[IAEP] [squeakland] Etoys Video's for Khan Academy

Fri Jun 3 18:37:17 EDT 2011

On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 16:04, karl ramberg <karlramberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> The feeling of achievement is important and will help motivate students.
> In Etoys you have the full environment available at all time.
> It has a steep learning curve and quite error pron.

I have a page at Sugar Labs called The Undiscoverable, which mentions
Etoys but does not give many details. I would like help filling it in.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable/Etoys

> To not pace out the way to use the system can demotivate and give students a
> hard time.
> It's a big project to make it seem like a game to unlock the secrets
> without crippling the system at the same time.

But totally worth the effort.

> Also to measure or give a
> test automatically of how much a student know or can solve problems is hard
> when the possible ways to solve problems are almost infinite. One goal of
> the system is to make it possible for students to be creative and find their
> own ways to solve problems.

You are asking for the solution to an undecidable problem.
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is devoted entirely to the
question, "How can we tell whether another person understands us?"
(Short answer: You can't, except to a very limited degree in very
limited  areas, and you have to make do with that. Longer answer, even
though in fewer words: We will be able to do this to a fair degree
when we solve Strong AI.)

Within the limits of what we can verify, we can do a much better job
than is conventionally attempted, but it will be quite difficult to
convince the political authorities and much of the populace of that
fact. Sometimes the problem is not with evidence, as in the case of
tests for creativity and for racism, which are well-established, but
not acceptable to the Religious Right, among others.

> Video lectures can be a nice way to introduce both easy parts and
> hard-to-discover parts of Etoys

+1

> Karl
> On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 9:15 PM, Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com> wrote:
>>
>> In the OLPC News article How Khan Academy Can Help OLPC it was stated:
>>
>> A. In terms of Theways of a Basics
>>
>> Khan Academy covers almost every basic academic subject in its videos. In
>> addition, it has one hundred sets of math exercises. OLPC could either use
>> the exercises from the website or rewrite the programs to make them work
>> offline in Sugar. Problem Solved.
>>
>> Okay, well how much disk space would that take?
>>
>> I like the idea of re-writing them. The videos as introduction to concept
>> via demonstrations, visual models, playthinks and excercise that can (and
>> should) be done w/o a computer.  For exercises I am working on basic
>> configuration/generation engines for creating exercises so teachers can
>> easily generate their own exercises using a set of "playthinks" for
>> particular concepts.  For example: Cuisenaire Rods (some with vector arrows)
>> is a great tool for learning.  I built a number line where you can set the
>> unit to a particular rod and provide a playfield so things snap to grid.
>> Another example is my OOO tools where you have "operation blocks" that you
>> can drag numbers or other objects that represent numbers into the operations
>> and play games/excercies like "How many ways can you name 15.
>>
>> I could use some help and collaborators as there is a lot to do to create
>> an OER that is a textbook/workbook replacement.
>>
>>
>> D. In terms of the Teacher/Developer Communication Dilemma
>>
>> I was talking to Bert Freudenberg the other day about developing video
>> tutorials for eToys, and he said there would need to be about 100 to give a
>> complete tutorial of the program. Imagine if Khan Academy could help us pull
>> those videos together. With video tutorials, developers and teachers
>> wouldn't have to communicate at all! I'm sure this a big relief for both
>> parties. Problem Solved.
>>
>> Name the 100 topics and I will start making the videos (I already have a
>> number of "Etoys Minutes")
>>
>> B. In terms of Motivation into Exploratory Learning
>>
>> In an ideal world, kids would pick up the laptops and go to town on all
>> the amazing programs available on the XO. But that just isn't how it works,
>> because there is more immediate gratification to be found in simple games
>> and Facebook. You and I know that exploring the world of science, art, math,
>> and literature is much more satisfying than whatever instant satisfaction
>> Facebook or (non-educational) online games can provide. But kids don't yet,
>> so we need to get our hooks in first. Khan Academy does this through a
>> system based on gaming, with badges and rewards, just like Xbox Live or the
>> PlayStation Network. Problem Solved.
>>
>> Yes providing game mechanics (like bages and awards) and tracking is a
>> nice touch and hooking into the Khan Academy system (or Sugar providing its
>> own system) would be nice. Also I like the idea of "disconnected from the
>> network" XO so there are less "distractions" (no I am not suggesting that
>> kids can't access the internet, but as a parent and working with kids,
>> having no TV/Computers/Electronics time has its advantages.  Perhaps a
>> "Internet is turned off until you do the following tasks option. For those
>> who don't like this and think kids should have full access to everything all
>> the time, think of it as a motivation for hacking and getting peer-to-peer
>> networking working so they can find other distractions ;)
>>
>> C. In terms of the Impending Evaluation and Testing
>>
>> The people want proof. If governments or private schools are going to
>> employ this system, they’re going to want evidence that the program works in
>> some measurable way. We can talk all day about the evils of evaluation but
>> the fact is that it exists and we need to deal with if we want this to
>> work.
>>
>> Testing is already built into the Khan System, so teachers and students
>> can track their own progress. The system is measured whenever it is employed
>> in a new school, and the statistics show that it WORKS. Problem Solved.
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree wholeheartedly with the first comment "people want proof" and yes
>> I know and agree with the "evils of testing," but we need to deal with the
>> political realities if we want to have a larger impact.
>> My question is how exactly do we use/hook into the "Testing" in Khan
>> Academy?  Should Sugar provide some method of tracking (as anathema as I
>> imagine this may be to some)?
>>
>> How do you folks envision working together with Khan Academy? Would they
>> be open to it?
>>
>> Stephen
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>
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Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
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