Avigail, Cathie, Kathleen, Cherry, Randy, Rita

We started talking about Squeakfest preparations, where we have work to do: go for funding, spread the word about the call for presentations, invite people, prepare flyers, think about give-aways etc. Since this is more business-related we will schedule another meeting for that topic. Everyone who wants to help with the preparations is invited to join us!

Next we talked about the idea of "artefacts" in Etoys, where we have slightly different feelings about. We agree that it is part of the job of the education team to look closely on new ideas to give advice and discuss it. With new Etoys versions, we can do "house cleaning", remove unused objects etc. There are things we discovered while writing the Etoys reference manual, we will make our notes there and before a new release look at them and react. To communicate this to the developers, we will use jira, and on next meeting spend some time figuring out how.

Randy gave us more feedback on Rico's work and more improtant, asked for feedback for his next milestone. We will invite him for our next meeting and talk especially about Input/Output of Data From/To Files.

[27.05.10 18:33:58] Rita Freudenberg: hi there
[27.05.10 18:34:14] Randall Caton: hi
[27.05.10 18:34:11] akathleen: Hi
[27.05.10 18:36:38] C Galas: hello everyone-apologies for last week-I tried skype on my iPhone when I was caught without my computer after picking up my car from service. I knew I couldn't make it home, so I just ducked into a starbucks, but typing on my iPhone didn't work well. Apologies for any confusion!
[27.05.10 18:40:09] Rita Freudenberg: squeakfest preparations: cherry made great mock-ups for program flyers
[27.05.10 18:40:35] Rita Freudenberg: contact the previous sponsors like MaMaMedia
[27.05.10 18:40:43] Rita Freudenberg: write grant proposals
[27.05.10 18:41:19] Cherry Withers: Let me hangup...it might be me
[27.05.10 18:42:20] akathleen: are we still connected
[27.05.10 18:42:49] Rita Freudenberg: everyone but you
[27.05.10 18:42:53] Cherry Withers: oh no
[27.05.10 18:43:02] Rita Freudenberg: we will get you back!
[27.05.10 18:45:20] Avigail Snir: # 5 The World Wide Workshop Foundation

• 5.1 GLOBALORIA Program
  [27.05.10 18:46:16] Avigail Snir: The foundation of Idit Harel: # 5 The World Wide Workshop Foundation

