[Etoys] Re: BookMorph tutorial

[Richard Karpinski]

Hi yourself, Yoshiki,

I loved what you said, but I take issue with one point.

Dick

On 2007, Jan 18 at 15:00 (-8), Yoshiki Ohshima  
<yoshiki at squeakland.org> wrote:

>   ... I was going to write how you would do step by step, but I guess
> it is not what you would like, but just check the "Demon Castle"
> tutorial which is currently bundled with the Etoys on the laptop.
> Demon Castle uses BookMorph (or Book), which is surely accessible to
> any user.  (And it has reasonably high production value.)

Begging your pardon, kind sir, but a step by step procedure would be
very welcome. My hope would be that if someone provides a sufficient
tutorial for using Book and BookMorph to create a narrated slide show,
then someone (else?) can put that tutorial into that very mechanism so
that others may use it as an example and a tutorial.

The nature of open source permits participants to contribute usefully
with quite minimal commitments of time and effort. Wikis enhance this
property and can grow wonderful results using volunteer labor. Once
an example tutorial is available, its sources could be installed in a
wiki for extended discussion and possibly to build whole families of
derivative facilities.

Isn't this a useful foundation for participating language groups to
"morph" into material which would be useful to the student speakers
of each language. Wouldn't such a facility be extraordinarily useful in
the initial months of the introduction of the XO machine in the various
communities involved? Easy to build. Easy to pass around. Easy to
watch, listen to, learn from and replicate to other ends.

In other words, I would love it if you suggested as much of a step by
step tutorial as you have the energy and time to accomplish. Then
someone can put it in a wiki so that those who try to follow the
tutorial and create their own Book can flesh out the wiki and then,
ultimately, the tutorial itself to reach wider audiences and assist more
teachers and students toward their own goals.

If you do decide to do this, it would be useful, I think, to collect a
continuing history of who tries to employ it and what happens when
they do. This is such a generic facility that I believe that the lessons
learned and experience gained would be of value to the OLPC
project as a whole.

Am I talking through my hat? Is a better approach already in progress?

Richard Karpinski, World Class Nitpicker
148 Sequoia Circle, Santa Rosa, CA 95401
dick at cfcl.com  Home +1 707-546-6760   Cell +1 707-228-9716

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