[Squeakland] EToys Experience Report

Thu Mar 24 17:27:47 PST 2005

Erik,

Thanks. As we all develop new projects lets make sure we share them. 
Also, I am going to be creating some new science projects in the coming 
months and I will share with all of you the ideas and we can build on 
each and extend/improve them. I look forward to working together with 
you in the coming months.

Mark

On Mar 24, 2005, at 2:07 PM, Erik Nauman wrote:

> Point well taken. I'm glad you bring the discussion around to the
> importance of collaboration because I've had students collaborate in
> other situations with great results but in teaching with Squeak I
> realize I've pulled back and figured I could save the students a lot of
> frustration with a new tool by guiding them through solutions rather
> than setting it up so they could find their own way through. Thanks for
> the perspective!
> Erik Nauman
> The Hewitt School
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org
> [mailto:squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Mark Kesling
> Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 2:52 PM
> To: squeakland at squeakland.org
> Subject: Re: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report
>
> Ok! I will wade in on this one. Erik, I have been working with 3rd and
> 4th graders in at Orchard School in Indianapolis with Squeak for the
> past 6 months and have some thoughts for you.
>
> First, I think you are stuck by a more traditional definition of a
> teacher's role in the instruction of students when using technology and
> especially Squeak. I have found that neither I nor the children really
> need much in the way of tutorials when we approach solving problems
> together interactively with Squeak. Kim's book is very helpful but not
> essential. Try to look at this less about teaching programming and use
> it more as a problem solving tool for a variety of situations in
> science and mathematics. My students have created some amazing
> solutions to "child" problems in science and math using the software.
>
> I actually know very little about squeak and find that I am better at
> providing science and math problems (which can come from a traditional
> currcululum) to solve and then letting teams of children work through
> the solution. Which goes to the heart of my second point which is
> allowing them to work collaboratively at first to learn Squeak.
>
> Finally, my approach with my 120 3rd and 4th graders must be correct
> since, via word of mouth between students and parents, the entire
> middle school, grades 5 through 8, now want me to teach Squeak to them.
> I have begun that process with the 6th grade and have found that
> children have an amazing capacity to solve their own problems, even
> those that require discovery. Personally, I hope we never get too slick
> with the projects and documentation that we lose this wonderful element
> of discovery and invention. I believe the entire premise behind etoys
> was allowing children to create their own knowledge and for teachers to
> guide and facilitate this process rather than directly instruct
> students.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Mark
>
> On Mar 23, 2005, at 8:51 AM, Erik Nauman wrote:
>
>> I think the ideal would be something like your list below but a little
>> more fleshed out for the classroom teacher audience. With more ideas
>> accompanied with the specific "how tos" it would be less
> time-consuming
>> for teachers, even those with plenty of tech (but minimal programming)
>> experience like myself, to go beyond the few tutorials offered on
>> squeakland. With more scaffolding more teachers would be able to push
>> their students beyond simple variations of the basics like your son
>> experienced at school. Another issue for me is that I tend to shy away
>> from using tutorials with my students (5-7th grade) because I want
> them
>> to be able to use their object-oriented experience to process content
>> they are learning in other disciplines. So I have to come up with the
>> content and "how to" myself. If you could post your own projects and
>> solutions to squeakland I think it would be invaluable, even the
>> complex
>> projects you're working on as I think the squeak community is
>> enormously
>> varied in programming experience.
>>
>> My question is can the current procedure on squeakland for submitting
>> and posting projects on the kids play section of the site include
>> accompanying tutorials? I think this would help lower the grade of the
>> squeak learning curve for all users.
>> Thanks,
>> Erik Nauman
>> Middle School Technology Coordinator
>> The Hewitt School
>> 212-994-2610
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org
>> [mailto:squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Lawrence
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 7:46 PM
>> To: squeakland at squeakland.org
>> Subject: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report
>>
>>
>> Something like this
>>
>> 1. Drive a Car around a track
>>    HINT : follow the excellent tutorial
>>
>> 2. Salmon navigation
>>    HINT : draw the river as a gradient
>>    HINT : Watch the saturationUnder as you move your salmon around the
>> river
>>    HINT : store the previous saturation in a variable
>>
>> 3. Bouncing Basketballs
>>    HINT : add the acceleration to the forwardBy every tick
>>
>> .....
>>
>> 14. Star-eating Snake
>>    HINT : Use the 'copy' message to gorw an extra body segment
>>
>> ...
>>
>> 27. Prisoner's Dilemma
>>    HINT : Store the history in a linked list
>>
>> .....
>>
>> 38. Kepler's Law
>>    HINT : Think of a player as a vector
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
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