[Squeakland] ideas to promote squeak in telecenters in Brazil

[Paulo Drummond]

Scratch has only the blocks' wordings translated into portuguese; it  
has not (as Etoys) an internal language editor, so we only hope John  
Maloney and his team release an updated version, that either has this  
editor or a more complete 'dictionary'. Otherwise, Scratch is great  
kids production environment and a very well-finished system.

Paulo

On May 21, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Alan Kay wrote:

> Yes, Scratch is another Squeak based authoring system for young  
> people. MIT did a nice job with it. It is aimed at teenagers and is  
> more of a productivity tool than an educational authoring environment.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alan
>
> ---------------
>
> At 02:18 AM 5/21/2007, José Luis Redrejo wrote:
>> For telecenters, I would take a look to Scratch ( http:// 
>> scratch.mit.edu/ ), even if at their homepage they only speak  
>> about windows and macintosh, it works under linux too (only some  
>> issues with the midi support are still remaining, but the rest of  
>> the tool works ok). I think Scratch is specially thought for  
>> places as telecenters.
>> Regards
>>
>> 2007/5/21, Marta Voelcker < marta at pensamentodigital.org.br>:
>> Dear Squeakers,
>>
>> As one of the researchers from the University that is running the  
>> OLPC pilot project in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I was introduced to  
>> squeak, last February, when I could bring an XO home during a  
>> weekend.
>>
>> But now,  my work  is related to promote capacity building to the  
>> staff of  organizations that run TELECENTERS.
>>
>> Telecenters, in Brazil, are rooms with an average of 12 computers 
>> (PCs) with access to Internet inside NGOs or grassroots  
>> organizations, located in low-income communities in Brazil.
>>
>> I am the coordinator of a Foundation that promotes capacity  
>> building to the staff of these organizations, to implement curses  
>> in telecenters. Our methodology has the same line of  
>> constructionism...
>> We have been working "IT Basic knowledge"  through project-based  
>> learning, now we want to start using Squeak.
>>
>> In Brazil, schools work on shifts. Children go to school in the  
>> morning (8:00 to 12:00) or in the afternoon (2:00 to 18:00). If  
>> the child goes in the morning, during the afternoon he or she  
>> might get a vacancy in an after school program offered by an NGO  
>> or grassroots organization, or religious organization. Government  
>> helps supporting these organizations to implement this after  
>> school programs. Those organizations are frequently receiving  
>> refurbished computers and building partnerships to create their  
>> telecenter. Than, they come to us, asking for guidance about what  
>> to do with the telecenter.
>>
>> So, we have telecenters as informal educational environment to  
>> work with children and teenagers. We don't need to relate our work  
>> to school curriculum, we can promote any kind of curses, workshop,  
>> guided playtime... any thing!
>>
>> We have about 45 of these NGOs equipped with telecenters in Porto  
>> Alegre, already working with us (from a total of 150 NGOs partners  
>> from other cities).
>>
>> Our motivation is strongly related to develop programming skills  
>> on children and teenagers.
>>
>> We are thinking about to start with a group of age around 10 and  
>> another group around 15. We would choose one  telecenter and plan  
>> to  work there ( instead of train their staff).
>>
>> But what would we teach? Should we keep thinking in project-based  
>> learning? When we use  other software we frequently start working  
>> with  identity construction, and after some exploration of the  
>> software, the group starts a project...
>>
>> But to understand the basis of squeak, the "drive a car " project  
>> seems so important!!!
>>
>> Well, sorry guys to be so long in this Sunday night! Seems that to  
>> write to you already made some goals clear to me!
>>
>> Ideas, experiences and suggestions are welcome!
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> Marta Voelcker
>>
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