• 5.1 GLOBALORIA Program
  [27.05.10 18:49:29] Rita Freudenberg: talk to Sridhar if funding could go through UNCW
  [27.05.10 18:50:39] Rita Freudenberg: propose a different time for a business meeting
  [27.05.10 18:51:41] Cherry Withers: Rita please send me the sample letter for sponsorship grants and we can divide and conquer on sending them out?
  [27.05.10 18:51:43] akathleen: what costs will UNCW cover
  [27.05.10 18:52:31] C Galas: we can't take money in yet-we can't use Viewpoints and we are not set up. I'm not sure we can take money in until we get (hopefully!) into the software consortium?
  [27.05.10 18:55:05] Rita Freudenberg: invite Sridhar to a Squeakfest meeting next week
  [27.05.10 19:00:06] C Galas: it's doing the same things the same way instead of doing the same things DIFFERENTLY!
  [27.05.10 19:00:29] C Galas: teacher is not understanding the power of the computer-
  [27.05.10 19:01:00] C Galas: needs to know what possibilities there are-yes and show EToys with math concepts- variables, zero,
  [27.05.10 19:01:27] Avigail Snir: I was asking about the squeakers from Nepal and south America. Are they aware of the sqeakfest and are we going to help them pay for participating? Could you hear me when I talked?
  [27.05.10 19:01:46] C Galas: that comes from fear-not knowing-that is something we need to overcome-fear of a new thing and not understanding how to use in a classroom
  [27.05.10 19:01:52] Randall Caton: i coulnd't hear you
  [27.05.10 19:02:10] akathleen: I can not hear you Avigail, are you muted?
  [27.05.10 19:02:22] Avigail Snir: Please call me again
  [27.05.10 19:03:19] Rita Freudenberg: are the artifacts worksheets?
  [27.05.10 19:03:38] C Galas: i agree-building is the core concept-seeing what happens when you take off the hood
  [27.05.10 19:03:52] C Galas: where are you seeing these worksheet Etoys?
  [27.05.10 19:04:09] C Galas: projects, artifacts, buildings, all good!
  [27.05.10 19:04:11] Cherry Withers: I've only seen the graphing object
  [27.05.10 19:05:05] Cherry Withers: and Stephen
  [27.05.10 19:05:10] Rita Freudenberg: http://www.squeaksource.com/LearningArtifacts/
  [27.05.10 19:06:28] Cherry Withers: Steve base it on cuisenaire rods
  [27.05.10 19:06:48] Cherry Withers: Miquon Math
  [27.05.10 19:07:47] Rita Freudenberg: education team should look more into these new things to have more influence
  [27.05.10 19:08:08] akathleen: http://www.mathplayground.com/%5C/
  [27.05.10 19:09:20] Rita Freudenberg: with artefacts there is no thinking?
  [27.05.10 19:09:48] akathleen: This web site has so many nice math projects and some of them could be made by students with Etoys. It would be great if we could make some of these as Etoys projects and show how they are done.
  [27.05.10 19:10:09] Cherry Withers: for maybe assessment not necessarily for instruction?
  [27.05.10 19:13:15] Rita Freudenberg: fractions project on the showcase http://www.squeakland.org/showcase/project.jsp?id=9975
  [27.05.10 19:13:49] C Galas: I get a statement that says You do not have access to that porject. ?
  [27.05.10 19:14:03] Cherry Withers: same here
  [27.05.10 19:14:03] Rita Freudenberg: I logged in on the website
  [27.05.10 19:22:59] Rita Freudenberg: do we want to have these artefacts in Etoys? education team should discuss this.
  [27.05.10 19:24:45] Rita Freudenberg: we have already many things in Etoys, we should do a "house-cleaning" to remove things?
  [27.05.10 19:25:36] Rita Freudenberg: put the list of things to remove into jira
  [27.05.10 19:26:53] Rita Freudenberg: tag it with "education"
  [27.05.10 19:26:53] Cherry Withers: Do people actually look at that? I feel like it's a blackhole for information. I never see responses to my entries.
  [27.05.10 19:27:04] Cherry Withers: Maybe it's just my settings
  [27.05.10 19:27:54] Cherry Withers: yes please!
  [27.05.10 19:28:02] Rita Freudenberg: jira workshop in next meeting
  [27.05.10 19:28:35] Rita Freudenberg: orientation for new members
  [27.05.10 19:29:07] akathleen: Is there a way for us to use the alt-shift-w "update code from server"? As I read about all of the changes that are being added, I don't have any sense of how all of those changes are going to fit together as a whole.
  [27.05.10 19:29:20] Cherry Withers: Maybe have a default Welcome e-mail for new members coming in would be helpful in the future.
  [27.05.10 19:30:41] Rita Freudenberg: educators need to be able to test changes easy
  [27.05.10 19:31:03] Rita Freudenberg: cherry, could you start writing such a message, and we refine it later?
  [27.05.10 19:31:11] Cherry Withers: sure
  [27.05.10 19:31:18] Rita Freudenberg: thanks
  [27.05.10 19:31:57] akathleen: Etoys Kurznkeitengun
  [27.05.10 19:32:23] Rita Freudenberg: kurzanleitungen
  [27.05.10 19:32:36] C Galas: the other thing that Alan and Dan have talked about is being able to not download Etoys-this is the big thing that will make it so much easier!!-and better for schools that can't download due to firewalls.
  [27.05.10 19:32:55] C Galas: Alan is talking with Steve Jobs about getting Etoys on the iPad too
  [27.05.10 19:35:02] akathleen: Etoys in iPad would be great
  [27.05.10 19:35:44] C Galas: can't you see it working on that screen-it's like the Dynabook!
  [27.05.10 19:35:46] Rita Freudenberg: release date: mid-June
  [27.05.10 19:36:17] Cherry Withers: bye Kathleen!
  [27.05.10 19:36:27] Cherry Withers: great!
  [27.05.10 19:37:48] Randall Caton: Graphing of Data ------> finished by April 16

Better translation support ------> finished by May 7

Wider font support ------> finished by May 28

Input/Output of Data From/To Files ------> finished by June 18

Learner and Teacher Feedback ------> finished by July 9

Etoys paint tool ------> finished by July 26

EtoyMaker ------> finished by August 9
[27.05.10 19:38:23] C Galas: These dates are from Rico's project?
[27.05.10 19:38:55] Rita Freudenberg: have ricoh on one of the next meetings
[27.05.10 19:40:26] Rita Freudenberg: invite rico next week
[27.05.10 19:41:09] Cherry Withers: It was Flash-like
[27.05.10 19:41:21] Cherry Withers: html5/javascript
[27.05.10 19:42:23] Cherry Withers: He has a sponsor
[27.05.10 19:43:59] Rita Freudenberg: contact madhur shresta, ask if he plans to come
[27.05.10 19:44:40] Rita Freudenberg: Cherry will have a Kedama presentation
[27.05.10 19:45:31] C Galas: Cherry-I'm trying to get in touch with Linda Kao, who wrote the tutorial-I have an email int to Aimee Dorr at UCLA, who was her advisor. I'll let you know if that happens.
[27.05.10 19:45:41] C Galas: the tutorial on Kedama that is
[27.05.10 19:48:40] Avigail Snir: Rita, can you email me madhur Shresta's Email address?
[27.05.10 19:48:59] Randall Caton: Goals for Richo's project
[27.05.10 19:49:02] Randall Caton: 1. Input/Output of Data From/To Files: Tiles would be created to allow data from the Etoys environment to be output to a file and for information from an external file to be imported into the Etoys environment.
2. Learner and Teacher Feedback: Tiles would be created to allow formative feedback to be provided to learners and teachers as a student progresses through a project.
[27.05.10 19:49:03] Cherry Withers: ok..thank you everyone!
[27.05.10 19:49:56] C Galas: thanks everyone-bye!

