World menu

I have discovered by trying many combinations that alt-shift-w brings up
the World menu in Etoys on Ubuntu. I have added that and some other
information to

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/etoys-reference-manual/_edit/

and I am about to add the keyboard shortcuts for the XO. (I have two of
them, which I have named Thing1 and Thing2.)...First pass, done now.

Apparently I now know how to apply all that I know of Squeak (not a lot,
but increasing) within Etoys, by bringing up menus that allow me to bring
up everything else.

Is there a design document for Etoys explaining what its intention is? Am
I right in thinking that it is meant to provide a greatly restricted
programming environment on the surface, where only a few Squeak/Smalltalk
objects and methods are available without going behind the scenes, chosen
for younger children?

--
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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Cmd-W on Mac.
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Hi,
I am glad you are taking an active interest in Etoys. The Floss manuals are always a work in progress.

I read your comments to the lists and enjoy thinking about your point of view.  The attachment is my view of Etoys in response to your question: "Am I right in thinking that it is meant to provide a greatly restricted programming environment on the surface, where only a few Squeak/Smalltalk objects and methods are available without going behind the scenes, chosen for younger children?"

For me as a teacher, Etoys is a great way to interest children who might not otherwise know the power they can have over the computer. The difference in being an author of a program and being a user of a program is enormous. For me as an author, Etoys lets me express ideas I could not share any other way.
Regards,
Kathleen
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From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of [hidden email] [[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 8:47 PM
To: squeakland.org mailing list
Subject: [squeakland] World menu

I have discovered by trying many combinations that alt-shift-w brings up
the World menu in Etoys on Ubuntu. I have added that and some other
information to

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/etoys-reference-manual/_edit/

and I am about to add the keyboard shortcuts for the XO. (I have two of
them, which I have named Thing1 and Thing2.)...First pass, done now.

Apparently I now know how to apply all that I know of Squeak (not a lot,
but increasing) within Etoys, by bringing up menus that allow me to bring
up everything else.

Is there a design document for Etoys explaining what its intention is? Am
I right in thinking that it is meant to provide a greatly restricted
programming environment on the surface, where only a few Squeak/Smalltalk
objects and methods are available without going behind the scenes, chosen
for younger children?

--
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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[hidden email]
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On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 3:47 AM,  <[hidden email]> wrote:
Squeak is the environment in which Etoys lives. While direct access to
Squeak is possible its of most interest to power user. Its not hard to
break the system running Squeak so access is made not easy to stumble
uppon. A broken system is quite disruptive to most lectures and
newbies.

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On Friday 07 Sep 2012 9:47:23 PM [hidden email] wrote:
> Apparently I now know how to apply all that I know of Squeak (not a lot,
> but increasing) within Etoys, by bringing up menus that allow me to bring
> up everything else.
Etoys is a visual scripting layer built on top of Squeak. You enter it by
pressing the "eye" halo icon. This will bring up a vertical "chest of drawers"
containing scripting tiles that can be dragged onto the work area to assemble
a script. The tiles are a veneer over Smalltalk (you can get to the underlying
text through a menu item from the "gold box" along the top of the script
window.
 
> Is there a design document for Etoys explaining what its intention is? Am
> I right in thinking that it is meant to provide a greatly restricted
> programming environment on the surface, where only a few Squeak/Smalltalk
> objects and methods are available without going behind the scenes, chosen
> for younger children?
See under Resources in squeakland.org site. Particularly Alan Kay's articles
and the book "Powerful Ideas in the Classroom". Etoys is also covered heavily
in "Squeakers DVD" in A/V. It is a summary of the various ideas presented in
these articles.

Etoys is meant for middle-schoolers to explore [computable] ideas without
preconceived notions. However, it does have a higher "floor" compared to
Scratch. Learning is faster if there is someone to guide over the shoulder in
the beginning. Later, kids can ease into Smalltalk code right within Etoys
(like Bert does in his projects in the Showcase ;-)).

HTH .. Subbu
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Just so. This Reference Manual is aimed at the power user. Among other
things, I am trying to learn how to use Squeak development to add
facilities to Etoys.

