[squeakland] [etoys-dev] (SQ-749) and Kathleen's question on "What do you mean by Artifacts?"
Alan Kay
alan.nemo at yahoo.com
Mon Aug 23 15:20:24 EDT 2010
Sure ... one way to think of this is that you can start with a sample text
object that you modify to make a "prototype" of the ones you want to use as
numeric labels. Make them wide enough, center the text, make the background the
same as the background of the screen (so it will make a nice space when it is
positioned over a line, etc.)
You can put this in a variable and then make copies (instances) of it to
actually use as labels.
Cheers,
Alan
________________________________
From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
Cc: Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>; Kathleen Harness
<kharness at illinois.edu>; etoys-dev <etoys-dev at squeakland.org>; squeakland
<squeakland at squeakland.org>
Sent: Mon, August 23, 2010 10:59:02 AM
Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] (SQ-749) and Kathleen's question on "What do you mean
by Artifacts?"
Minor point of clarification, it works when you change the width of the text
Object and center the text, which is the solution Bert came up with and I will
use for now.
It doesn't work if you unless you change the width attribute of the text object
and center the text. See attached screenshot.
See attached screenshot
On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Stephen
>
>It seems to work (see attached picture).
>
>Remember that "text is text", if you want to use it as a label then you can
>center it by using the FF menu.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Alan
>
>
>
>
>
>
________________________________
From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
>To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
>Cc: Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>; Kathleen Harness
><kharness at illinois.edu>; etoys-dev <etoys-dev at squeakland.org>; squeakland
><squeakland at squeakland.org>
>Sent: Mon, August 23, 2010 5:48:07 AM
>
>Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] (SQ-749) and Kathleen's question on "What do you mean
>by Artifacts?"
>
>
>On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 7:57 AM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I think I'm not understanding your graphing example. It is "pretty easy" to
>position text objects containing numbers (you can adjust the centers of any
>object and the x and y coordinates can have some arithmetic done to them with
>results put in the numeric value). Please give me more info here.
>>
The problem seems to be only with centering 1 character text. To recreate, draw
a vertical line, create a text object "1" and set both to the the same X value.
Two or more characters align and are not an issue.
Stephen
>
>
________________________________
From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
>To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>; Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>;
>Kathleen Harness <kharness at illinois.edu>
>Cc: etoys-dev <etoys-dev at squeakland.org>; squeakland
><squeakland at squeakland.org>
>Sent: Sun, August 22, 2010 8:37:21 PM
>
>Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] (SQ-749) and Kathleen's question on "What do you mean
>by Artifacts?"
>
>
>Hi Alan,
>
>
>On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>A good slogan for teaching, pedagogy, and curriculum design is "When should it
>be easy, and when should it be hard?".
>
>>
This, for me at least, is hard to figure out ahead of time when designing a
lesson. I am much better when I interact with the kids and can improvise on the
spot.
The notion here is that for education to be transformative, you wind up as a
different "better" person than you were, and this means that certain
difficulties were very important to your learning -- the stuff that was "easy"
you could already do (and some of the easy stuff is not what you want to aim
at). Building knowledge and skills to get fluent at handling difficulties (and
in some case rendering them non-difficult) is a key for much important learning.
>
>On the other hand, gratiutous non-productive difficulties are to be avoided
>because they generally both distract and occupy " thinking chunks" that one
>needs for the important stuff.
>
>(I don't recognize my quote that was paraphrased)
>It comes from a video I found in the Bell Labs library around 84-86 (not sure of
>video date). You were talking about User Interface design and my biological
>memory recalls you refering to using a mouse and saying "If I can do it in one
>click, I'll do it. If it takes two clicks, I might do it. If it takes three or
>more clicks, I probably won't do it". I have used and attributed it to you a
>number of times since. If I am in error please let me know and I will self
>correct.
I really could use Gorden Bell's E-Memory. Hopefully you are heeding his advice
and collecting your E-memory so that we may search and study it. One way to do
this is anytime you give an interview, presentation etc where it is recorded,
request a copy of the recording and all rights to distribute as you see fit.
Also be sure they video your presentation and not just you so we can see what
you are referring to. It would be nice if we had text versions of those
interviews. I am working on transcribing the interview you gave at Natural
math and its time consuming. I have a friend who works on Google speech
recognition software and would try and send him a copy, but Ellumintate doesn't
seem to have a way to extract the audio.
Adults tend to be the biggest problems when trying to help children learn
things. It's the adults who generally don't want to do the work and don't see
many things as fun. Kids (and people in general) can spend a lot of time
focussed and doing when they are having fun.