Avigail, Cathie, Cherry, David, Steve, Kathleen, Beth, Carlos, Randy, Rita

Rita gave a short review of her visit and talk in Portugal, which led us to the topic of the different versions of Squeak Etoys which are used. We agreed that we at least need to put some information on the website about which projects work well with the showcase and Etoys 4.

Randy gave us an overview about Rico's progress on his GSoC project, which is really good. Steve asked to switch the last two topics on his agenda and to do Learner and Teacher feedback before Etoys Paint tool. For the paint tool we will ask the community for feedback before changes or additions will be made.

Then we came up with the first presentation proposals for Squeakfest and other related issues.

You can find the chat log below.

Rita

[20.05.10 18:35:56] stevesargon: That's a great idea for learning a new language
[20.05.10 18:36:34] Rita Freudenberg: bug: recorded audio files are missing
[20.05.10 18:37:45] Rita Freudenberg: Kathleen: sometimes it workes, sometimes it didn't
[20.05.10 18:38:04] Rita Freudenberg: happens when there are a lot of sound bites
[20.05.10 18:40:47] Cherry Withers: PC for me
[20.05.10 18:40:59] Rita Freudenberg hat David Corking zu diesem Chat hinzugefügt
[20.05.10 18:41:02] Cherry Withers: also how long are each of the sound bites?
[20.05.10 18:41:33] Rita Freudenberg: randy: it worked fine before the XO version
[20.05.10 18:41:58] Rita Freudenberg hat C Galas zu diesem Chat hinzugefügt
[20.05.10 18:44:36] C Galas: Hi everyone
[20.05.10 18:48:10] Rita Freudenberg: http://www.squeaklandia.pt/index.php/In%C3%ADcio
[20.05.10 18:50:21] stevesargon: A known issues section of the website
[20.05.10 18:52:27] Rita Freudenberg: ask Luis if projects from squeakland are running in Squeak 3.9
[20.05.10 18:52:38] Beth Santos: oops! need to lose my internet connection for just one second but i'll be right back!
[20.05.10 18:54:35] Randall Caton: Graphing of Data ------> finished by April 16
Better translation support ------> finished by May 7
Wider font support ------> finished by May 28
EtoyMaker ------> finished by June 11
Input/Output of Data From/To Files ------> finished by July 2
Etoys paint tool ------> finished by July 23
Learner and Teacher Feedback ------> finished by August 9
[20.05.10 18:54:41] akathleen: I must stop for a while to speak to a repairman
[20.05.10 18:55:21] C Galas: Please try calling me once more?
[20.05.10 18:56:38] stevesargon: Cathy, try mute
[20.05.10 18:58:50] Rita Freudenberg: more tools in the catalog
[20.05.10 18:59:04] Rita Freudenberg: if you open rico's projects
[20.05.10 18:59:38] Cherry Withers: it would help to have someone include this as a presentation on Squeakfest as "New features talk" and demo them
[20.05.10 18:59:52] stevesargon: Screencast
[20.05.10 18:59:56] stevesargon: put on YouTube
[20.05.10 19:00:03] Cherry Withers: great idea
[20.05.10 19:00:06] Cherry Withers: yes!
[20.05.10 19:00:20] Cherry Withers: you can also do Jing
[20.05.10 19:02:00] Cherry Withers: They would love the beach!
[20.05.10 19:03:50] Randall Caton: 1. Input/Output of Data From/To Files: This would allow learners to import data for visualization in the Etoys environment. Etoys is richer than most learning environments used in education and very creative things could be done in Etoys to visualize and use external data from a file. Learners and Teachers would also benefit from getting formative feedback on how the learner is progressing. Etoys is a rich environment of objects and data regarding the learner's manipulation of these objects would be sent to an external file for educators to analyze at a later date. The feedback would be more sophisticated and useful than a simple list of keystrokes or monitoring of eye movements. Further, data could be retrieved from these files to present to the learner or teacher as formative feedback on the learner's progress.
[20.05.10 19:06:50] Randall Caton: ask Richo to move up Learner and Teacher Feedback
[20.05.10 19:06:59] akathleen: i"m back
[20.05.10 19:07:21] Beth Santos: i'll be doing some work in sao tome over the next month and can give feedback on my experience there too!
[20.05.10 19:07:22] Rita Freudenberg: ask community for feedback on etoys paint tool before Rico starts working on it
[20.05.10 19:07:40] Carlos Rabassa: africa
[20.05.10 19:07:58] Randall Caton: 1. Input/Output of Data From/To Files: Tiles would be created to allow data from the Etoys environment to be output to a file and for information from an external file to be imported into the Etoys environment.
2. Learner and Teacher Feedback: Tiles would be created to allow formative feedback to be provided to learners and teachers as a student progresses through a project.
[20.05.10 19:08:05] Carlos Rabassa: Sao TOme e Principe , they speak portuguese
[20.05.10 19:08:07] stevesargon: thanks
[20.05.10 19:09:44] stevesargon: Is the latest version .010 there?
