[squeakland] Artifacts in ObjectCatalog

[kharness at illinois.edu]

Kim,
I came across Lockhart's Lament last year; it is very good. Math education is a chaotic arena and at this point I don't think it is a good place for Etoys. They have somehow pulverized the joy mathematicians find in their subject and are just offering dry husks to children.

When a school is ready to add computer science, that is where we fit. That means for many school buildings just one teacher, like for music, art, and phys ed. So a district like Unit 4 with ten elementary schools would not have to in-service 500 classroom teachers to teach Etoys, but rather just find ten teachers who could/would. Just ten teachers reach 5000 students; very efficient and very effective. Sadly, we are still searching for those districts. 

Have you read the Ravitch book yet? It is too bad she didn't foresee the consequences of the policies she so ably advocated and now renounces. At least she has the courage to say she was wrong. Education is slow to change and the testing industry will not go quietly. 

Our group here is working to have a curriculum ready for the time when people realize they need one. You know, of course, there is a difference of kind between an assortment of experiences/projects and a curriculum. This summer we are working on a set of materials for HS computer science and we will see what teachers think of them in our August workshop. The prerequisites require that they already know one programming language and are already teaching CS. We are looking forward to some interesting discussions with them; their knowledge and experience will be invaluable to us. 
---------------------------------
Call for Applications!

CS4HS:  Summer Workshop for Computer Science teachers!  Generous stipends!
Supported by Google and the University of Illinois, this workshop is aimed at teachers who are looking for exciting content for teaching beginning programming at the high-school or middle-school level.
Join us as we explore the Etoys programming language as a platform for attracting students into the field of computing.

Dates: August 3-5
Location: University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
Details and Application: cs4hs.mste.illinois.edu
--------------------------------------------
Thanks for the cheerful note.
Regards,
Kathleen

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 29 May 2010 10:53:28 -0700
>From: Kim Rose <kim.rose at vpri.org>  
>Subject: Re: [squeakland] Artifacts in ObjectCatalog  
>To: "<kharness at illinois.edu>" <kharness at illinois.edu>
>Cc: "Hilaire Fernandes" <hilaire.fernandes at edu.ge.ch>, "squeakland.org mailing list" <squeakland at squeakland.org>
>
>Beautifully stated, Kathleen -- hear,  hear!
>
>For additional reading, I'd also like to recommend "A Mathematician's  
>Lament" by Paul Lockhart.
>
>A (shorter-than-the-book PDF version is available here:  www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf 
>, but also highly recommend reading the (slightly) longer book.
>
>Kim
>
>On May 29, 2010, at 8:45 AM, <kharness at illinois.edu> <kharness at illinois.edu 
> > wrote:
>
>> The god of assessment has always had clay feet and Diane Ravitch's  
>> book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How  
>> Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York: Basic Books,  
>> 2010) gives me hope that we will see less emphasis on multiple- 
>> choice-single-right-answer-learning. I would urge that we (Etoys)  
>> not spend very much time developing subject area electronic  
>> worksheets and mechanisms that count right/wrong answers and  
>> keystroke attempts to be part of the software. Book publishers  
>> routinely provide such materials that are specific, sequenced, and  
>> aligned and, from what I can see, teachers are hard pressed to use  
>> everything that is already available. If new artifacts are being  
>> considered as potential objects for the next release of Etoys, we  
>> should start talking about our vision for Etoys and what the core of  
>> it will be.
>>
>> Etoys thrives on mathematics and, on imagination, but to put too  
>> much emphasis on teaching a core curriculum of math or science will  
>> limit the other uses and imagination. My students use math in their  
>> projects and are indeed learning concepts at a deep level but they  
>> are not learning the math curriculum for their grade. For example,  
>> my 2nd-5th grade students routinely use test statements, create  
>> variables, and add random number generator tiles to projects. They  
>> use xy coordinates fluently because they want to control locations  
>> of objects and to position objects with reset scripts. Most of the  
>> Races and Mazes in EtoysIllinois were made by elementary students  
>> and show these kinds of applications of learning.
>