Gerald,<br><div class="gmail_quote"><br>It's definitely a balancing act trying to get them to focus on finishing up something and getting them to explore. Once they realize that they<br>can affect the object by scripts they just want to do everything they can possibly do in one sitting (dragging and dropping tiles in one script window<br> ..then I'm in fire fighting mode). Too much resulted in chaos in my class. Not doing THAT again. I now give them some time to go nuts on exploration then pull them back in to finish a project. Now I'm introducing just a max of two concepts (or tiles) in one 40min. session. <br> <br>Kathleen Harness has really good lesson plans for teaching one concept at a time: <a href="http://www.etoysillionois.org" target="_blank">www.etoysillionois.org</a><br><br>I would like to hear more best practices/ideas, etc. for teaching Etoys in the classroom.<br> <br>Cheers,<br><font color="#888888">Cherry <br></font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Gerald Ardito <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gerald.ardito@gmail.com" target="_blank">gerald.ardito@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I agree. Watching the car script is fun for a while. But when they make their own first script, it is exciting each and every time.<br> <br>I also find that the students (I work with 10 year olds) get overwhelmed by the number of choices they have.<br> <br>Anyone else have that experience?<br><br>Thanks.<br><font color="#888888">Gerald</font><div><div></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Cherry Withers <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cwithers@ekindling.org" target="_blank">cwithers@ekindling.org</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The very first time a child sees their object move with a simple forward script is always a magical moment for me and the kids. Never fails. Exploration and excitement explodes after that. I'm new to teaching Etoys as well. Definitely caught the bug. :-) <br> <div><div></div><div> <br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Simon Schampijer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:simon@schampijer.de" target="_blank">simon@schampijer.de</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi,<br> <br> I am teaching on a regular basis in the Planetarium pilot in Berlin,<br> Germany [1]. I have been using Etoys now for several weeks and here is<br> some first feedback.<br> <br> First: The kids do like it a lot! I want to encourage everyone to<br> include it in his curriculum.<br> <br> For example you can teach easily the concepts of the coordinate system<br> with Etoys. You create an object and print out the X and Y values when<br> moving it on the screen. Or you can use a joystick to alter the position<br> of this object and use this method to deepen the coordinate system concept.<br> <br> Of course we did as well the famous car example. It was slightly changed<br> in my class: A bug has to crawl a lane using one or two sensors to stay<br> on the lane. A lot of interesting concepts to learn here, too (positive<br> and negative numbers for example).<br> <br> And to bring this all together into a portfolio you can use the book<br> tool (found in the treasure chest) to create a story including all your<br> objects and games, pictures etc you created.<br> <br> I wrote down a few items I was missing when using the book tool and<br> while doing so, I figured they were all there, just hidden by default.<br> <br> - resize all of the book not just one page<br> - maybe that could be the default option?<br> - duplicate a page<br> - different background color<br> - different sound when turning the page<br> <br> When you hit the little button at the far left you will get more<br> options. And when you use the menu in the middle of the book toolbar you<br> get all of these options and a lot of more. Just in case someone runs as<br> well into this :)<br> <br> A few things that I came across, too:<br> - German: When you drop the 'joystick up down' and 'joystick left right'<br> option onto the world it will change to English. Not when you use it in<br> a script though.<br> - some buttons are hard to use: for example when you want to alter the<br> behavior of the X value of an object (increase..). Those are hard to<br> navigate. Or dropping options into the test script does not work as smooth.<br> <br> That's all for now - keep up the good work, team Etoys!.<br> <br> Thanks,<br> Simon<br> <br> PS: Of course I am happy to turn items into bugs later. Just thought I<br> give here a little summary first.<br> <br> <br> [1] <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployments/Planetarium" target="_blank">http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployments/Planetarium</a><br> <br> _______________________________________________<br> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)<br> <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a><br> </blockquote></div><br> </div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)<br> <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a><br></blockquote></div><br> </div></div></blockquote></div><br> </div></div></div><br>