Demoing Etoys to kids

Howdy!

Can anyone suggest a fun way to demo Etoys to kids aged around 10-12?

A friend and I are helping out with a couple of summer camps for kids
and we're looking for an opportunity to bring Etoys into the mix,
either one on one or with a small group, and for only a short period
of time (30-60 minutes, say). Most of the kids only speak arabic, we
have one OLPC XO and several other laptops.

Our first idea was the "Etoys Challenge for Novices" from the OLPC XO
but we wonder if this is a bit ambitious based on half an hour with a
bright 12-year-old who can read english (I'm not sure).

What we'd like is for kids to be amused and to have some glimpse of
what a computer is like, and for ourselves to learn a bit about how
kids deal with computers. Any advice would be welcome.

Cheers,
-Luke
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Hi Luke --

Kim knows where this stuff is better than I, but there is quite a bit
of material about introductory use on squeakland.org. The "make a car
and drive it" is always a good one to start off with. Most of these
exercises are in Kim's book, and she can send you a pointer to some pdfs.

You could also look at the half-finished (but still 50 page) doc I
did for OLPC. It has lots of different examples.

This is at http://www.vpri.org/pdf/OLPCCountries_RN-2007-006-a.pdf .

Also, we just met some folks from Nepal who have been actively doing
Etoys there for a few years. Kim might have their email addresses....

Cheers,

Alan

At 03:58 AM 8/11/2007, Luke Gorrie wrote:
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On Sat August 11 2007 3:58 am, Luke Gorrie wrote:
That brings up a related question that I have. A friend is having problems
teaching 3rd graders (USA) basic geometry. She's not familiar with computers
and the school is in a financially poor district. I explained etoys a bit and
gave her the Squeak DVD to watch. She thought it was interesting and etoys to
be potentially helpful, but complained they didn't have the resources.And,
even if they did, she wouldn't know where to start (I told her
about "Powerfule Ideas In The Classroom"). I think there are always resources
and I have a feeling she just feels overwhelmed.

My question: what can I do to further this along? What steps have others taken
faced with similar situations? I appreciate any ideas that you may have.

Thanks,

brad
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I'd probably start with the car demo, which is on the squeakland site - not imaginative of me but everyone is interested in cars :-)

It doesn't really matter as long as you have something of interest prepared before hand. I think you are really asking how to teach? The important thing is to keep communicating with and monitoring how they are going and be prepared to adapt as you go along. Most beginning teachers make the mistake of trying to cover too much content, rather than establishing a good relationship and rapport with the students. It's important to be prepared and have some real content but once the lesson starts all sorts of things will begin to  happen and the important thing is to be alert and to respond to that. Stick to your plan or respond to the kids needs or some sort of combination? That is what teaching is all about, sometimes flying by the seat of your pants. As long as the kids are engaged you are doing fine, don't worry if you don't get to the end of your prepared lesson! The 30-60 mins will fly.

hth
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In July I traveled around to a number of workshops in different parts of the US. While at CMU in Pittsburgh, I got a surprise invitation to talk to 11-14 year olds who were attending a summer computing day camp. There were about 25 kids and this was small enough for me to show them things and ask questions, etc. For projects, the lack of prep time led me to just use what I had been showing the teachers minus the philosophy slides. Here's the list that we went through in about an hour.

Most of the them are the standard examples I show. There were a few new ones.

Make a car and steering wheel and drive it around. Use a property (Wheel's heading). Use a scale (Wheel's heading/3)

Kedama epidemic while graphing the percentage of infected villagers: 2, 1000, 500, 100. As what the diseases on the extremes look like. Answer from the kids: the fast acting one was like Ebola, and the slow one was like AIDS.

How to follow a road with a robot car
Ashley and Janae's middle of the road robot car
Middle of the road car with two headlights as sensors
Jenny's Pig Race

Salmon Sniff -- gradient following feedback with single and multiple salmon
Fish and Plankton (this could be omitted, it was just in this sequence)
Ant colony -- the classic ants and food feedback system

Speed and acceleration reflection on increase by (using dots and arrows to get visual picture of S and A).
Animation using holder and increase by
Bouncing ball animation (change "speed" increment to change rate through the images)
A movie is an animation (example is how the upcoming ball drop movie was made)
A music synthesizer is an "animation" (change "speed" increment to change pitch, etc.)

