[squeakland] Etoys, is it difficult or easy?

Steve Thomas sthomas1 at gosargon.com
Wed Sep 8 12:19:06 EDT 2010


On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com> wrote:

> Every so often we hear someone saying Etoys is difficult.
>

So, my question then is *How do we respond?*
Some possible responses:

   1. Say nothing.
   2. Well Scracth has a lower floor but also a lower ceiling and Etoys has
   a much higher ceiling (which to most people sounds like Charlie Brown's
   teacher talking "wa wa, wawa, wa wa", if you don't get the cultural
   reference, in the Peanut's cartoons Charlie Brown, aka Carlitos and Snoopy
   en espanol, the adults were never seen, you only heard a teacher speaking in
   completely unintelligible sounds)
   3. Well as soon as we get $100 million in funding we will design a new
   interface that will blow your socks off.
   4. Really I found it quite easy (implication, you are calling the person
   an idiot, not a recommended approach). The sad truth is I have said this.
   Not in these words, but in saying something like, I was able to teach this
   to my 8 year old in 30 minutes and they learned it all on their own with
   very little help.  While the above statement was true and a valid point, it
   did not "win the person" and most likely put them on the defensive.
   5. "Really, I have heard that comment from one or two others, but I have
   also heard others say once they spent a little time learning, it was rather
   easy.  If you like we could sit down together for 10 minutes and I can show
   you how to get started and you can create your own book in Etoys. Or I could
   point you to some good tutorials/screencasts that only take 10 minutes of
   your time. (Of course we need to have these first).

The goal is to "win the person" not "win the argument".

Stephen
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