squeakland March 2005

squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org

24 participants
32 discussions

Re: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report
by Erik Nauman 25 Mar '05

25 Mar '05

Point well taken. I'm glad you bring the discussion around to the importance of collaboration because I've had students collaborate in other situations with great results but in teaching with Squeak I realize I've pulled back and figured I could save the students a lot of frustration with a new tool by guiding them through solutions rather than setting it up so they could find their own way through. Thanks for the perspective! Erik Nauman The Hewitt School -----Original Message----- From: squeakland-bounces(a)squeakland.org [mailto:squeakland-bounces@squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Mark Kesling Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 2:52 PM To: squeakland(a)squeakland.org Subject: Re: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report Ok! I will wade in on this one. Erik, I have been working with 3rd and 4th graders in at Orchard School in Indianapolis with Squeak for the past 6 months and have some thoughts for you. First, I think you are stuck by a more traditional definition of a teacher's role in the instruction of students when using technology and especially Squeak. I have found that neither I nor the children really need much in the way of tutorials when we approach solving problems together interactively with Squeak. Kim's book is very helpful but not essential. Try to look at this less about teaching programming and use it more as a problem solving tool for a variety of situations in science and mathematics. My students have created some amazing solutions to "child" problems in science and math using the software. I actually know very little about squeak and find that I am better at providing science and math problems (which can come from a traditional currcululum) to solve and then letting teams of children work through the solution. Which goes to the heart of my second point which is allowing them to work collaboratively at first to learn Squeak. Finally, my approach with my 120 3rd and 4th graders must be correct since, via word of mouth between students and parents, the entire middle school, grades 5 through 8, now want me to teach Squeak to them. I have begun that process with the 6th grade and have found that children have an amazing capacity to solve their own problems, even those that require discovery. Personally, I hope we never get too slick with the projects and documentation that we lose this wonderful element of discovery and invention. I believe the entire premise behind etoys was allowing children to create their own knowledge and for teachers to guide and facilitate this process rather than directly instruct students. I hope this helps. Mark On Mar 23, 2005, at 8:51 AM, Erik Nauman wrote: > I think the ideal would be something like your list below but a little > more fleshed out for the classroom teacher audience. With more ideas > accompanied with the specific "how tos" it would be less time-consuming > for teachers, even those with plenty of tech (but minimal programming) > experience like myself, to go beyond the few tutorials offered on > squeakland. With more scaffolding more teachers would be able to push > their students beyond simple variations of the basics like your son > experienced at school. Another issue for me is that I tend to shy away > from using tutorials with my students (5-7th grade) because I want them > to be able to use their object-oriented experience to process content > they are learning in other disciplines. So I have to come up with the > content and "how to" myself. If you could post your own projects and > solutions to squeakland I think it would be invaluable, even the > complex > projects you're working on as I think the squeak community is > enormously > varied in programming experience. > > My question is can the current procedure on squeakland for submitting > and posting projects on the kids play section of the site include > accompanying tutorials? I think this would help lower the grade of the > squeak learning curve for all users. > Thanks, > Erik Nauman > Middle School Technology Coordinator > The Hewitt School > 212-994-2610 > > > -----Original Message----- > From: squeakland-bounces(a)squeakland.org > [mailto:squeakland-bounces@squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Lawrence > Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 7:46 PM > To: squeakland(a)squeakland.org > Subject: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report > > > Something like this > > 1. Drive a Car around a track > HINT : follow the excellent tutorial > > 2. Salmon navigation > HINT : draw the river as a gradient > HINT : Watch the saturationUnder as you move your salmon around the > river > HINT : store the previous saturation in a variable > > 3. Bouncing Basketballs > HINT : add the acceleration to the forwardBy every tick > > ..... > > 14. Star-eating Snake > HINT : Use the 'copy' message to gorw an extra body segment > > ... > > 27. Prisoner's Dilemma > HINT : Store the history in a linked list > > ..... > > 38. Kepler's Law > HINT : Think of a player as a vector > > > > _______________________________________________ > Squeakland mailing list > Squeakland(a)squeakland.org > http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland > _______________________________________________ Squeakland mailing list Squeakland(a)squeakland.org http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

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Including morphs into flaps
by Gustavo Correa H. 24 Mar '05

24 Mar '05

Squeakland friends: If you create a new flap to store some morphs to have them ready for future use, a number is added to the morph´s name when you put the object into that flap. When you extract the object (a copy) from the flap, you once again get another sequencial number appended to its name. I find that this is different from the objects you get from the standard "Supplies" flap. Is there any way to store/retrieve morphs into/out-of your flap with the name you originally assigned to the morph? No numbers appended? I find it necessary when you use multiples copies of those morphs that execute some scripts, because otherwise you may loose the connection with the class of the original object in your scripting execution. Thanks for your help. Regards from Quito-Ecuador Gustavo Correa H.

