[Etoys] some comments

[Bill Kerr]

On 8/25/07, carla gomez monroy <carla at laptop.org> wrote:

However, for some people it can be quite intimidating to get a blank screen
> when they click on "Make A New Project."


I'm wondering why the first step is always to make a painting - and then
when you keep the painting you have an object and can then do more powerful
things at that point

A naive user might think it is just a paint program. Also some people don't
like painting or are not good at it, eg. me. Also it's hard to paint well
with a mouse.

Why not have prepackaged sprites which can be loaded immediately (as well as
the painting option)? Then the user is one step closer to the more powerful
stuff. It also sends a message that it is not just a paint program - there
has to be more to it than just loading a sprite

LogoWriter, MicroWorlds and GameMaker all have prepackaged sprites

I have given to the teachers in printed form
>    * powerful ideas in the classroom


I think *all* of the book, Powerful ideas in the classroom, should be
available on the web. The car tutorial on squeakland is great but it's not
enough. There are some good pdfs on squeakland too but the site is poorly
organised and it took me ages to find them. I wrote a blog about the
frustrating but eventually successful search for etoy resources here:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/04/frustrating-but-eventually-successful.html

It would be good to have a comprehensive help manual in one place. Pop up
help is good but sometimes more detail is needed. Such a manual would
probably be used more by teachers than by students but that is still useful.
-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
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