I am still looking for documents that explain Etoys for the classroom
teacher and the student without going behind them into Squeak development.
I have found many that begin to explain parts of Etoys, but nothing that I
consider satisfactory. For example, nothing that systematically explains
what tiles are available for Etoys programming, and the places to find
them. I know about

Object viewers
The gold chest
The function menus in some tiles

Are there more?

On Sat, September 8, 2012 9:16 am, karl ramberg wrote:

--
Edward Mokurai
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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On Sat, September 8, 2012 12:32 pm, K. K. Subramaniam wrote:
I see that there are additional tiles in the gold box on each script
window toolbar, and in menus accessible by clicking on arithmetic and
other math functions within scripts.

We need to provide for schoolchildren who have no access to human guides.
In fact, we need to provide for children who have no access to schools.
OLPC is conducting an experiment with XOs in villages without schools,
without even a single literate adult. The children are learning a lot of
computer skills, and are learning the alphabet. The next step should be
Same-Language-Subtitling (as in India) with text-to-speech in local
languages.

> Later, kids can ease into Smalltalk code right within Etoys
> (like Bert does in his projects in the Showcase ;-)).

Yes, I see that one can call up the Squeak development tools using
keyboard shortcuts, and that one can get the text of any tile-based Etoys
script.

> HTH .. Subbu

--
Edward Mokurai
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 5:51 AM,  <[hidden email]> wrote:
You can find all morphs that have additional morphic categories with
the MethodFinder : WorldMenu/Open/MethodFinder.

Search for "additionsTo"

Karl
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On Sunday 09 Sep 2012 2:37:23 AM [hidden email] wrote:
> We need to provide for schoolchildren who have no access to human guides.
> In fact, we need to provide for children who have no access to schools.
> OLPC is conducting an experiment with XOs in villages without schools,
> without even a single literate adult. The children are learning a lot of
> computer skills, and are learning the alphabet. The next step should be
> Same-Language-Subtitling (as in India) with text-to-speech in local
> languages.
I understand your position. Learning requires two way communication, so canned
radio shows or video clips don't help much. A text-to-speech program does not
listen and correct the learner's mistakes. Tech can assist mothers/teachers in
teaching their wards but cannot substitute for them.

I didn't find Etoys suitable pre-literate or illiterate middle-schoolers.
Though, the presence of a computer and peers working on them may motivate them
to learn the letters.

For your requirement, take a look at :

   https://www.youtube.com/user/SikshanaFoundation23/videos

We tried to pair students with a literate peer. The books are selected by the
reader. Each reading session lasts for about an hour and the peer is a passive
listener who will assist only when the reader gets stuck for more than a
couple of seconds or explicitly requests for help. The joy of helping also
serves to boost peer's motivation to learn further.

Regards .. Subbu
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On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 2:47 AM,  mokurai wrote:
>
> Is there a design document for Etoys explaining what its intention is?

I think this 2009 C5 paper may be the most recent design document:

http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2009001_etoys4olpc.pdf

Hope that helps, David
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The Etoys4OLPC document describes modifications for XO laptops and Sugar,
but does not explain what Etoys was originally designed to do. As I
understand it, the idea is to have an environment in which objects can be
constructed graphically and scripted fairly extensively, but new object
types cannot be defined, in order to limit possible damage and limit
complexity. But there is clearly more to it than that.

On Sun, September 9, 2012 7:49 am, David Corking wrote:

--
Edward Mokurai
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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Hello, Edward,

If you have not read these, you may find them of value:

http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf

http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005002_authoring.pdf

 -- Kim

On Sep 10, 2012, at 1:01 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

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Yes, thank you. Somebody else recommended them also. There is more good
stuff than I have had time to examine in detail, but I'm getting there.

On Mon, September 10, 2012 12:06 am, Kim Rose wrote:

--
Edward Mokurai
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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Excellent. Thank you. I see that these define all of the categories in the
various viewer menus for various Etoys object times, and that it will
require a bit of exploration.

On Sun, September 9, 2012 6:11 am, karl ramberg wrote:

--
Edward Mokurai
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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Thank you for your questions! That helps a lot for improving our documentation. Some of your questions should be answered by the reference manual, like this one 
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On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Rita Freudenberg
<[hidden email]> wrote:
Objects chapter would be the place to add all the special tiles where
each object get explained and what special functionality they have.

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Rita, could you check your e-mail settings, and see if you can turn on
Unicode, so as not to mangle my signature block?

