Betty Edwards' minimum requirement for her wonderful drawing class is 
1 coach for each seven students. It's an immersion course that is 
done in 5 days, about 7-8 hours a day.

We have taught quite a few children etoys at the Open Charter School 
in Los Angeles: last Spring, and this entire school year. They are 
taught 15 children at a time, and they are enough iMacs to give each 
their own machine for parts of it, and to double up for other parts 
of it. Teaching and coaching is is done by their regular classroom 
teacher (BJ Conn) and our cognitive scientist Kim Rose (so this is 
about the ratio that Betty is successful with). They have one 1.5 
hour block per week of actual instruction, but are allowed to do 
Squeak whenever they have free time (many stay in from recess, etc.). 
The start of quite a bit of material about this is beginning to be 
put on Squeakland.org.

We think one on one (especially a parent and a kid, or a peer and a 
kid) is by far the best, most especially for the first 10-15 minutes. 
It is by far the most efficient and fun for everyone, and matches up 
best to the wide range of styles that kids of this age bring to "hard 
fun" learning.

We plan to try a "tree learning/teaching" strategy for the next bunch 
of kids we work with. That is, we teach a few one on one, then they 
teach a few, fanning out, etc. We thing that this will give the best 
early experience for new learners.

P.S. This suggests that for the situation when one child encounters 
etoys on the net for the first time, we should try programming a 
comprehensive "watcher" in Squeak that can detect all of the first 
few minutes behavior and gently guide. AIs are not smart enough to do 
it, and a comprehensive branching matcher fans out very quickly. But 
I think the early learning (which is about 35 ideas) can be handled 
this way.

Anybody want to try making one of these? (Smart Georgia Tech students, etc.?)

P.P.S. There is quite a bit of this in the literature from the late 
sixties through the mid to late seventies.

Cheers,

Alan

-----


At 7:47 AM -0400 5/1/01, Pennell, David wrote:
>What student to teacher ratio is needed for this style to be
>successful?
>
>-david
>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay at disney.com]
>>  Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 1:16 AM
>>  To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>>  Subject: Re: Squeak for 3-year-olds
>>
>>
>>  Oh, but you are missing the entire point of that part of that
>>  project. It was specifically made to be difficult to control so the
>>  kids would say "wow, this is difficult to control", and we say "yeah,
>>  that's because you made a race car. There are no gears between the
>>  steering wheel and the front wheels of your car". And they say
>>  "what's a gear?" and we say, "see that little triangle after the word
>>  'heading', click on it". They do and then for the first time in their
>>  lives, they get to see why division might be useful by dividing the
>>  number coming out of 'heading' by 3 or 4".
>>
>>  The whole idea of good learning environments is to avoid as many
>>  gratuitous difficulties as possible, but to specifically introduce
>>  just the difficulties that will motivate appropriate learning.
>>
>>  This is why we have worked with literally thousands of children now
>>  since 1973 or so. BTW, the "drive a car" etoy is specifically aimed
>>  at children from about 8 years old and older. There are numerous
>>  projects suitable for younger children, but they have different aims.
>>  Each developmental stage of children allows them to do different
>>  kinds of thinking, and you have to take that into account when you
>>  design etoys for them (and when you bring children to them). There
>>  are a number of examples on Squeakland.org, and there will be many
>>  more over the next few weeks and months.
>>
>>  For those of you who have very young children, you are much better
>>  off having them start to learn to build things with their hands. Most
>>  computers are not equipped with enough tactile feedback to be great
>>  learning environments for very young children.
>  >
>>  A great book to read for those who are interested is "Towards a
>>  Theory of Instruction" by Jerome Bruner. It doesn't talk about
>>  computers but it is one of the best books about designing good
>>  educational environments for children of various ages.  Last year I
>>  wrote a chapter for a book about kindergarten that discusses the
>>  suitability of computers for 3 and 4 year olds. This will also go
>>  online sometime this summer.
>>
>>  Cheers,
>>
>>  Alan
>>
>>  -----
>>
>>  At 4:51 AM +0100 4/30/01, John Hinsley wrote:
>>  >Lex Spoon wrote:
>>  >>
>>  >>  Steve Wart <thecows at home.com> wrote:
>>  >>  > Had an interesting session with my son today. Played
>>  around in the
>>  >>  > scripting world for over an hour - I think that's the
>>  longest he's ever
>>  >>  > sat still at the computer.
>>  >>  >
>>  >>  > He loves the car, but steering is pretty hopeless (I
>>  can't get the hang
>>  >>  > of it either :). He liked it when I changed the colors.
>>  Usually he wants
>>  >>  > to do things himself, but I think he realized changing
>>  colors was too
>>  >>  > finicky for him. The color picker is pretty though. It
>>  would be nice to
>>  >>  > see more like this.
>>  >>
>>  >>  Have you tried "gearing down" the stearing wheel:
>>  dividing the amount in
>>  >>  the "turn by" command by 3 (or so) ?  It makes it much easier.  :)
>>  >
>>  >Yes! I think only an 8 year old with the reactions and skill
>>  of the late
>>  >great Ayrton Senna could keep the car on the track with its original
>>  >settings.
>>  >
>>  >I think one of the greatest things we can do to improve our programs
>>  >(and our programming skills) might be to have young children
>>  (and aged
>>  >relatives) act as human programming interfaces. I'm sure most adults
>>  >(and most "real" programmers) get too carried away with the beauty of
>>  >the code to adequately consider the underlying metaphors: we
>>  really need
>>  >"untainted" brains to show us the way. (Not, incidentally, that I
>>  >consider myself a "real" programmer -- an adult, maybe.)
>>  >
>>  >Maybe Steve could try my Rolodex Tutorial out on his son in
>>  2 or 3 years
>>  >time?
>>  >
>>  >Cheers
>>  >
>>  >John
>>  >>
>>  >>  Overall, thanks for sharing your experiences -- I've found them an
>>  >>  interesting read!
>>  >>
>>  >>  -Lex
>>  >
>>  >--
>>  >*************************************************************
>>  *****************
>>  >Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?"
>>  >Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft."
>>  >*************************************************************
>>  *****************
>>