[20.05.10 19:09:49] Beth Santos: sorry, just ran off but i'm back yes, lots of connections with portuguese diaspora. not necessarily waveplace-related
[20.05.10 19:10:13] Rita Freudenberg: so you know about the portuguese material, yes?
[20.05.10 19:10:14] C Galas: What is the learner and teacher feedback? Is this written by the one who makes the project? Is the intent to provide scaffolded instruction?
[20.05.10 19:10:33] stevesargon: Its whatever you want it to be
[20.05.10 19:10:57] Beth Santos: just learning about the portuguese material as you all speak!
[20.05.10 19:11:00] Randall Caton: http://www.pcs.cnu.edu/~rcaton/ESUG/ESUG.html
[20.05.10 19:11:34] C Galas: It appears when summonses or when triggered by certain responses?
[20.05.10 19:11:41] Beth Santos: sounds great!!
[20.05.10 19:12:00] Randall Caton: Cathy - the intent is for the teacher to be able to write the feedback in Etoys
[20.05.10 19:12:30] akathleen: http://www.etoysillinois.org/library.php?tags=Etoys%20Kurzanleitungen%202010
[20.05.10 19:12:53] akathleen: just a start on the German translations at web site above
[20.05.10 19:13:15] Cherry Withers: Would it look like the one you had Randy? or is it something that educators can also put in different format or table?
[20.05.10 19:13:26] akathleen: repair meeting again, back soon
[20.05.10 19:13:48] Randall Caton: Cherry - like the example I created
[20.05.10 19:14:04] Randall Caton: only much more
[20.05.10 19:17:37] Rita Freudenberg: Merik Vosswinkel created an Etoys version for the iPhone
[20.05.10 19:18:05] stevesargon: Etoys on Android is a great idea
[20.05.10 19:18:22] C Galas: Alan is working on this. But thinks it would be the next version pf etoys
[20.05.10 19:18:41] C Galas: On the upas with Steve
[20.05.10 19:21:37] David Corking: Steve - have you posted an example project showing cuisenaire rods or other manipulatives?
[20.05.10 19:23:10] stevesargon: David - yes, its called Fraction Tools
[20.05.10 19:23:37] Cherry Withers: I can do a short one on Etoys in Philippines: Etoys contest as a filler.
[20.05.10 19:24:06] Cherry Withers: How many "experts"/developers do we have who are going to attend?
[20.05.10 19:24:07] stevesargon: I will be doing on on "Tools to Teach with"
[20.05.10 19:24:12] akathleen: back
[20.05.10 19:24:38] stevesargon: Fraction Tools - http://www.squeakland.org/showcase/project.jsp?id=7673
[20.05.10 19:25:08] stevesargon: Also Area blocks - http://www.squeakland.org/showcase/project.jsp?id=7744
[20.05.10 19:25:24] Cherry Withers: Can we possibly put a banner/ad on the NYU event at the end of the month?
[20.05.10 19:25:29] stevesargon: Am working on a GeoBoard as well
[20.05.10 19:25:44] Cherry Withers: Alan Kay is a keynote speaker
[20.05.10 19:25:45] Cherry Withers: yes
[20.05.10 19:26:07] akathleen: olpc learning club might be willing to post info about Squeakfest, I will get in touch with Mike Lee
[20.05.10 19:26:50] Rita Freudenberg: contact Idit Harel
[20.05.10 19:27:36] stevesargon: is anyone else going to NYU?
[20.05.10 19:27:36] C Galas: I worked with her and Yasmin Macao
[20.05.10 19:27:43] David Corking: steve, I will ask my son's teacher if I can try Fractions and Area Blocks on his interactive whiteboard
[20.05.10 19:27:52] C Galas: Kafai
[20.05.10 19:28:10] C Galas: Cc
[20.05.10 19:28:14] stevesargon: David, thanks I would appreciate any feedback and suggestions for improvements
[20.05.10 19:29:45] Rita Freudenberg: cathie, what do you think? will you contact Idit?
[20.05.10 19:31:20] C Galas: Kathleen let's chat later by email and we can both call her?
[20.05.10 19:31:41] Rita Freudenberg: Cathie, it was Avigail
[20.05.10 19:32:15] C Galas: Sorry I only see the chat and hear voices
[20.05.10 19:32:38] C Galas: Abigail we will chat later?
[20.05.10 19:33:04] C Galas: iPhone auto correct avigail
[20.05.10 19:33:16] Rita Freudenberg:
[20.05.10 19:33:50] Cherry Withers: It would be interesting to know how UNCW keep their students interested
[20.05.10 19:35:02] Carlos Rabassa: Nice being with all of you. Thanks for inviting me to join. Have to leave to pick up grandson from school. Bye
[20.05.10 19:35:11] Rita Freudenberg: bye Carlos
[20.05.10 19:35:50] Cherry Withers: bye Carlos
[20.05.10 19:37:07] C Galas: Thx all I will go now apologies for my poor connection. Cathie
[20.05.10 19:37:24] Rita Freudenberg: thanks for joning us!
[20.05.10 19:40:27] stevesargon: Thanks
[20.05.10 19:42:29] akathleen: I just sent a note to Mike Lee about Squeakfest OLPC Learning Club DC
[20.05.10 19:43:39] Rita Freudenberg: in Chicago: went out to a restaurant and listened to jazz
[20.05.10 19:44:19] Rita Freudenberg: reception on campus was better
[20.05.10 19:46:47] Rita Freudenberg: book sprint June, 14
[20.05.10 19:48:21] akathleen: I must leave for a meet at 1 PM
[20.05.10 19:48:53] Beth Santos: i'm also heading out. thanks everyone! i'll be in touch about haiti and sao tome
[20.05.10 19:53:50] David Corking: thank you - bye
[20.05.10 19:54:11] Cherry Withers: It was nice talking to you David! Bye bye everyone

