs come to her for help 
>because she knows the math and if she doesn't, can figure it out 
>very quickly or knows who to ask and isn't afraid because she is 
>very confident about her ability to understand what she will hear as 
>a response. This seems to me to be a very big failing in this 
>particular school anyway.
>
>D
>
>
>
>
>___
>________________________
>
>"Interactive Media that WORKS."
>___________________________
>
>Doug Wolfgram
>CEO
>GRAFX Group, Inc.
>949.433.3641
>http://www.personalpresentations.com
>
>
>
>
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>Squeakland mailing list
>Squeakland at squeakland.org
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