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Re: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report
by Alan Kay 23 Mar '05

23 Mar '05

Good suggestions! There are also some very good project write ups done by an 8th grade class in Toronto (pointer on the Squeakland site). Cheers, Alan --------- At 05:51 AM 3/23/2005, Erik Nauman wrote: >I think the ideal would be something like your list below but a little >more fleshed out for the classroom teacher audience. With more ideas >accompanied with the specific "how tos" it would be less time-consuming >for teachers, even those with plenty of tech (but minimal programming) >experience like myself, to go beyond the few tutorials offered on >squeakland. With more scaffolding more teachers would be able to push >their students beyond simple variations of the basics like your son >experienced at school. Another issue for me is that I tend to shy away >from using tutorials with my students (5-7th grade) because I want them >to be able to use their object-oriented experience to process content >they are learning in other disciplines. So I have to come up with the >content and "how to" myself. If you could post your own projects and >solutions to squeakland I think it would be invaluable, even the complex >projects you're working on as I think the squeak community is enormously >varied in programming experience. > >My question is can the current procedure on squeakland for submitting >and posting projects on the kids play section of the site include >accompanying tutorials? I think this would help lower the grade of the >squeak learning curve for all users. >Thanks, >Erik Nauman >Middle School Technology Coordinator >The Hewitt School >212-994-2610 > > >-----Original Message----- >From: squeakland-bounces(a)squeakland.org >[mailto:squeakland-bounces@squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Lawrence >Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 7:46 PM >To: squeakland(a)squeakland.org >Subject: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report > > >Something like this > >1. Drive a Car around a track > HINT : follow the excellent tutorial > >2. Salmon navigation > HINT : draw the river as a gradient > HINT : Watch the saturationUnder as you move your salmon around the >river > HINT : store the previous saturation in a variable > >3. Bouncing Basketballs > HINT : add the acceleration to the forwardBy every tick > >..... > >14. Star-eating Snake > HINT : Use the 'copy' message to gorw an extra body segment > >... > >27. Prisoner's Dilemma > HINT : Store the history in a linked list > >..... > >38. Kepler's Law > HINT : Think of a player as a vector > > > >_______________________________________________ >Squeakland mailing list >Squeakland(a)squeakland.org >http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

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Re: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report
by Erik Nauman 23 Mar '05

23 Mar '05

I think the ideal would be something like your list below but a little more fleshed out for the classroom teacher audience. With more ideas accompanied with the specific "how tos" it would be less time-consuming for teachers, even those with plenty of tech (but minimal programming) experience like myself, to go beyond the few tutorials offered on squeakland. With more scaffolding more teachers would be able to push their students beyond simple variations of the basics like your son experienced at school. Another issue for me is that I tend to shy away from using tutorials with my students (5-7th grade) because I want them to be able to use their object-oriented experience to process content they are learning in other disciplines. So I have to come up with the content and "how to" myself. If you could post your own projects and solutions to squeakland I think it would be invaluable, even the complex projects you're working on as I think the squeak community is enormously varied in programming experience. My question is can the current procedure on squeakland for submitting and posting projects on the kids play section of the site include accompanying tutorials? I think this would help lower the grade of the squeak learning curve for all users. Thanks, Erik Nauman Middle School Technology Coordinator The Hewitt School 212-994-2610 -----Original Message----- From: squeakland-bounces(a)squeakland.org [mailto:squeakland-bounces@squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Lawrence Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 7:46 PM To: squeakland(a)squeakland.org Subject: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report Something like this 1. Drive a Car around a track HINT : follow the excellent tutorial 2. Salmon navigation HINT : draw the river as a gradient HINT : Watch the saturationUnder as you move your salmon around the river HINT : store the previous saturation in a variable 3. Bouncing Basketballs HINT : add the acceleration to the forwardBy every tick ..... 14. Star-eating Snake HINT : Use the 'copy' message to gorw an extra body segment ... 27. Prisoner's Dilemma HINT : Store the history in a linked list ..... 38. Kepler's Law HINT : Think of a player as a vector