Computer Logic Game (Alex Warth's way to use costumes as visualizers of state and for state). Wires, Not, And, Or, etc. gates.
How to make a script (a visual Logo interpreter that uses Etoys polymorphism to do the interpretation)
A rule based programming system (another way to do interpretation to make a StageCast like interpreter and then do the epidemic sim)
ToyLog (a visual animated Prolog with English syntax and using the Simpson family as a database)

==== That was all we had time for ======== Naturally, they loved it and wanted to do things with it.

Some advice about teaching geometry to children. It's possible that the teacher may not understand geometry very well (and you didn't indicate what she meant by "geometry").

In any case, in general (and especially for 3rd graders) I would not center the learning on the computer to start with. There are three or four things that children this age can learn deeply that using the computer in an ancillary fashion with help make stronger. One theme to try is "map-making" starting with making models of objects and progressing to models of classrooms, school-yards, surrounding neighborhoods, etc. Our experience with this came from a highly successful adaptation of Doreen Nelson's "City Building" Curriculum for 3rd graders that we did in the LA Open Magnet School some years back.

Scaling and proportion are approached by having the children make "object costumes" (taking household objects and blowing them up into wearable costumes) and then having an "object parade". The Open School had made an garden and it was traditional for the 3rd graders to design it. So they had to measure it and make a model to let them think about it in the classroom. This got them to think about scaling the other way. One way to do both scaling is to have two measuring systems with equally spaced tick marks but with different distances between the ticks, etc. Make the ration between the tick marks something the children can compute in their heads (they don't need this to do the scaling but they do need it to start understanding ratios).

The scaling ideas can start to be used on the computer, etc.

This part of the curriculum leads to a very rich city of the future design effort stretching over many months that combines many kinds of math, design, and systems thinking.

Another thing that goes strongly with this way of thinking about measurement and scaling above is that nature doesn't care what rulers we use. We can use this idea to start talking about and using similar triangles to do scaling and indirect measurements (heights of school buildings, long distances, etc.). Forget about trig terms, etc. and concentrate on similar triangles as one of the most powerful ideas of all times.

For example, if we occlude a quarter with a dime and measure this carefully, we see that the distance in diameters has to be the same.


And if we then occlude the moon with a coin (as Aristarchos of Samos indeed did!) we will find that it takes about 110 coin diameters, and this means that the moon is 110 moon diameters away from us!



Children love this (too bad adults don't, or they would know about this and teach it to children).

Cheers,

Alan





At 06:11 AM 8/12/2007, Brad Fuller wrote:

On Sat August 11 2007 3:58 am, Luke Gorrie wrote:
> Howdy!
>
> Can anyone suggest a fun way to demo Etoys to kids aged around 10-12?
>
> A friend and I are helping out with a couple of summer camps for kids
> and we're looking for an opportunity to bring Etoys into the mix,
> either one on one or with a small group, and for only a short period
> of time (30-60 minutes, say). Most of the kids only speak arabic, we
> have one OLPC XO and several other laptops.
>
> Our first idea was the "Etoys Challenge for Novices" from the OLPC XO
> but we wonder if this is a bit ambitious based on half an hour with a
> bright 12-year-old who can read english (I'm not sure).
>
> What we'd like is for kids to be amused and to have some glimpse of
> what a computer is like, and for ourselves to learn a bit about how
> kids deal with computers. Any advice would be welcome.

That brings up a related question that I have. A friend is having problems
teaching 3rd graders (USA) basic geometry. She's not familiar with computers
and the school is in a financially poor district. I explained etoys a bit and
gave her the Squeak DVD to watch. She thought it was interesting and etoys to
be potentially helpful, but complained they didn't have the resources.And,
even if they did, she wouldn't know where to start (I told her
about "Powerfule Ideas In The Classroom"). I think there are always resources
and I have a feeling she just feels overwhelmed.

My question: what can I do to further this along? What steps have others taken
faced with similar situations? I appreciate any ideas that you may have.

Thanks,

brad
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On Sun August 12 2007 7:26 am, you wrote:
> In July I traveled around to a number of workshops in different parts
> of the US. While at CMU in Pittsburgh, I got a surprise invitation to...
> . . .

Great ideas. I'll do my best to pass them on.
thanks!
brad
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Hi alan

I always liked the way ancient measured pyramid using the shadow of a  
know piece of wood and use Thales theorem.
At least it was a really practical example, I used to teach Thales  
beauty.

> For example, if we occlude a quarter with a dime and measure this  
> carefully, we see that the distance in diameters has to be the same.
> <dimeQuarter.png>
>

Now I do not understand the "distance in diameters"
Which
>
> And if we then occlude the moon with a coin (as Aristarchos of  
> Samos indeed did!) we will find that it takes about 110 coin  
> diameters, and this means that the moon is 110 moon diameters away  
> from us!

