[Squeakland] Demoing Etoys to kids

[Bill Kerr]

I'd probably start with the car demo, which is on the squeakland site - not
imaginative of me but everyone is interested in cars :-)

It doesn't really matter as long as you have something of interest prepared
before hand. I think you are really asking how to teach? The important thing
is to keep communicating with and monitoring how they are going and be
prepared to adapt as you go along. Most beginning teachers make the mistake
of trying to cover too much content, rather than establishing a good
relationship and rapport with the students. It's important to be prepared
and have some real content but once the lesson starts all sorts of things
will begin to  happen and the important thing is to be alert and to respond
to that. Stick to your plan or respond to the kids needs or some sort of
combination? That is what teaching is all about, sometimes flying by the
seat of your pants. As long as the kids are engaged you are doing fine,
don't worry if you don't get to the end of your prepared lesson! The 30-60
mins will fly.

hth
-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/ <http://www.users.on.net/%7Ebillkerr/>
skype: billkerr2006

On 8/11/07, Luke Gorrie <luke at member.fsf.org> wrote:
>
> Howdy!
>
> Can anyone suggest a fun way to demo Etoys to kids aged around 10-12?
>
> A friend and I are helping out with a couple of summer camps for kids
> and we're looking for an opportunity to bring Etoys into the mix,
> either one on one or with a small group, and for only a short period
> of time (30-60 minutes, say). Most of the kids only speak arabic, we
> have one OLPC XO and several other laptops.
>
> Our first idea was the "Etoys Challenge for Novices" from the OLPC XO
> but we wonder if this is a bit ambitious based on half an hour with a
> bright 12-year-old who can read english (I'm not sure).
>
> What we'd like is for kids to be amused and to have some glimpse of
> what a computer is like, and for ourselves to learn a bit about how
> kids deal with computers. Any advice would be welcome.
>
> Cheers,
> -Luke
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