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

Edward Cherlin echerlin at gmail.com
Fri Jun 3 19:40:37 EDT 2011 

On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 19:26, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi...
> Been on the road for a few days and Mac was in the shop before that, so I am
> a little late with this.
> Why are you all trying to reinvent the wheel?

This is a pernicious myth, as you can find out by trying to put a mill
wheel on your car. We do not take "good enough" as a final answer when
we can see possibly better ways. In this we are just the same as Free
Software programmers who may wish to fork a package and work on it in
a different direction than the previous developers.

> The Khan Academy videos are
> all available in ogg form and play just fine offline on an XO in Jukebox
> from a usb stick.  I would suggest, instead, putting the followup activities
> from their website into Etoys.  It is these activities where students
> progress and get little virtual awards and the like.

Oh, we will, but we will also transform them, following Marvin Minsky:
You don't understand anything unless you understand it in more than
one way.

> Please read our blog about this. Raj Baberwal wrote a great piece about the
> Khan Academy and, in my reply, I told how to use the videos on the XO
> without the internet (which he plans to do in India). I tested it to be sure
> it works. It does. Here is a link to our
> blog: http://famliolpcsocalaudubonms.wordpress.com/
> Scroll down to the 4th post (April 15, 2011). Be sure to click on my comment
> to get the simple instructions and link you need to do it. There is some
> other nice stuff there too... not about the Khan Academy but about the great
> things the 3 volunteers from the olpc-SoCal list are doing with these young
> people.

I would like to get their work into the Sugar Labs Replacing Textbooks
project that I am manager of. Would you introduce us?

> Caryl (Proud "mama" of this CP project)
>
>> Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2011 18:37:17 -0400
>> From: echerlin at gmail.com
>> To: karlramberg at gmail.com
>> CC: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org; squeakland at squeakland.org;
>> sthomas1 at gosargon.com
>> Subject: Re: [IAEP] [squeakland] Etoys Video's for Khan Academy
>>
>> 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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>> >> squeakland at squeakland.org
>> >> http://lists.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
>> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
>> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
>> _______________________________________________
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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