>
If not Adults, who? If the goal is transformation I see Adults as part of the
solution. So does labeling them as part of the problem (which I am NOT
disagreeing with) help or hinder transformation?
I ask this because I see a lot of teacher bashing which I believe hinders our
cause much more than helps it.
Another choice besides adults is older kids, I have seen this succesfully used
in Scouting and in a public speaking conference my kids attended this past
weekend. They tend to listen to older kids more and the older kids realize the
importance of fun. The key here, as with adults, is guidance and training.
Constructivism (one of many such terms I don't use because they have lost their
meanings) doesn't mean discovery from scratch (this is a huge confusion many
people have), but does mean "understand and clarifying by making a careful
descriptive model".
This can be done with English and writing (it is what descriptive, expositional,
and argumentative writing are supposed to be about). It can be done with
mathematics. It can be done in many cases with physical construction materials.
And a lot can be done in terms of computer programs.
>Thank you I really hadn't thought of this before and it is an excellent point
>(ie: something I can use with my kids).
I will look for ways my kids can learn this.
I like the Montessori curriculum approach of making a carefully designed
environment for the chilldren that allows choice on their part and allows
limited the degrees of freedom on the educator's part.
The problem I struggle with is how to design the environment and what games,
playthinks, problems, etc to use.
One of the best projects we've ever designed is the Galilean Gravity one -- and
it illustrates what you have to do with guidance on the one hand and space to
play on the other to enormously raise the probability that most children will be
able to see and understand what is going on without having to give them the
"answer" to memorize.
>
I love that project and I find it extremely frustrating. Frustrating because I
really want to do it with my kids, but it is really really hard to do in Etoys.
The hard part being importing the video. The reason for this I believe is that
the video player only supports MPEG.The idea that kids take their own videos and
then analyze them is an excellent approach. Avigail Snir had a wonderful example
of using video at Squeakfest. But as I understand it, even she had a lot of
problems trying to convert the video into MPEG and even more frustrating is she
is having trouble sharing it with the world so other teachers could see it and
be inspired.
>
>
>One of the keys in the early Montessori schools was the intense comprehensive
>training of the Montessori teachers -- and the lack of the equivalent of this in
>most of today's schools is a huge problem.
>>
I have also been thinking about using scripts (the theatrical kind) and cue's to
look for with scripted responses as a way of teaching. Perhaps Actors would be
good teachers hmmmm need to flesh out the idea more.
The scripts in Etoys are independent of the visible appearance of the object
they are attached to (the objects' "costumes" can be changed at will -- and this
is how "frame animation" is done in Etoys).
I'm not quite understanding what it is that you would like for teachers beyond
a repository of projects with extensive notes about how they were made and how
to make them.
A repository of projects is good, but I would add a repository of objects, sets
of objects and scripts. Ie: I think unit of "things you can share/store/easily
re-use" is too large. I write this then ask myself, why do I feel this way? I
think it goes back to the point you verbalized much better than me "It gets
annoying after the first few times". I may be thinking of what you refer to
later in the email as "packaging up" a solution.
>
>
>I would like to be able to re-use and share those solutions (especially since
>Etoys lets me look inside and modify them). The ability to look inside and
>modify them is why I would prefer "artifacts" (as discussed in previous emails
>and built by Hilaire as part of iStoa) be created with scripting tiles as
>opposed to doing so in squeak. This would allow teacher to build a set of
>virtual manipulatives that others could modify or just look inside and figure
>out how they work. One response I received was that this would not scale, but
>frankly I don't understand why not.
>
>
>"Packaging a solution" would also let you develop a curriculum where kids built
>their own tools (ex: a graphing tool) and re-use them in other projects. The one
>tricky part of the graphing tool is labeling the number lines (trying to align
>the text is hard, at least I have not found a simple solution) so perhaps a
>number line object would be needed.
>
>If "learning by making" is a good idea, then shouldn't teachers learn new ideas
>about Etoys by making them (but with lots of guidance)?
>>
Okay my turn to not quite understand: Yes I agree "learning by making" is a good
idea. But should teachers and learners have to make everything from first
principles? Who has the time?
Would teachers not benefit from using "great literture" created by people who
were PUFx's (ie: had a Profound Understanding of Fundamental <subject matter>)?