Rita, Christine, Bruno, Randy, Kathleen, Avigail, Steve, Cathie, Cherry

#1 Squeakfest: Rita showed an outline from Sridhar about how the Squeakfest could be strucured. Avigail asked if we will exclude elementary school teachers? We will not exclude them, it depends on what kind of presentations we will get. The call for papers should start soon, submisison via email to UNCW and education team.

#2 Squeakfest website: Rita will try to update the website, if this will not work, we will start a new one.

#3 blog and newsletter: Cathie suggested to start a blog somewhere and collect information. Since the blog on Squeakland still isn't working properly, we will start a Google blog and link to it from the website. By talking about Google we came to the conclusion to switch to Google Groups with the education mailing list and try it out. Steve created it immediately

#4: textbooks: There is a need for a new textbook, a replacement for the powerful ideas. We started to talk about how this could look like, this is still in progress.

[21:15] ritaf:so let's start the meeting
[21:16] ritaf:who is here?
[21:16]randy2: Randy is here
[21:16]richo2:Richo
[21:16]MrSteve:Stephen
[21:16]bertf:me
[21:16]ritaf:rita
[21:16]jecel:Present
[21:16]scottwal:scott
[21:17]ritaf:welcome everyone
[21:17] ritaf:and welcome richo!
[21:17]richo2:thanks for inviting me here
[21:18]ritaf:I don't know if you all know that Richo is working on the GSoC-Squeakland education project
[21:19]randy2:Richo is doing an amazing job
[21:19]ritaf:and as far as I know, he is doing great and looking for more work
[21:19] ritaf:so I thought it would be a good idea to get some suggestions from our developers
[21:20]randy2:should I put up our proposal so far?
[21:20]bertf:sure
[21:21]randy2:1. Etoys paint tool The painting tool is one of the most used features of Etoys. The current implementation would be improved in order to support features like zoom, multiple undo, and a select tool, among others. 2. Graphing of Data Tiles for creating vertical and horizontal grid lines, major and minor tick marks, labels for axes, and a label for the graph would be created to allow students to graph data they acquire in science and mathematics project
[21:22]bertf:sounds like nice-to-have features indeed
[21:23]randy2:Richo has already done most of item 2!
[21:24]ritaf:that's great!
[21:24]jecel:Since Dr. Geo is going to be integrated into the next version of Etoys, I wonder if it includes any of these features?
[21:24]DanGJavaGeek:has anyone @ MIT done user testing with the target audience on the paint tool for scratch? I would think there would be similar or related feedback given the target...
[21:25]ritaf:this is a good question, I will find out!
[21:25]jecel:The paint tool isn't as critical for Scratch since they love to use clip art
[21:25]bertf:jecel: i don't thibk dr geo icludes any of this
[21:26]jecel:bertf: thanks! I only saw a movie or two and don't remember much about it
[21:26]MrSteve:On item 2, it would be nice to have tools that facilitate kids learning about data collection, analysis and reporting
[21:27]randy2:Stephen - could you givbe an example of such a tool?
[21:27]MrSteve:The graphing helps with the analysis and reporting, one thing that would be nice is to have ...
[21:27] MrSteve:Methods to allow kids to create, publish to and analyze data from their own databases, public, class or project DBs.
[21:28]randy2:That goes along with item 3 also
[21:29]MrSteve:Sorry, what's item 3?
[21:29]randy2:Or do you want a database tool in etoys
[21:29] randy2:1. Etoys paint tool The painting tool is one of the most used features of Etoys. The current implementation would be improved in order to support features like zoom, multiple undo, and a select tool, among others. 2. Graphing of Data Tiles for creating vertical and horizontal grid lines, major and minor tick marks, labels for axes, and a label for the graph would be created to allow students to graph data they acquire in science and mathematics project
[21:29] randy2:Sorry - I tried to copy just item 3 and failed
[21:31]bertf:we do't see a 3rd item
[21:32]MrSteve:Richo, as you will soon find out I have a lot of ideas and opinions (not all good so before I do a brain dump, what interests you and what would you like to do?
[21:32]richo2:well, databases aren't my favorites
[21:32]randy2:3. Input/Output of Data From/To Files Tiles would be created to allow data from the Etoys environment to be output to a file and for information from an external file to be imported into the Etoys environment.