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Re: [Squeakland] EToys Experience Report
by Kevin Lawrence 23 Mar '05

23 Mar '05

Hi Alan, >Let me see if I can help. Great help indeed ! Thank you ! I like the idea of focusing on "increase-by". Dylan discovered the forwardBy for himself and has already found some innovative uses for it (like dropping 100 Ton weights on things - thank you, Looney Tunes !). The idea of generalizing the "increase-by" idea to domains other than just 'motion' had not occured to me and sounds very interesting. I look forward to playing with that idea. This is exactly what I meant by 'computer science concepts' by the way - I just chose my term badly. I am really NOT interested in sitting down and explaining data structures to my 9 year old :-) I am looking for practical, accessible solutions that I can suggest when he gets stuck. You have given me exactly that. Also, I /am/ trying to keep separate what /I/ want from etoys and what I want for /my child/ - but the two are very intertwined. He asks me for help - "How can I do XXXX?" - and I have to experiment a little to see if what XXXX is even possible. I try to see things from his point of view but I still have a lot to learn in that regard. > Second, there is much more that can be done with the current Etoys than easily meets the eye or is easy to find in our inadequate documentation. But a little sleuthing will help. This gets to the heart of my wish. I have sleuthed (Believe me ! I have sleuthed !) It is precisely because I understand the experimental nature of etoys and the inevitable lack of documentation that I expressed my wish the way I did. I had intended that my criticism be positive and I apologize if it did not come across that way. Our experience in Squeakland has been like wandering through the most beautiful, fun, intriguing minefield in the world. We can see all these fantastic places we'd like to go to, but we keep stepping on mines. I certainly don't expect a tour guide. But, with a few signposts to the more interesting sites and a map showing where the worst mines are, we can find our own way - Hey ! I'll even let Dylan lead ! We'll follow the 'increase-by' signpost for a while and see where it takes us. Re-reading my post the morning after, I realize it sounds a lot more like a rant than I had intended. Not the best way to ask for help - which makes me all the more grateful that you have responded so helpfully. Thank you for your help and most of all thank you for Squeak. Kevin

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EToys Experience Report
by Kevin Lawrence 23 Mar '05

