John, Also if you would like support with Etoys, I would be happy to help and live not that far from Philadelphia. Please check out the lesson plans on etoysillinois.org
They have a wonderful set of lesson plans for K-6. Steve Thomas On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 1:50 PM, John Tierney <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi John, > > I would say your summary is pretty well on target > taking into account Peter's comments and the continued > improvements he has been making with each SoaS release. > I would be happy to have a conversation with you on Skype > or phone and give you some ideas on how you might want to > approach the local Universities to establish relationships in Computer > Science and Education schools to build up a support system. I think > you mentioned your in Philadelphia so Temple and Drexel would be > great options as well as the other smaller schools. > > I have been collaborating with Dr. Kevin Brooks and his Great Fargo > project since its inception. I met Kevin at the Computers and Writing > Conference at Purdue in 2010, where I helped put on a Sugar Workshop > with Dr. Gerald Ardito, and Walter Bender who joined via Skype. In turn I > joined Kevin and his graduate student Chris Lindgren at the University of > Michigan at Computers&Writing 2011 for another Sugar Workshop. > > I think this would be a great place for you to talk about the education > portions of the project,for the technical questions/issues and updates > on that front the Soas list would be best. > > It's Great to see you trying to help out your learners in this manner. > Let me know if I can be of assistance. > > Best! > John Tierney > Skype: jt4sugar > #248-613-7392 > > > From: [email protected] > > Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:10:41 -0500 > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: [IAEP] Introduction: teacher interested in SOAS > > > > > Thanks so much for the warm welcome. Particularly to Patricio, > > Harriet, and Kevin for sharing such fascinating links. > > > > If it's okay, I'm going to use this list as a sounding board for my > > thoughts as I explore Sugar. Again, if there's a better place for > > this type of thing, please let me know! > > > > So far, I'm getting the impression that Sugar on A Stick is more or > > less limited to experimental university-school partnerships, and > > hasn't yet reached a phase of wide deployment in the hands of schools. > > Is this an accurate assessment? > > > > The reason I'm interested in SOAS is that I work in the traditional > > "computer lab" setting that is so familiar in K12 schools in the US. > > This setting has a lot of restrictions and drawbacks. A big one is > > that, even though the students are surrounded by computers in my lab, > > and to varying degrees at home, they have no opportunity to take > > ownership of these devices. They can't monkey about with the precious > > computers that we adults see as far to precious to fully hand over to > > children. A very basic symptom of this is that the students simply > > can't save their work. A save dialog box on most computers is very > > difficult to learn for the uninitiated. Add to this that all files > > which don't make it onto a shared network or USB drive are basically > > instantly lost given the shared nature of school computers. If the > > kids can't do something as simple as save a piece of writing, the > > computer is far less useful than a notebook. > > > > In this light, SOAS looks very appealing. The promise of handing a > > student their own _persistant_ computer where they are free to explore > > is exactly what I've been looking for. (to say nothing of sugar's > > "Journal" which I think is a brilliant answer to the above problem). > > > > I'm curious, how do my motivations match up with how you guys think > about sugar? > > > > -John > > _______________________________________________ > > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > > [email protected] > > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep >
_______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
