[Squeakland] [Fwd: Questions regarding Squeak]

[Eric Eisaman]

Well, I have been using Squeak Etoys for two years in my high school classes
as a means to create physical simulations, presentations, and games.  I like
Etoys as an initiation to object oriented programming however, at times
students students become overwhelmed with Etoys. If this happens frequently
within a specific class of students, I have them use "Scratch", available at
scratch.mit.edu . "Scratch" is a gentler approach to programming than Etoys
yet lacks some of the advanced functionality. Next year I may start everyone
in "Scratch" before moving on to Etoys. The more advanced students have
shown some success in creating with the latest  Full Squeak image without
using Etoys. I am however, limited in my own abilities to help the advanced
students. I have done a few tutorials with Tweak yet lack enough
understanding to use it in class. I feel that Croquet will be a great option
for my classes, but I continuously receive callout errors when the program
tries to access the OpenGL library which I know is installed. I think it's
important for the students to see growing levels of sophistication built on
the same basic virtual machine going from Scratch to Etoys to Squeak to
Smalltalk.

If you have particular lessons or project goals you wish to share, I can
respond with appropriate detail for what it's worth.

Best Wishes,
Eric


On 4/3/07, Kim Rose <kim.rose at vpri.org> wrote:
>
>
> Perhaps some of you who have gone through a similiar process would
> like to answer this query?
>
>
> >
> >From: Alwyn Ng <alwyn at splashwurks.com>
> >X-Mailer: The Bat! (v3.80.06) Professional
> >Reply-To: Alwyn Ng <alwyn at splashwurks.com>
> >Organization: Splashwurks InfoTech
> >X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
> >Message-ID: <259746180.20070330112541 at splashwurks.com>
> >To: info at squeakland.org
> >Subject: Questions regarding Squeak
> >MIME-Version: 1.0
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >
> >Hi,
> >
> >I have a question regarding Squeak: In terms of features,
> >capabilities and what kids can learn/gain from using it, how is Squeak
> >different from a game development software for kids? I am looking at
> >conducting courses for kids from age 7 to 12 and I am considering
> >purchasing licenses for a game development software for kids until I
> >chanced upon squeakland.org.
> >
> >Thanks in advance.
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >Alwyn Ng (Mr)
> >Manager, InfoTech
> >Splashwurks
> >Mobile: 8118-5453
> >Office: 6749-1948
> >Fax   : 6749-2520
> >Email: alwyn at splashwurks.com
>
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