[squeakland] [IAEP] Why is Scratch more popular than Etoys?

[karl ramberg]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 7:05 PM, K. K. Subramaniam <kksubbu.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday 19 Sep 2011 2:27:55 AM Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:
>> About programming for the masses, I see two educational reasons to
>> insist on that.
> The debates about programmin I encounter is usually around "how" and not
> "why".
>> A much better reason is Papert's: so the children will have an object to
>> think with. The idea is to learn to learn but we need a suitable way to
>> talk about learning strategies.
> Papert had a multi-modal approach to develop thinking skills in children -
> using large spaces, physical movement, manipulation in three- and two-
> dimensional spaces etc. Etoys collapses everything to a single dimension -
> left-to-right sequence in tiles and top-bottom in scripts.
>
> Papert's methods were more closely aligned to the way children think and act
> while the gap seems to be much larger in Etoys and smaller in the case of
> TuxPaint or Scratch. There is lot more in Etoys than in these two but that is
> irrelevant if children cannot cross the initial chasm. Yes, a few children may
> make it across the chasm on their own steam, but thinking tools should be
> designed to benefit 80% of children, not just the top quintile.

I don't think Etoys are that far behind either Scratch or Tuxpaint.
Etoys does have a steep learning curve.
But so has most stuff worth doing anyway :-)

I think we need user testing on Etoys to expose the biggest flaws.
What are the biggest stumbling blocks ?
Fix that issue and repeat the process.

Cheers,
Karl