[sugar] P.S. Re: Rebe

[Alan Kay]

Hi Eben --

Yes.

Etoys has external formats for its "documents", so they can be stored 
on servers, fetched, passed around, etc. We have tried 3 different 
approaches over the years (and all work currently). One of the 
approaches uses the Open Doc standard (where the scripts are in there 
as non-standard data). The format we are using now is a form of 
s-expressions (could be XML, but XML is really too verbose for the XO 
and for slow networks).

And, as I mentioned in the previous email, when on an XO itself, all 
the media objects could be integrated as collections of frame-less 
X-windows (or some similar but simpler mechanism).

Etoys (and, better, an improvement in Etoys that has more age range) 
could be done in Python by writing a parser for one of the file 
formats and making the Etoys graphical environment and control in 
Python. This would completely unify these ideas on the XO -- but 
something more like the integrated architecture for many kinds of 
media objects would still have to be created.

In other words, Etoys per se are not nearly as important as the ideas 
and access to authoring power for children that they implement.

In any case, we are gradually working on the next version of an Etoys 
like environment that deals much more richly with more of the 
important issues for  children's authoring than we do now.

Cheers,

Alan



At 01:34 PM 6/21/2007, Eben Eliason wrote:
>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.
>
>- Eben
>
>On 6/21/07, Bert Freudenberg 
><<mailto:bert at freudenbergs.de>bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>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:
>          http://www.dm.uba.ar/MathMorphs/
>
>and updated to work in recent Squeak releases
>
>         <http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak>http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/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 
> <<mailto:rebecca.gettys at comcast.net>rebecca.gettys at comcast.net > 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
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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