Hi Jim, Alan,
"... if it's not in 'The National Curriculum', it won't get taught"
I'm a little confused. This assertion seems to counter the fundamental concepts & motivations behind Squeak somewhat. Consequently the complaint about the assertion seems confused.
I, too, believe that the PC/software/media-content-code-development-tools that this generation inherits are not a "subject to be taught" but a "communication medium".
To say that "Squeak won't get taught" is like saying "books & magazines won't get taught", or "overhead projectors & transparencies won't get taught", or "surfing the web won't get taught". The same could be said of any teaching medium. The medium is not really ever _in_ the curriculum. More efficient use of the medium might be in it, such as video editing, library use, referencing magazines in bibliographies, etc. but not the medium themselves. Their use is already assumed.
The "Hard fun" is not the learning of Squeak. The "Hard fun" is the learning of concepts via Squeak, manipulating/testing the concepts, and manipulating the physical/tangible projects connected to those concepts. Using Squeak should be dead simple, like "learning the Bunsen burner" vs. "learning the chemical reactions". When talking about Squeak and teaching difficult concepts, these two seem to get confused with each other. Making Squeak dead simple also makes it more viral. We need kids to share it with kids, teachers exchanging images with teachers, and children giving images as gifts to parents, thereby increasing everyone's need for it under its own momentum. Hence, copying and _transportability_ is essential... and not to be confused with portability. (Managing and merging classes and images is the issue here as well as the underlying OS' file system structure and privacy/security.)
What Squeak provides to the student is what professional software provides to businesses, a tool that "simulates" and "represents". Squeak can simulate anything, just about. With accounting systems, CAD, spreadsheets, and any professional software package you can think of that has increased business productivity, it gets its leverage from the fact that it is as simulation of the things that make money, products, etc. Software gives everyone a handle attached to what they're manipulating (the content of the pot). I believe this is why Croquet is 3D, to take advantage of more robust simulations (and why Microsoft will make 3D the fundamental graphics architecture for its upcoming Longhorn OS http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1072754,00.asp which, in turn, is trying to play catch-up with Apple per this report).
Here is Microsoft's foray into changing education (from a paper last year):
Technology, Learning and Scholarship in the Early 21st Century By Randy J. Hinrichs www.conferencexp.net/community/documents/LearningXP.doc
More MS docs at: http://www.conferencexp.net/community/Default.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=27 And George Lucas' efforts http://glef.org
"Modeling" and "simulation" is what we should be selling to teachers, parents, and administrations. ("Simulation" and "Role playing" games in the student's vernacular.) These can still be done with lists & charts and w/o graphics & 3D (e.g. Java/Html-Table Unit Tests).
Is excessive testing the problem? Squeak can "embrace and extend" to overcome that. Can't Squeak simulate a test? Can students represent test taking skills in Squeak and simulate, model, and statistically analyze them? Can students create their own tests in Squeak and dynamically link them to their physics models or literary works? Can students test each other in Squeak with their "simulated" tests? Can students submit what the perceive are better tests to the education & governmental administrators? Can the governmental administrators pass the student generated tests? :o
Can Squeak help parents better understand what their children are learning, where the children are weak or where the children accelerate, suggest how to help their children learn out of school hours, and suggest how parents themselves can get more help if they are not up to the task (not to mention keep track of all the forms, announcements, and due dates for this-that-and-the-other which students bring home)? Now administrators & parents have a reason to _need_ Squeak. If this is done, Squeak now simulates the school system and illustrating the rules behind its weaknesses and strengths. "Simulation" and "representation" are essential tools to achieve "results based" choices anyway.
Can Squeak help Grant Proposal reviewers accelerate the time that they take to review a stack of grant proposals? Can it help provide more accurate grant reviews and teach how to review grants as well (via collaboration, tutorials, and a knowledge-base for example)? If so, mention that fact _in_ the proposal when the Viewpoints Foundation or Squeak teachers apply for grants! That'll open some eyes.
Squeak should also model the social difficulties our students face today. Let them explore the full consequences before making life altering or future limiting decisions. We seem to live in a generation of adults who never "grew up" and are often ill equipped to teach "what dire consequences really are" to their children _before_ the children make irreversible choices. Perhaps Squeak's "one-step Cmd-Z key" reflects reality too closely there. Still, we should let parents decide how these models are presented to their children.
Last year I mentored & helped my local High School Robotics Team design and build a robot for an academic competition that the students treated with the excitement that they only exhibit at a football match. This was an after school project and an after work projects for the mentoring engineers. Here's my summary.
Can a Robot Carry a High School Student into a Brilliant Future? http://www.stormpages.com/futureintent/Robotics.htm
Here's the organization that started this competition 10 years ago and now hosts this global competition. http://www.usfirst.org/index2.html
Is there not enough time to do all this? We'll, that's the subject of another e-mail. US First does this with their Robotics competition somehow. It's not a "finished product". It's a collection of methods, rules, rewards, goals, scholarships, events, and galvanized parents, teachers, sponsors, and students.
Cheers, Darius
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