A very simplified spreadsheet on the OLPC machine would be nothing more than
a teacher's blackboard that is interactive.  E.g. the child can
experiment/interact with the blackboard.  Traditionally, numbers are written
on the board; solutions are given.  The ability of the student to manipulate
these would be a great advance.  The bridge from rote learning to
experimental learning.

This is something we are thinking about at UCSD.

On 5/31/07, Yoshiki Ohshima <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  Michael,

> There are no plans for an official OLPC spreadsheet activity. At
> least, none that I have heard of (or could imagine). Largely because 6
> year olds shouldn't have access to it.

  Can you explain why they shouldn't?

  Spreadsheet is a good way to experiment numbers and (usually)
provides simple rules to manipulate them.  Thinking about patterns and
relationships, it can be a pretty good tool.

  A built-in graph feature would be a plus, but it is also good way to
make them "draw" a graph by usign each cells as pixels.  Making a
graph feature should give them better understanding what a graph is.

  (For the making graph part, many kind of graphs can be done in Etoys
(and TurtleArt) by using the pen feature.  Etoys has a "holder" object
that can hold a sequence of numbers as text, so you can do very
rudimentary spread sheet like thing by yourself...)

-- Yoshiki
_______________________________________________
Devel mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel




--
Regards,

Steve

Steven C. Fullerton
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
cell/voice mail: 619.339.9116
website: www.scfmetrics.com
____________________________
_______________________________________________
Devel mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel

Reply via email to