On Mon, September 10, 2012 5:04 am, Rita Freudenberg wrote:
> Thank you for your questions! That helps a lot for improving our
> documentation. Some of your questions should be answered by the reference
> manual, like this one
>
>> "For example, nothing that systematically explain what tiles are
>> available for Etoys programming, and the places to find them. "

Thank you. I see that now.

> but obviously, we need to provide more guidance in the manual. The chapter
> 4, Common Tiles, explains most of the tiles in Etoys. We leave out some
> special tiles, which are only available for special objects.

I thought that the whole idea of a reference manual was to explain
_everything_. That's how I did it as an API Tech Writer. Obviously, we
cannot describe all of Squeak in an Etoys manual, but it seems to me that
we need to explain how the two are related. I know how to get at the
Squeak IDE using the World menu and various browsers for which there are
keyboard shortcuts, plus the menus that appear within those browsers. I
have been given some hints about which Squeak objects define Etoys
behavior. Now I would like to see how to define an object in Squeak and
put it into Etoys, in the manner of the games in the Object Catalog.

I know in principle how to treat Etoys as a glorified Turtle Art, in which
I can script the movements and pen trails of any object, or as an
animation studio, or as a presentation manager. I do not know how to evoke
some of the other facilities, such as the particle model, and I remain
unclear on what other facilities there are.

The Computer Science for Children possibilities are staggering, what with
tree-structured programming and explicit parallelism, in addition to OOP
in general. Similarly for math and science.

> The tiles are
> organized by category in the manual, like they are organized in the
> object's viewer. I'll think how to change the introduction of chapter 4 to
> give a better idea of what to expect in the chapter.

I am considering adding some explanatory information there myself on the
structure of tiles, and the different varieties. I would also like to see
sections on variables, the tiles in the Gold Box menu, and the
modifications to tiles in the math function menus. I have found three
different math menus, but not the principle by which they are distributed.

> Please let me know if this answers some of your questions!

Definitely. Thanks again. I have more questions today, and possibly some
answers of my own.

I have started a set of Smalltalk/Squeak/Etoys pages at The Undiscoverable
in the Sugar Labs Wiki. My idea is to provide the irreducible minimum,
just enough hints and pointers to make the rest discoverable. As in the
Sugar Labs version of Turtle Art, aka Turtle Blocks, tile-based Etoys
programming is much more discoverable than text-based programming, but in
both cases there are points that require hints or outright explanation.
Like dragging assignment tiles by the arrow in order to put them into
scripts. I see how that works, but I do not understand why it was done
that way.

I find the GNU Smalltalk manual and Squeak by Example to be particularly
helpful, and will add this Etoys Reference Manual to the list, but I am
not satisfied with any Etoys tutorial that I have seen. SBE could be
considerably improved, judging by my experience with what I did and did
not learn from it.

But I am not happy with the materials for teaching any programming
language. Part of the problem is that it's just hard, of course. In any
case, I see that there is much more documentation to explore in the
Smalltalk/Squeak/Etoys worlds.

I am having fun. I particularly enjoy being able to make presents for
millions of children every day. Or at least, to work on the tools to make
the presents.


--
Edward Mokurai
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)
Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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On 2012-09-10, at 21:18, [hidden email] wrote:

> Rita, could you check your e-mail settings, and see if you can turn on
> Unicode, so as not to mangle my signature block?


This is not Rita's fault. You are sending them incorrectly.

Your messages come in as plain ASCII:

        Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

and they do have these ASCII sequences in it:

        (&#40664;&#38647;/&#2344;&#2367;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1606;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;&#1580;)

It is entirely correct for an email client to show these characters just like that. No interpretation is supposed to be performed.

You need to configure your email client to use UTF-8 instead of ASCII if you want Unicode chars in it. You appear to be using a web mailer running SquirrelMail. SquirrelMail can be configured to use UTF-8. Possibly you need to contact the iPage.com support team for that.

HTH,

- Bert -

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[Sigh] There is, according to tech support, no support for Unicode in
Squirrel mail. I will change to another account.

This is curious, because my signature block displayed correctly in mail I
have sent out. But such is the perversity of software.

On Tue, September 11, 2012 4:46 am, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

--
Edward Mokurai Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


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