[Sugar-devel] Students developing programs

[Edward Mokurai Cherlin]

On Thu, September 20, 2012 9:05 am, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote:
> Daniel and others,
>
> This thread has really inspired me. I am going to work with my
> students to develop Sugar activities.
> I have James' book. Are there other resources I need?

What age, and how much programming experience do they have, in which languages?

MYOSA is good for Python. You should also consider Etoys and Squeak. I
am working on the Etoys Reference Manual

http://en.flossmanuals.net/etoys-reference-manual/

and will start on a Discovery manual after that, explaining how one
can learn Etoys even without adequate documentation, which is what I
am currently doing myself. I do not think that I could attempt to
write manuals on any other language while learning it.

There are a number of elementary tutorials provided with Etoys, and
some further ones at Waveplace that you can find through
Squeakland.org. Then there is a large gap that I am beginning to see
how to fill, in part by breaking out of Etoys to access the
behind-the-covers Squeak IDE.

I can recommend Squeak by Example up to a point. It does not have
enough examples, for starters. It explains the language and IDE to
some extent, but not how to read existing Smalltalk object definitions
and how to determine which existing objects would be useful as
starting points for new development. Looking at existing projects will
help with that. We will be discussing these issues on the Squeak
Development list.

For those just learning programming, I recommend one or another form
of Turtle Art. Walter's version, written in Python, is good in itself
and also for providing an interface to put Python code on Turtle
blocks, so that learners can get into Python incrementally, and go as
far and as fast as they like. Etoys can be used as a glorified Turtle
Art, starting with similar movement and pen commends. One can in
principle add Smalltalk methods to Etoys programming tiles via Squeak
(which is how Etoys was created in the first place), although I have
not seen the details.

Tony Forster and I have written a number of Turtle Art tutorials on
Turtle Art itself and on its use for a wide range of math topics. I
have documented how to use the built-in translation to Logo, and I
mean to translate some of them to Etoys.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials

> Thanks.
> Gerald


-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) 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