I have a friend at work who while at Stanford and did very well in Organic
Chemistry, he thought the reason he did so well was he had 7 or 8 core concepts
from which he could derive the rest. He decided to try and teach those concepts
and when and how to use them to some of the other students to see if they could
use them and "transform". It worked well and I think this idea has some
merit. Unfortunately he had a head injury and can't remember them. My challenge
is to find sets of core ideas and how to use them, then figure out how to
present them in an age appropriate manner.
I also think you made a good point in the Natural Math interview when you
mentioned Seymour Papert's comment that it doesn't much matter what mathematics
we teach them as long as they are learning to reason like a mathematician.
On the other hand, there are any number of things in the Etoys design itself
that could be vastly improved to help both adult and child learning, and also
for them to make better extensions.
Yes, the question I am struggling with are which are the important ones worth
doing first. To think about that I am considering imposing upon myself something
similar to the Warren Buffet advise to "give myself a ticket with only twenty
slots in it so that you had twenty punches - representing all the investments I
could make in a lifetime". I think instead I will try and limit myself to three
requests for the rest of the year. Those who know me know how hard it will be to
impose that constraint. But one way would be allow myself to discuss many
possible improvement (which helps me think about them) and then only pick three
to request.
For example, I do all my talk presentations using Etoys and I write scripts to
sequence "builds" of additive visual material to the slide (Powerpoint has a
feature for doing this that is more convenient for some goals and simply won't
allow others). It is very instructive to do this by hand a few times, and then
gets annoying.
Agreed.
Etoys does not have a good extension mechanism for "packaging up" a solution to
"slide builds" that can then be used as a feature. This is a real sin against
our own precepts. The lack of it is due to EToys being thought of as temporary
and of limited scope at Disney. It is terrible that we don't have it now.
I think Ricardo's GSoC Morph I/O may help solve at least part of the problem.
You can save an object (including a playfield and its embedded objects) in a
file and import it later. I have used it a number of times and find it very
useful.
Why don't we do it now? Because we've been trying to move on to the next design
since before OLPC came along. And so forth.
I look forward to seeing the next design (I have only caught glimpses from what
I have read on the VPRI site and reading into emails and discussions). Is there
a time frame when we can expect to see it?
All that said, I think the most important thing to work on now is great content
(projects, lesson plans, screencasts, etc.)
Many Cheers for all you have done and continue to do,
Stephen
>
>
>
________________________________
From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
>>To: Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>; Kathleen Harness
>><kharness at illinois.edu>
>>Cc: etoys-dev dev <etoys-dev at squeakland.org>; squeakland
>><squeakland at squeakland.org>; Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
>>Sent: Thu, August 12, 2010 8:11:46 AM
>>Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] (SQ-749) and Kathleen's question on "What do you mean
>>by Artifacts?"
>>
>>
>>
>>I have been reading Alan Kay's Thoughts About Teaching Science and Mathematics
>>To Young Children:
>>
>>I think one of the trickiest issues in this kind of design is an analogy to the
>>learning of science itself, and that is "how much should the learners/users have
>>to do by themselves vs. how much should the curriculum/system do for them?" Most
>>computer users have been mostly exposed to "productivity tools" in which as many
>>things as possible have been done for them. The kinds of educational
>>environments we are talking about here are at their best when the learner does
>>the important parts by themselves, and any black or translucent boxes serve only
>>on the side and not at the center of the learning. What is the center and what
>>is the side will shift as the learning progresses, and this has to be
>>accommodated.
>
>
>By exposing everything in Etoys as "First Principles" (which in this particular
>case I understand to mean, that we have a minimal set of scripting tiles and
>objects from which everything can be built) we avoid the "productivity tools"
>issue because everything is exposed. It is also a beautiful, elegant and
>exposes a powerful idea.
>
>
>The challenge in a system where everything is done from "First Principles" is
>that when you are designing an"educational environment" "lesson", or "Artifact"
>( better terms might be "playthink" and/or "tool to think with"), it can take a
>lot of work to build those preferably translucent boxes. And to paraphrase
>another Alan Kay quote on user interface design: "If it takes one step I'll do
>it, If it takes two steps I might do it, if it takes three or more steps forget
>about it!"
>
>
>No, I am not arguing to make things easy for everyone, we need find ways to get
>kids to have "hard fun." Hard work and ragging a problem are good habits. I
>also strongly believe that giving kids a "blank canvas" and a great set of
>brushes and paints is an excellent and preffered method, but not the only one we
>should use.
