[IAEP] Sugar Digest 2011-12-01

[Carlos Rabassa]

Walter,

 thanks for taking a whole point of your report to discuss a subject I brought up.

Unfortunately my point or its further clarification were not clear enough.  You are still not getting it right.

The only reason I offered a link to the game "Circle-the-Cat" was to offer an example of an easy to use application.

What I meant by that is that you are already using it after a single clic on the link I sent.  

No downloading or installation is required.  It works with any computer connected to internet (or to a school server??),  using any operating system.

Let me offer another example,  an application I constantly use:

Real time translation
http://tradukka.com/

¿Want to test it quickly?

I just translated the portion of your message that was written in French.  This is the result,  without any retouching:

"I have made it longer because I did not have time to make it shorter."

By the way,  if you tried to impress and/or intimidate me with your French,  let me tell you that in the public high school I attended in Montevideo,  we had French courses during 4 years.  

At the end of that period we all were able to read without any problem and to visit France or Quebec for business or pleasure without any communication problem.

What you actually gave me with the French quote is another good example of how to alienate uruguayan teachers.  

Here in Uruguay we speak Spanish and that is the language teachers teach us in school.  Not quite sure if they still teach French in public schools.  

Also,  looking now at the meaning of the quote,  I have to admit you perfectly describe the situation of Sugar.

My question is now:

¿Do the children have the time to wait until Sugar is easily usable by everyone,  not geeks only?

I believe I already told you very clearly why I refuse to discuss the value of "Circle-the-Cat" as an educational application:  

I am a firm believer no one,  including myself,  should discuss matters that are not within our field of expertise.

By the way,  this is a very good use of the signature blocks someone suggested long ago to be used in the mail lists.  WIth the torrent of information we receive every day,  it is important to evaluate the authors.  Someone reading my signature block will see I am not saying I am a teacher or educator and will probably not invite me to engage in a discussion about the educational value of an application.

I understand there are many teachers in Uruguay coaching children to do searches with Navigate and evaluate the results to decide which ones they may use for their homework and which ones they better discard.  I strongly suggest we use these signature blocks to give a good example to the young users of the lists and keep reminding them they have to use their judgement to decide what to believe from all they can read.

Carlos Rabassa
Volunteer
Plan Ceibal Support Network
Montevideo, Uruguay



On Dec 1, 2011, at 1:40 PM, Walter Bender wrote:

> 4. Carlos Rabassa posted a link to a fun game, Circle the Cat [5] in
> the context of a question he posed to the list: "Why couldn´t all
> educational applications be as simple to use as this one?" My glib
> response was to quote the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal:
> 
> "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le
> loisir de la faire plus courte."
> 
> In other words, reaching to simplicity takes time and effort. Alan Kay
> chimed in about Hypercard, reminding us that it took years of
> refinement for it to reach its polished state. It is an open debate as
> to if and when Sugar will ever reach that level of polish and the path
> towards achieving it.
> 
> But while Carlos did not want to discuss the value Circle the Cat as
> an educational program, to not do so seems to skirt the central
> question of Sugar: it is an education project after all!! I am
> interested in how we can use a simple game or activity to drive the
> children to deeper principles. So I wrote a Sugar Activity inspired by
> Circle the Cat, but with a twist: The user is invited to experiment
> with the algorithm (Please seeTurtle in a Pond [6])--of course I had
> to use a turtle instead of a cat. The game itself is fun to play and
> arguably of some educational benefit. But there is perhaps more to
> learn from algorithm development. For better or for worse, the user
> needs to load their algorithms written in Python from their Sugar
> Journal. This probably precludes the younger children from
> experimenting, but it presents an open-ended invitation to those
> willing to take the challenge.

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