[squeakland] Etoys on Sugar in the Classroom

[kharness at illinois.edu]

Bert,
It is possible for very young students to use Etoys and to learn quite a lot. I have posted projects and lesson plans which I have used with K and 1st graders. Lynne May, let me know if I can help beyond this.

The projects are part of the set of CS4K5 materials I am writing and are posted at EtoysIllinois.org.  All of the projects assume 40 minutes of instruction once a week and are paced so that the projects will be finished by the end of an academic year. Very young students can't be hurried; that is the key to making sure they enjoy what they are learning. It is very easy to plan too large a project and then to push them forward too fast. 

The example projects they look pretty simple to adult eyes but are solid accomplishments for children five or six years old.
Kathleen 

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 11:00:01 -0800
>From: Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>  
>Subject: [squeakland] Etoys on Sugar in the Classroom  
>To: "squeakland.org mailing list" <squeakland at squeakland.org>
>
>   http://blog.melchua.com/2010/02/06/lynne-mays-soas-deployment/
>     * Lynne May is continuing to work with school
>       administration on getting (and keeping!) our
>       all-clear-to-proceed status, and starting to
>       think about how to inform parents. She’s also
>       spending more time getting to know
>       various Activities, as shehas played with Sugar
>       multiple times before, but never in the “how
>       will I use this in my classroom right now?”
>       sense. Last night’s adventure was Etoys, which
>       was ultimately deemed too difficult to work with
>       first-graders on within the scope of our
>       deployment. We would loveto be proven wrong
>       about this, by the way – the concern is mostly
>       that we’d spend so much time getting through
>       the basics of Etoys that this is all we’d be
>       able to do for the last 4 months of the school
>       year.
>   - Bert -
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