[Fwd: Questions regarding Squeak]

Well, I have been using Squeak Etoys for two years in my high school classes as a means to create physical simulations, presentations, and games.  I like Etoys as an initiation to object oriented programming however, at times students students become overwhelmed with Etoys. If this happens frequently within a specific class of students, I have them use "Scratch", available at scratch.mit.edu . "Scratch" is a gentler approach to programming than Etoys yet lacks some of the advanced functionality. Next year I may start everyone in "Scratch" before moving on to Etoys. The more advanced students have shown some success in creating with the latest  Full Squeak image without using Etoys. I am however, limited in my own abilities to help the advanced students. I have done a few tutorials with Tweak yet lack enough understanding to use it in class. I feel that Croquet will be a great option for my classes, but I continuously receive callout errors when the program tries to access the OpenGL library which I know is installed. I think it's important for the students to see growing levels of sophistication built on the same basic virtual machine going from Scratch to Etoys to Squeak to Smalltalk.

 

If you have particular lessons or project goals you wish to share, I can respond with appropriate detail for what it's worth.

 

Best Wishes,

Eric

 

On 4/3/07, Kim Rose <[hidden email]> wrote:

Perhaps some of you who have gone through a similiar process would
like to answer this query?

>
>From: Alwyn Ng <[hidden email]>
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>Subject: Questions regarding Squeak
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>
>Hi,
>
>I have a question regarding Squeak: In terms of features,
>capabilities and what kids can learn/gain from using it, how is Squeak
>different from a game development software for kids? I am looking at
>conducting courses for kids from age 7 to 12 and I am considering
>purchasing licenses for a game development software for kids until I
>chanced upon squeakland.org.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Alwyn Ng (Mr)
>Manager, InfoTech
>Splashwurks
>Mobile: 8118-5453
>Office: 6749-1948
>Fax   : 6749-2520
>Email: [hidden email]

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