I think the biggest point to be made here is an argument for a "document" or "object" of sorts.  Etoys definitely seems to have most of the types of interaction and media embedding solutions I believe Rebecca and I both want, but (as far as I know, though I admittedly don't know that much) it does so in an all encompassing environment.  What we really need is a lightweight format that lets one pass around these "scratchpads" or "collages" as objects, so the teacher can create a file, pass it out as homework, etc.  I could be very wrong in my assumptions, though, so please correct me where I am.  I see lots of potential for Etoys, and I'd like to better understand how it integrates with Sugar now, and how we can push it in the most effective direction. <div>- Eben</div><div> <div>On 6/21/07, Bert Freudenberg <<a href="mailto:bert@freudenbergs.de">bert@freudenbergs.de</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Indeed, "scratchpad" describes Etoys pretty precisely ;) You can draw, write (even with multi-column text layout flowing around abjects), and of course calculate. It's not just "type anywhere and a curve pops up", although in fact such an extension exists (but not included in the OLPC Etoys version): called MathMorphs and MorphicWrappers done by the Argentinian Squeak community a couple years ago:         <a href="http://www.dm.uba.ar/MathMorph"> http://www.dm.uba.ar/MathMorph</a>s/ and updated to work in recent Squeak releases         <a href="http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak">http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak</a>/5855 If there is enough interest in this (and I agree it's a great environment for exploring Math) we might try to find someone porting it to the OLPC version. Or maybe it just works if installed, I haven't tried (unfortunately our plates are still full with lower- level stuff). - Bert - On Jun 21, 2007, at 22:01 , Eben Eliason wrote: > Rebecca - > > This sounds similar to some of my ideas for "Collage"...allowing > combinations of text, drawing, image, and other media formats in a > freeform canvas.  The response there seemed that Etoys was, in many > ways, already providing such a thing.  I think this is a really > interesting area though, and the potential to be able to send > multimedia documents around, specifically in an educational > environment, is huge. Do you have more thoughts on specifically how > this could be distinguished from Etoys? > > Additionally, there is the Sophie project, but I'm not that > familiar with it or how far along they've come with the project on > the XO. > > - Eben > > > On 6/21/07, Rebecca Gettys <<a href="mailto:rebecca.gettys@comcast.net">rebecca.gettys@comcast.net </a>> wrote: > Hello all, > I had an idea while playing witha green machine...this may be a little > late, I don't know. What if ther was some sort of "scratchpad" > activity, > not draw, or write,or calculator but a kind fusion of all three. > mathimatical equasions could be typed out and then they could solve > with > typing and or drawing for their work, and they could write guides and > picture books and such with this activity as well. Is this in > possible/in the plans/something similar is being made??? > ~Rebecca Gettys > </blockquote></div> </div>