How do we get 110?
>
>  Children love this (too bad adults don't, or they would know about  
> this and teach it to children).

Some do :)

Stef


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Hi Stephane --

At 12:11 PM 8/12/2007, stéphane ducasse wrote:
>Hi alan
>
>I always liked the way ancient measured pyramid using the shadow of a
>know piece of wood and use Thales theorem.
>At least it was a really practical example, I used to teach Thales
>beauty.

Yes, and it is even simpler for the children to
think just in terms of similar triangles.


>>For example, if we occlude a quarter with a dime and measure this
>>carefully, we see that the distance in diameters has to be the same.
>><dimeQuarter.png>
>
>Now I do not understand the "distance in diameters"

Check the picture. If it is 9 dimes from the eye
to the dime, it will be 9 quarters from the eye
to the quarter. If it is 110 quarters from the
eye to the quarter that occludes the moon, the
moon is 110 moon diameters from earth.

>Which
>>
>>And if we then occlude the moon with a coin (as Aristarchos of
>>Samos indeed did!) we will find that it takes about 110 coin
>>diameters, and this means that the moon is 110 moon diameters away
>>from us!
>
>How do we get 110?

You measure the number of coin diameters from the
eye to the location of the coin that occludes the moon.

Cheers,

Alan


>>  Children love this (too bad adults don't, or they would know about
>>this and teach it to children).
>
>Some do :)
>
>Stef
>


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Ok thanks I missed the distance from the eye :)

Stef

On 12 août 07, at 21:42, Alan Kay wrote:


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On 8/13/07, Alan Kay <[hidden email]> wrote:

(btw Alan's graphics didn't come through at the archive http://squeakland.org/pipermail/squeakland/2007-August/003711.html which might account for Stef's query)

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What I thought was really cool was the moon to sun.

Since the distance from the coin to the moon was 110 moons.  And since from
our perspective the moon almost perfectly occludes the sun, the sun must be
110 suns from the moon.  That was just too cool!

Ron Teitelbaum


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Bill Kerr a écrit :

> and also a great  section on Thales, including his method of measuring
> the height of the pyramids
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales


And you can view such a dynamic example using Squeak
http://people.ofset.org/~hilaire/drgeo2/demos/2-thales
Hum, the Squeak application to do that was on earlier development when
this demo was produced. It is now faster and nicer to use. The
interactive geometry canvas can now be embedded in any Morph.

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Hi, Luke -

Sorry for my delay in response...I know you've received many ideas
and messages so far, but here is a little more info.

Before the "Etoys Challenges" I would have them play with the paint
system to draw and keep some simple objects -- that is why the car
works so well.   I usually have 1st timers paint a car and keep it
and then do some very simple scripting with forward and turn.  Then,
we have them paint a steering wheel and steer the car using the
wheel.  Just these activities can take up all of your time if you
only have 40-60 minutes.

PDFs for these starting  projects are here:
http://www.squeakland.org/sqmedia/books/kimbjbook.html (CLick on the
thumbnail and you will have printable pages).

IF there is enough time the next thing you might do is ask them to
create an obstacle course where they can drive their car around the
obstacles.

I would only suggest the "Etoy Challenges" that come with the XO
AFTER they do these particular projects.

Also, the handles tutorial, "Demon Castle" is a good starter, but you
said many only speak Arabic so this may not be best.
I hope this helps!
good luck and have fun,
Kim




At 10:09 AM -0700 8/11/07, Alan Kay wrote:
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On Saturday 11 August 2007 4:28 pm, Luke Gorrie wrote:
> What we'd like is for kids to be amused and to have some glimpse of
> what a computer is like, and for ourselves to learn a bit about how
> kids deal with computers. Any advice would be welcome.
Kids these days tends to see computer as a video game machine, so I would
recommend activities that project computer as a dynamic medium to record
their ideas about the world around them.

Create a modeling workshop (sand, paper, paint, sheets, glue etc.). Let them
build their favorite story board or toy setup. Then, have an adult guide them
on how to do the same in Etoys. The result may come out looking funny :-) the
first time around, but to the kid it sure looks great. It is important that
   a) The idea come from the kid (i.e not from a craft book),
   b) It has to be about something around them (not about a penguin from
antartica :-))
   c) The kid should use the keyboard and mouse (not the adult). Allow the kid
to think and assist only requested.

Hope this helps .. Subbu
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