[21:33]jecel:There is a third item at http://gsoc2010.esug.org/projects/squeakland-education
[21:33]richo2:the proposal at gsoc2010.esug.org is not up to date
[21:33]MrSteve:"If I knew where I was going to die, I would never go there"
[21:33]randy2:I haven't updated the project at ESUG yet so it doesn't agree with what I just posted
[21:33]jecel:Yeah, it doesn't mention the paint app
[21:34]MrSteve:Richo, very wise, knowing what you don't like is important
[21:34]randy2:I want to update the project after our meeting and I get more feedback from Richo
[21:35]DanGJavaGeek:are there particular use cases for #3 data import/export?
[21:35]richo2:steve: you just proposed one of the few things I dislike the most
[21:35]randy2:to keep a record of student results
[21:36] randy2:to import data to analyze
[21:37]ritaf:I would like to know if anyone has thought about adding these things to Etoys before?
[21:37]randy2:To answer Dan in more detail: This would allow learners to import data for visualization in the Etoys environment. Etoys is richer than most learning environments used in education and very creative things could be done in Etoys to visualize and use external data from a file. Learners and Teachers would also benefit from getting formative feedback on how the learner is progressing. Etoys is a rich environment of objects and data regarding the learners m
[21:37] ohshima hat den Chatroom betreten.
[21:38]ritaf:hi yoshiki
[21:39]ohshima:Just trying an IRC client on my phone. pls send me the log afterwards.
[21:39]jecel:Etoys is a bit weak in dealing with table-style data
[21:40]DanGJavaGeek:thanks, I was wondering if there were examples people wanted to try like data in CSV, graphs, charts, the squeakers movie example with dropping objects, I guess one could import data there rather than record individual distances per video frame
[21:40]bertf:ritaf: an improved painting tool sounds obviously useful. graphing is possible already - but could be made easier of course, if it fits with the resto of Etoys. Dealing with files is unprecedented.
[21:42]randy2:Scott wrote code for me awhile back to write to and get from text files. Thanks Scott.
[21:43] randy2:I though it could be made into tiles.
[21:43]bertf:the way Scratch handles files is - it doesn't really. it has a "list type" which is interactive first and foremost. but it can export to a text file, and import one - each line becomes a list item
[21:44] bertf:randy2: does it need to be a tile? or is impoting a text into a holder sufficient? Line by line like Scratch?
[21:44]DanGJavaGeek:right - no requirement that one become the other but I was trying to put into context where students using the environment would want and use file I/O, I think randy had reasonable examples
[21:45]jecel:About tables, has anybody used the Skeleton spreadsheet? How well does it work and how well does it integrated with the rest of Etoys?
[21:45]bertf:jecel: no idea, but I was wondering too
[21:45]randy2:Bert - any way that a novice can use without having to write Smalltalk code.
[21:45]richo2:I played with Skeleton and it's great
[21:45]bertf:randy2: sure. it could be a halo-menu item
[21:46]richo2:but I used the old smallland version of Etoys
[21:46]bertf:richo2: is it scriptable from Etoys?
[21:47]jecel:richo2: that is nice to know. I am just trying to figure out what will be done with the data once it is imported
[21:47]richo2:you can either write functions as smalltalk code or connect etoys tiles with cells
[21:47] richo2:so if the value of the cell changes the value of the etoy tile changes as well
[21:48] richo2:it's very simple
[21:48] ohshima hat den Chatroom verlassen. (Ping timeout: 260 seconds)
[21:49]bertf:well, might be worth investigating. Randy - if that allowed exportign and importing data such a spreadsheat might be ideal, no?
[21:49]randy2:Bert - yes
[21:50]jecel:The other alternative I see is Kedama - your CSV (comma separated values) data becomes the patches in a world
[21:53]bertf:yes, but that's rather hard to understand I'd think
[21:54]richo2:I was thinking of something like an Etoys Stream object
[21:54]bertf:richo2: pelase explain
[21:54] bertf:please
[21:54]jecel:Yes, you are limited to SIMD (single instruction multiple data) which is far less flexible than a spreadsheet
[21:54]richo2:so you would have a slot with the current word
[21:55] richo2:and commands to read the next one or write to a file
