Hi John, I came late to this conversation and I'm sure I missed some things. Did anyone mention Etoys to go? The great thing about it is that it will even run on some older computers that other open source software can't.... for example, I have run it successfully on an older PowerBook. Even Bert Freudenberg one of the Etoys programmers, was surprised to find out it works there! Like SOAS, it is loaded on a usb stick and the student can take her work with her from computer to computer. Here is where to find more info and the download so you can try it: http://wiki.immuexa.com/display/sq/Etoys+To+Go Caryl
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:22:16 -0500 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] Subject: Re: [IAEP] Introduction: teacher interested in SOAS 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
_______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
