tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post4237147491985850429..comments2024-02-14T22:50:48.749+10:30Comments on Bill Kerr: taking guzdial seriouslyBill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-14792030995147887602009-07-16T10:55:44.020+09:302009-07-16T10:55:44.020+09:30hi jason,
Have you looked at the squeakland site ...hi jason,<br /><br />Have you looked at the <a href="http://www.squeakland.org/" rel="nofollow">squeakland site </a> for learning etoys. This is a vast improvement on the old site.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.squeakland.org/showcase/byAge/" rel="nofollow">Showcase by age </a> might be a good place to startBill Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-42626887744217479472009-07-16T00:39:48.118+09:302009-07-16T00:39:48.118+09:30Thanks for your reply!
Even though I'm not an...Thanks for your reply!<br /><br />Even though I'm not an educator currently, I am very interested in education, particularly in teaching children and teenagers computer programming, mostly for practice in thinking through precise algorithms, and for thinking about general cases (the case of unknown value N instead of cases 1, 2, and 3). So learning from your experiences is very valuable to me.<br /><br />Anywho, I agree that Scratch is the best entry-level tool. I think that familiar, discoverable interface is of great value. I was able to learn Scratch without instructions. I am (so far) unable to learn etoys, even though I have sought out instructions, though I have high hopes for its potential IF I can find blasted documentation.Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18342054351286601796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-80638302584089725912009-07-16T00:04:52.986+09:302009-07-16T00:04:52.986+09:30hi jason,
I'm a High school teacher and co-or...hi jason,<br /><br />I'm a High school teacher and co-ordinating the python programming challenge at my school - students have entered from year 8 to year 11<br /><br />I will do something with etoys with a year 10 class which will explore the sugar software. Etoys and Squeak are amazing software but it's hard to promote them because they are so different - yes, not a good argument, I realise<br /><br />I haven't used Alice for the same sort of reasons you are stating - but mark's approach offers a new wrinkle. But I can't quite see how to fit it in at the moment due to the current scratch, sugar and python commitment.<br /><br />I agree that Scratch lacks a high ceiling and at a certain level of complexity this does make things harder. But I see it as the best *introduction* to programming owing to its superb interfaceBill Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-82468729666204585192009-07-14T23:41:01.519+09:302009-07-14T23:41:01.519+09:30What age group do you teach (going from Scratch to...What age group do you teach (going from Scratch to Python)? Are you doing anything with etoys? I read previously that you got frustrated with etoys because of the lack of documentation.<br /><br />I'm not sure what the advantages of Alice are. It seems to me that using 3d space (instead of 2d) adds an unnecessary distraction from programming, and the only way to make objects do things concurrently (that I could tell) is to have them do so over a predetermined span of time, encouraging bad implementation choices. Maybe I'm missing something?<br /><br />Of course, Scratch doesn't offer dynamic creation and destruction of objects. So all the time, I see demos that have Obj1, Obj2, etc. Programming is _harder_, not easier, when you cannot have a variable number of things, and then poor implementation choices are encouraged or even forced. This is nearly an achilles' heel for Scratch. But I digress.Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18342054351286601796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-61034808914436937952009-07-13T22:59:15.157+09:302009-07-13T22:59:15.157+09:30Bill, I'm trying an approach of using Media Co...Bill, I'm trying an approach of using Media Computation with Python to support high school students using Alice. They use the images and sounds from Python in their Alice worlds, and use Alice to create images that they can manipulate in Python. I'd bet that you could use MediaComp Python with Scratch in a similar way. The slides and media are at http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach/43.<br /><br />Yeah, the site is a total mess. It's getting near the top of my to-do list. First, I have to finish the data structures book, and then I have to do the second edition Python slides. And then there's the everyday complexities, like being in Seattle today to speak at MSR. My goal is for everything to ready by Aug. 1.Mark Guzdialhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12004764283037839851noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-84499496259479268642009-07-11T11:57:34.497+09:302009-07-11T11:57:34.497+09:30interesting Bill.
i thought when Walter said on ...interesting Bill. <br /><br />i thought when Walter said on IAEP that he'd had feedback that most teachers don't program, so 'open source' is not of much benefit to then ...and then he said programming will take off, because its the most expressive form of using computers there is ...<br /><br /> ...i'm very sympathetic with that idea and i wish that his prognosis was the case ...could make school much more fun for people who like all this ...but i'm less sure it will get the traction in the system (beyond the 'programming elective' - where it does seem to work) <br /><br />since school dispensed with Logo etc ("computers meet school - school wins") i'm not all that confident that teacher/student programming will make many inroads into math and science - grammar of schooling at all that <br /><br />hope it does though!<br /><br />be interested to hear how all this goesrobhttp://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/thoughtsnoreply@blogger.com