[21:55]DanGJavaGeek:that's interesting, so it's not necessarily limited to file I/O, but could be a stream of items... temperatures, stock prices, etc., maybe from some network service or a file
[21:55]bertf:richo2: that sounds a lot like programming. very abstract. the power of etoys is to be concrete.
[21:55]richo2:bertf: yes
[21:56]jecel:Streams are great and I know you are interested in robots
[21:56]richo2:I did something like that a lot of time ago to access the serial port from etoys
[21:56]DanGJavaGeek:agreed, "power of etoys is to be concrete" and trying to explain network i/o to k-12 students isn't a fun time
[21:57]richo2:but it was, as bert said, very programming oriented
[21:57]bertf:maybe something like a sensor ... instead of physical data it would read data from a file
[21:57]DanGJavaGeek:without something concrete and fun to play with, that is
[21:57]jecel:The reason I was talking about tables instead was that analysing data for inclusion in reports was mentioned
[21:58]randy2:Bert - you had suggested fixing up etoys code and Richo sounded interested if it were a well-defined portion. Do you have a small chunk to suggest for him to work on? Richo are you still interested or do you have enough already?
[21:59]richo2:I'm very interested in getting etoys working on top of trunk
[21:59]DanGJavaGeek:on the sensor end, things like http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Sensor_Boards and Lego WeDo i/o has been interesting for various classrooms that can afford either, but requiring hardware above and beyond an XO or a computer lab is limiting
[21:59]bertf:richo2: do you have experience with Monticello?
[22:00]richo2:I know only the basic stuff
[22:00] richo2:I only use it to get the code out of the image
[22:00] richo2:in a way that I can upload to squeaksource
[22:01]bertf:for bringing Etoys closer to the Squeak Trunk, we need to reorganize the Etoys image. karl started with this
[22:01] bertf:it's a big project
[22:01]richo2:yes, I know... that's why I asked for a well defined task
[22:01] MrSteve hat den Chatroom verlassen. (Quit: CGI:IRC (Ping timeout))
[22:01]richo2:I don't feel capable of doing it by myself
[22:01]bertf:it's not well-bounded
[22:02] bertf:another pressing need is better translation support. that is better defined
[22:03] bertf:we need to split up the one big Etoys.po into smaller parts
[22:03] bertf:e.g., put all tile-translations into one file
[22:03]randy2:What about just fixing some of the languages that don't work - like Hatian Creole?
[22:04]bertf:randy2: creole is trivial
[22:04] bertf:i sent Tim a fix before he went to haiti
[22:05]randy2:okay
[22:05]bertf:it just was not listed as a Utf8 language
[22:05]richo2:yes, that is better defined. And I think I can do that, but I would need to investigate a little. I don't know how translation works
[22:05]bertf:richo2: we should ask korakurider
[22:06] bertf:he did most of the translation framework
[22:06] bertf:and I'm sure he has ideas for how to split it up
[22:06] bertf:we also need wider font support
[22:06] bertf:there is a changeset in the tracker that is untested
[22:07]richo2:what about Juan Vuletich's font stuff?
[22:07]bertf:richo2: that's latin only
[22:07] bertf:we can't effort bitmap fonts for all foreign scripts
[22:07]richo2:oh, I didn't know
[22:07]bertf:Cuis does not even have i18n support IIRC
[22:08] bertf:or m17n rather
[22:08] bertf:anyway, we cant't load all fonts into the image, it just gets too big
[22:08] bertf:so andreas made a changeset that loads truetype fonts on demand
[22:08] bertf:it's on mantis somewhere
[22:09] bertf:that would be good to have.
[22:09]richo2:if there is code waiting to be tested I feel much more comfortable than writing it from scratch
[22:10]bertf:on the XO under Linux we use Pango for non-latin languages. but it is still really immature. lots of layout problems
[22:10] bertf:OTOH Pango can even render Arabic and Devanagari etc., really complicated scripts
[22:11] bertf:tracker is down again
[22:12] bertf:richo2: yes there is code already. we would need to decide which fonts to include (we do not want to use the host's fonts)
[22:13]richo2:why?
[22:13]bertf:because projects need to look identical across platforms
[22:14] bertf:that's the promise of etoys, bit-identical everywhere
[22:14]richo2:ok
[22:14] MrSteve hat den Chatroom betreten.
[22:15]bertf:I can't use a Mac font in a project that needs to work on Linux as well
[22:15]richo2:that's the reason Etoys has all those weird fonts?
[22:15]bertf:yep
[22:16] bertf:we need to ship the fonts to use