>
>
>I am arguing (and struggling) with is how in a "First Principle" system like
>Etoys, we can find ways to make it easier for teachers/designers (ie: make them
>more productive). I fear I see in some folks (none on this email list of
>course) a tendency towards what I initially saw (and fell into myself) as the
>constructivism trap. Where I encountered people who thought kids should
>construct all knowledge themselves from Scratch (pun intended ;). As I recall
>Alan (and others pointing out) we can't expect kids to do that, they will repeat
>the same mistakes people did over thousands of years. My initial thoughts are a
>repository of Artifacts that teachers can use along with a set of scripts (the
>problem with the set of scripts idea is that the scripts in Etoys are not
>decoupled from the ?morphs? (not sure of the correct term here, but basically
>the pixels visually representing the object). Bert's idea that we have a Player
>Variable and the scripts that operate on it is a good one, but I think there may
>be some bugs there, need to test more.
>
>
>Now I will more directly address Kathleen's question: "What do you mean by
>"Artifacts".
>I will switch from "Artifacts" to the term "Playthinks" (which I encountered in
>the "The Big Book of Brain Games" by Ivan Moscovich).
>One of the best and simplest "Playthinks" for teaching I ever encountered was
>Robert B. Davis' classroom warm-up (which I showed at Squeakfest and have wrote
>about here.) Basically it involves drawing on the board a 4 x 4 grid
>. . . .
>>. . . .
>>. . . .
>>. . . .
Then having kids pick two numbers and using those two numbers as X and Y
counting from 0 at the origin point in the lower left and then If they land on
the board marking an X or O until one team wins. Some of the keys to this
"Playthink" are:
* you let kids puzzle it out for themselves, they figure out the rules, you
don't tell them
* it contains a powerful idea
* it can be easily extended to other concepts (negative numbers, a number is
all the ways you can name it, is this game fair ...)
* its fun
Other examples of "Playthinks" would be cuisenaire rods, pentagrams, area
blocks, other good "virtual manipulatives" and my feeble attempts Circle
Explorer and Pattern Blocks and Tools.
Bert, your comments on SQ-749 sparked my writing this, I will address it more
specifically in a separate email after some more thought.
Including Alan so he can correct any misinterpretations and hopefully comment
FYI: A lot of other excelent writings from VPRI are here, most are Computer
Science related but a number deal with educational issues and Etoys.
Stephen
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 5:02 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>On 12.08.2010, at 10:32, Steve Thomas wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 3:32 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>
>wrote:
>>> This would likely be simple to implement, but could break existing projects.
>>>E.g. the morphing stuff in the showcase. Maybe you could take a look?
>>
>> Checked "Morphing" by Kazuhiro Abe and that should be fine. Each Polygon in the
>>holder has the same number of vertices and the script simple changes the
>>positions of the vertices one at a time.
>>
>> "The Walkers" and associated remixes by P.A. Dreyfus uses a special category
>>"morphing" which would be great to get into Etoys (although I would suggest the
>>addition of some way to show/manage the frames) to make the invisible more
>>visible and to make it easier to create these kind of animations. Anyway,
>>whether this would be a problem or not depends on how it is implemented. If he
>>stores complete information about the polygon in each frame, I see no problems.
>>If he only stores differences and adds/removes/repositions each vertex that MAY
>>cause a problem.
>>
>> Anyway if it is a simple change and you can make it, I think I can easily test
>>the change by opening the project, then file-in the changes and see if anything
>>breaks. Or you could also ask P.A. Dreyfus (master of polygon's and connectors)
>>what he thinks as he knows and can check the changes against his implementation.
>>
>> Stephen
>
>Thinking about this more I do not like the proposal. It would makes the system
>less predictable.
>
>Having the new vertex remain at the same position is the only sensible choice.
>It matches the "copy" behavior of regular objects, which also appear in the same
>position. It would not scale anyway - see this image where I only inserted 4
>vertices. The position quickly converges to the next vertex position.
>
>
>
>
>Also, I'd argue that "add a vertex at beginning" and "add a vertex at end" tiles
>are not needed in the first place. To be useful they would, as you noticed, have
>to be "set cursor to beginning and insert vertex" and "set cursor to end and
>insert vertex", because otherwise one cannot assign their position immediately.
>But that makes them perform two operations that are available separately. There
>is no good reason to coalesce those steps into one.
>
>In any case, inserting a vertex should not change the cursor. If you want a
>cursor change to occur, insert a tile.
>
>So my counter-proposal is: remove the "add vertex at beginning" and "add vertex
>at end" tiles. (to not break existing projects, the tiles would only be hidden)
>
>- Bert -
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>etoys-dev mailing list
>etoys-dev at squeakland.org
>http://lists.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/etoys-dev
>
>
>>
>
>
>
>
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