23 Mar '05

Hi Squeakland, Some background first on why I am so excited about Squeak/eToys : I downloaded Squeak a couple of weeks ago with a view to getting my 9 year old excited about computers/programming/math/science and most of all encouraging him to use his creative side more. Dylan has been doing Logo at school since first grade and is very good at it but, sadly, he doesn't enjoy it any more. Once a week he comes home with a completed Logo assignment. They started out as the usual draw a house/draw a star/draw an XXX and after four years the XXX is ever more sophisticated but the solution is still just an ever more complex sequence of repeat 10 [rt 50 blah blah blah]. He gets 100% for pretty much every assigment, but it has long ceased to be fun for him. I tried encouraging him to try some different ideas in Logo at home, but that was a non-starter because he associates Logo with boring stuff he does at school. Fun with Logo is an oxymoron for him. Enter Squeak. I downloaded squeak and tried the driving tutorial and was amazed - it was exactly what I was looking for. Dylan was also amazed that you could do "that kind of thing" with a computer. I left him to his own devices and he did the driving thing (follow a line) on his own with no guidance from me. He also did a "drop a 1000lb weight on a little man's head and make him howl" thing - exactly the kind of creative play that I was hoping for. I think he was more creative in those 3 hours than he had been in the previous year. That's the good news. I searched extensively for examples for him to try to direct his play a little and avoid having him get bored and that's where things got frustrating for both him and me. I tried to stay one step ahead of him on each example and I got stuck an awful lot. After thinking about it for a while, I have come up with a small number of categories of stuckness and I'd like to ask for some help : for me in the present - and for other's like me in the future. Category One Stuckness - Computer Science Concepts This is a hard one and probably out of scope for Squeak/eToys. To solve some problems, you need to understand certain concepts. For example, in one example I was working through I knew that I needed a collection of somethings. I knew that because I have been around computers for a long time but my son has no concept of collections. Some concepts (like variables and scripts) he figured out for himself but at some appropriate point he will need to be taught some of the more difficult concepts. No complaints at all about Category One Stuckness. Category Two Stuckness - Find the eToys implementation of a concept This is where /I/ got stuck a lot. Continuing on the 'collections' theme, I wanted a collection of somethings and looked for an array-like property/player/something. After searching in vain (both within the eToys UI and on the Internet) for how I might create an array, I realized that I would do better with a linked list. This time my painful search (of the eToys UI and the internet) was fruitful. It took me two "Ah Ha !" moments - one to realize that I needed a linked list, another to figure out how to implement one in the eToys UI. Once I understood, the rest was easy. (I haven't tried to pass that knowledge on to my nine year old yet but ....) A sub-category (2b ?) of this would be not even knowing whether an implementation of a concept even exists. I figured out how to do a linked list, but I still have no idea whether it is even possible to make an array. Not having arrays in eToys is fine. Not knowing whether arrays exist in eToys is painful. Category Three Stuckness - It's different As a professional programmer who works extensively with procedural languages I am used to this feeling of knowing how /I/ would do it procedurally and knowing that I need to do it differently in /this/ environment. Once I realize that things are done a different way in eToys (or XSLT or OO or Logo or SQL or whatever) it's just a matter of practice until I am used to the new way. My embarrassing example of category three stuckness was when I couldn't figure out how to find the average of two numbers :-( I guessed that the usual arithmetic precedence did not apply and I had a faint memory from the tiny bit of smalltalk that I know that expressions are evaluated left to right... but it took me an embarrassingly long time (and a peek at the generated smalltalk) to figure out that expressions are evaluated right to left. [Aside - what's the reason for that ?]. Even once I understood the rules I found the mental gymnastics to do even simple arithmetic frustrating because it is so different from what I am used to. The worst thing about having to navigate by "Ah Ha !" moments is that finding out the answer just makes you (me anyway) feel even more stupid because you didn't think of the answer before. Having trawled the history of this mailing list, I know I am not the first to get stuck on these things. I hope it's helpful and not annoying to the Squeak community to hear some of these things yet again. I mean well :-) Very often the response to issues similar to mine is either "Sorry. EToys is experimental - don't expect product quality" or "We need more documentation" and I wonder if the idea of perfect documentation gets in the way of having useful but minimal documentation. I wonder if there is a pragmatic, middle-way solution to issues like these ? The Drive a Car tutorial is outstanding as a way to get started and introduce the basic eToys concepts, but once I get through that I want less step-by-step guidance and more hints to help me get unstuck. I like (and my son seems to like) the challenge of having just enough understanding of the end goal to be able to figure it out by myself - or, more likely, change the goal to something more interesting to me - and I like just enough hints to help me when I get stuck. Both Dylan and I, have the patience to make it through about one tutorial before we want to just go explore. A list of ideas can help make the exploration a little more fruitful and directed. For example, I would have found it very helpful to have a list of (5 ? 10 ? 50?) projects (perhaps ordered by difficulty) that are do-able in eToys. There would probably be hints aimed at different audiences. For example (for a computer savvy teacher) "Hint : try using a linked list" or (for a child) "Hint: Check out the 'color under' property". Something like this 1. Drive a Car around a track HINT : follow the excellent tutorial 2. Salmon navigation HINT : draw the river as a gradient HINT : Watch the saturationUnder as you move your salmon around the river HINT : store the previous saturation in a variable 3. Bouncing Basketballs HINT : add the acceleration to the forwardBy every tick ..... 14. Star-eating Snake HINT : Use the 'copy' message to gorw an extra body segment ... 27. Prisoner's Dilemma HINT : Store the history in a linked list ..... 38. Kepler's Law HINT : Think of a player as a vector As I type this, I realize I have made an assumption about who the audience would be for a list like this and - of course ! - it's someone a lot like me. A third-grade teacher with a minimal computer background would need much more hand-holding. So before I go any further I should probably ask : Is my situation [a computer-savvy parent/teacher trying to work through projects with a child] typical ? A last question before I finally shut up - any suggestions for how to proceed ? I have the Powerful Ideas book on order, and I downloaded the 4 tutorial PDFs at squeakland.org. What would YOU do next in my situation ? If you made it this far through my ramblings - thanks ever so much for your patience ! And thanks even more for Squeak ! Kevin

