<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 26, 2007, at 10:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 8/25/07, <B class="gmail_sendername">carla gomez monroy</B> <<A href="mailto:carla@laptop.org">carla@laptop.org</A>> wrote:<BR><DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote"><BR></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> However, for some people it can be quite intimidating to get a blank screen when they click on "Make A New Project."</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR>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.<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Imho, the first step is to understand a little of this environment and what was the idea behind Etoys. Depending on the age/grade, the deepness varies. However, the teacher has a crucial role here: to understand it first. The book "Powerful Ideas in the Classroom" is of enormous value.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>The next expected step for a child (in this environment) is to create an object. Children usually like to pictorially represent their world. They need to express it as they need to situate themselves in the surrounding society. Contextualize.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>They can also use other predefined objects like ellipses/circles, rectangles/squares etc to complement their painting, or give a more "realistic" display of their object-symbols. Conversely, they may use the paint palete to "personalize" some geometrical primitives they've place in their world.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It has been demonstrated (<A href="http://www.squeakcmi.org">http://www.squeakcmi.org</A>) that kids at initial grades can use Etoys as a starting point to understand it and to express their ideas, paving the way to more advanced representations using the very same environment.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV>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.<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Children can use Etoys as a mapping tool. Actually they don't give a penny about accuracy, just because they don't need to. Adults generally do, even not knowing a bit of its usefulness.</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV>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 <BR><BR>LogoWriter, MicroWorlds and GameMaker all have prepackaged sprites<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Then Squeak Etoys would be another thing. When not-so-young kids need a more sophisticated expression-driven, more in the realm of productivity authoring tools — with many of the programmatic aspects of Etoys, they may go to another great tool: Scratch.</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I have given to the teachers in printed form <BR> * powerful ideas in the classroom</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR>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<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Afaik, a new squeakland website is in the works.</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV> and it took me ages to find them. I wrote a blog about the frustrating but eventually successful search for etoy resources here: <BR><A href="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/04/frustrating-but-eventually-successful.html">http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/04/frustrating-but-eventually-successful.html</A><BR><BR>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. <BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>I could not agree more. Etoys documentation is really very scarce and sparse. With the help of the Squeakland community worldwide, these things are starting to show up here and there. It has been posted in laptop.org's [Community-news] that the Etoys dev team has started a discussion about this issue.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>— paulo</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV>-- <BR>Bill Kerr<BR><A href="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/">http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/</A><BR></DIV></DIV><BR><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Etoys mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:Etoys@lists.laptop.org">Etoys@lists.laptop.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/etoys">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/etoys</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>