[IAEP] Why is Scratch more popular than Etoys?

[Cherry Withers]

When I did my workshop on Etoys in the Philippines back in June, one kid did
a "draft" of the same project in Scratch first using the pre-installed
cliparts then did it in Etoys like I asked. It was a simple "knock knock
joke" project with speech bubbles popping up when a moving bar touches a
different color on the bottom of the page. For him the pre-installed
cliparts made it easier for him to jump right into programming rather than
spend so much time drawing things. However, some kids derived more
satisfaction in using their own drawings. I personally like the latter.

Incidentally, no one taught the child how to use Scratch and he didn't use
it fully (never did a project in Scratch) till we got into conditional
statements in Etoys. He started drawing parallels with Etoys. On our 2nd and
3rd day, he would always create his draft first on Scratch then do things in
Etoys. It was a lot easier for him to "find" things in Scratch he says.

I will check back with our teachers to see if more children are using
Scratch. Our four teachers in the Philippines use Etoys in their lessons but
that may be because I got them started with Etoys and they're just used to
it now and don't want to change.

Best,
Cherry

On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com> wrote:

> I have taught both Scratch and Etoys to kids and hands down most kids
> prefer Scratch.  I also prefer Scratch for certain things, but prefer Etoys
> for most learning and teaching.
>
> What can we learn from Scratch (and TurtleArt et al) to improve Etoys?  And
> vice versa what can be done to improve Scratch?
> .
> I have ideas, which I will share later, but I am curious to hear the
> thoughts of others (as mine add nothing to my current understanding and
> repeating them will simply further ingrain incomplete and incorrect
> assumptions and prejudices ;)
>
> Stephen
> P.S. I fully believe kids should learn multiple languages and am not
> looking for the "one ring to rule them all."  Each language/environment has
> its advantages and we need multiple.
>
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20110902/8e93709a/attachment.html>