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importing diverse projects into one project
by Jennifer Voorhees 21 Mar '05

21 Mar '05

I have been teaching the car curriculum from the book and it ends with a "great race". In the book it suggests you have kids make cars and scripts separately, then import them into one project to race each other. I find no information about how to import this way. I'd appreciate some specifics! Thanks. Jenni Voorhees

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More Squeaking in Illinois at UIUC - April 1st
by Kim Rose 21 Mar '05

21 Mar '05

From our colleague Kathleen Harness working with UIUC... Computer Science to Hold Celebration of Women in Computing at UIUC University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign Contact Deborah Israel Department of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign disrael(a)uiuc.edu Phone: 217.333.1621 Fax: 217.333.3501 URBANA, IL - The Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois will hold its first "Celebration of Women in Computing" at its Siebel Center for Computer Science from April 1 to 3. The event consists of computer related activities and speakers for girls and women of all ages. The aim is to demonstrate first-hand the sense of accomplishment and joy that can come from choosing computer science as a college major and career. The event will feature speakers and a roundtable discussion between U of I Women in Computer Science members and WCS members from other universities, as well as activities such as deconstructing and constructing a computer. According to Cinda Heeren, faculty advisor for the Women in Computer Science program at the University, "Young women should come away impressed and challenged by what they experience at the event, but also get a sense of the joy the women receive from their accomplishments." As part of the celebration, elementary and middle school students are invited to participate in an introductory workshop on an exciting new programming language called Squeak. Using Squeak, students can make media-rich programming projects via a programming interface that requires almost no typing skills. Simple drawings can be animated to interact with their environments in sophisticated ways, resulting in game design projects, animated art, or scientific simulations. The celebration will also include an awards gala for two WCS competitions-"Games 4 Girls" and "Technical Ambassadors." In Games 4 Girls, a competition sponsored by Electronic Arts, Inc., teams of college-age women design computer games specifically targeted at middle or high school-age girls. Each member on the first place team will receive $1,000, while second- and third-place team members will be awarded $500. The Technical Ambassadors competition (TAC), sponsored by Microsoft, gives teams of girls in high school, under the supervision of a faculty advisor, the chance to work on a technical project that will benefit a local not-for-profit organization. At the event, members of the top three TAC teams will be awarded cash prizes ranging from $100 to $250. ChicTech, a group of WCS members, visits high schools to stir interest in the Technical Ambassadors competition, dispel myths about computer science and make girls aware of the diverse opportunities within the field. Jenna Hill, a ChicTech member and administrator of Technical Ambassadors, said the event was intended to promote young women working together in teams on technical issues and to spark or further develop their curiosity. "We hope that they gain a liking for technology and that they'll decide to join us when they go to college," Hill said. "Numbers of women in computer science have been declining, and we're trying to change that."

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Squeak-Workshop in Poitiers/ France
by Markus Gaelli 20 Mar '05

20 Mar '05

Need some propaganda material for the everyday etoy user? :-) http://193.55.139.7/photos/squeak/tn/p3181094.jpg.html Rest of the photos: <http://193.55.139.7/photos/squeak/> Thanks to Jacques Lavignotte for making this fine pictures and putting them online. We were about 30 people, old and young, women and men. Thanks to Thierry and Patrick for this intensive squeak-workshop in charming, antique sunny, cultural Poiriers which has loads of children... :-) Keep up that great work you are doing in this wonderful science/multimedia/art/planetarium something. Cheers, Markus

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Squeak competitor analysis (once more, please help me to improve my research)
by Andre Furtado 19 Mar '05

19 Mar '05

Hi there, As I mentioned in a previous post, I am writing my master thesis, which is related to visual tools for game creation. In order to make a competitor analysis of current existing tools, I would like to gather some statistics about Squeak popularity, such as where it is used (universities? companies? other? which ones?), how many end-users does it have, etc. Can any one point me some indicators related to this? I'm also interested in data related to Squeak competitors. Since I don't know if we are allowed to discuss about Squeak competitors in this list, I would appreciate if you could send me a private email about possible other competitors and their popularity statistics (if you have any). Thanks for helping my MSc academic reasearch! Cheers, -- AFurtado --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail - Com 250MB de espaço. Abra sua conta!

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squeakland March 2005