R.D. Latimer wrote:
I'm working with Etoys, k-6, and wondering if there may be a connection, even educationally, with Etoys/Smalltalk and the app programming world, for example Appinventor?
There are a couple of sentences in Wikipedia that highlight some relationships. We can see that they are all of a family:
"Open Blocks visual programming is closely related to the StarLogo TNG, a project of the Klopfer's STEP, and Scratch, a project of theMIT Media Laboratory's Lifelong Kindergarten Group. These projects are themselves informed by constructionist learning theories,"
You might also have noticed that AppInventor is now hosted by the MIT Media Lab, also home of Seymour Papert (on the Etoys Vision Team) and of John Maloney - principal author of Morphic, Etoys and Scratch. So you never know what innovation might occur as a result of a walk down the hall.
Finally, StarLogo inspired the Kedama objects in Etoys.
Have fun! David