[22:16] bertf:if we put them on file instead of the image we can potentially include more/nicer ones
[22:17] bertf:provided we can find some license-compatible ones
[22:17]jecel:If you use Self on a Sun machine, then save the image and restart it on a Mac it will be very obvious what a stupid idea it is to use platform fonts
[22:19]richo2:ok, so we need to test andreas code and choose a good set of fonts to include
[22:20]bertf:right. I;d start with one font that has good glyph coverage. DejavuLGC for example
[22:20]richo2:I'm sure andreas code will work fine, he doesn't seem to make a lot of mistakes
[22:20]bertf:oh he does, he is just quick at fixing the bugs too
[22:21] bertf:and since this code is largely untested we don't know the bugs yet
[22:21]richo2:ok, I can do that... do you know where can I find his code?
[22:22] richo2:I'm looking in mantis but it is kinda messy
[22:22]bertf:http://tracker.squeakland.org/
[22:22]richo2:oh
[22:22]bertf:if its up look for "fonts"
[22:22]richo2:yep, it's down
[22:22]bertf:has been unreliable for a while
[22:22]richo2:yes, that's a pity
[22:23] MrSteve hat den Chatroom verlassen. (Quit: CGI:IRC (EOF))
[22:23] MrSteve2 hat den Chatroom betreten.
[22:23]richo2:we should update the project proposal with this new ideas I think
[22:23]ritaf:we can talk about the tracker on the next meeting ...
[22:23]richo2:also, randy didn't finish to show what we already have
[22:24]ritaf:I will send the log files, so you can use it to update the proposal
[22:24]richo2:ok
[22:24]randy2:Richo - I would like you to update the proposal and add and delete what you want.
[22:24]richo2:oh, I have a question
[22:24]randy2:Richo - did you get my invitation to join the project?
[22:25]richo2:randy2: yes, I have to write the proposal
[22:25] richo2:that's easy because I have a template
[22:25] richo2:what I don't know is what should I write to apply to google
[22:25] richo2:also I don't know how the voting works
[22:26] richo2:maybe this is not the best place to ask
[22:26]randy2:Richo - just answer the questions Google asks on the FAC and include the updated proposal.
[22:27]ritaf:as far as I know, the mentors will vote. But I also remember something about asking the community before.
[22:28]randy2:Richo - the voting will be done the week after April 9 and I need to promote your project. I believe ESUG mentors vote at Google for ESUG projects.
[22:28]richo2:ok, that seems reasonable
[22:29]randy2:I have registered and Google as a mentor. The process seems very complex as new info comes out each day.
[22:30]richo2:yes, it's a mess
[22:30]randy2:ESUG is doing a great job.
[22:30]richo2:their website is a lot more informative than googles
[22:31]randy2:Rita - do the log files come by email?
[22:32]ritaf:I was planning to post it on squeakland, and to put it on the wiki.
[22:32]randy2:And do you send us the link?
[22:33] randy2:Or do we just go to the wiki?
[22:34]ritaf:I will send the link
[22:35]randy2:Rita - do you have a few minutes to Skype after the meeting is over?
[22:35]ritaf:yes, I do.
[22:35] ritaf:so I think we can finish the meeting for today?
[22:36]randy2:Richo - do you have any more questions?
[22:36]richo2:no, I'm fine
[22:36] richo2:I'll try to add these new items to the project proposal
[22:37] richo2:and I'll send it back to you
[22:37]randy2:I'm good. Should we quit? Do we just leave the chat?
[22:37]ritaf:thank you all for the meeting!
[22:37] ritaf:randy2: yes, you can just leave
[22:37]bertf:thanks all. randy2: yes, jsut close the browser window
[22:37]randy2:Thank you
[22:38] randy2 hat den Chatroom verlassen. (Quit: CGI:IRC)
[22:38]richo2:bye!
[22:38]ritaf:bye
[22:39] richo2 hat den Chatroom verlassen. (Quit: CGI:IRC (EOF))

participants: Randy, Cherry, Avigail, Stephen, Rita

Rita Freudenberg: cherry is preparing the cooney center proposal, Steve will help with the .pdf
stevesargon:By when do we need this in PDF? In EST?
Cherry Withers: Steve I will need them at least by 10pm PST, deadline is April 1st

Cherry Withers needs some input for the grant proposal, especially for: How does your concept promote literacy amongst children aged 6 to 9? How have you been/will you measure educational impact?

Rita Freudenberg: maybe we should ask for japanese papers?
Rita Freudenberg: Avigail suggested a reference to what BJ said in the Squeakers video
Rita Freudenberg: Randy mentioned a paper from 1998 wiglinsky
Rita Freudenberg: Idit Harel
Rita Freudenberg: Yasmin Kafai
Rita Freudenberg: Randy and Avigail are looking up references for research papers
Rita Freudenberg: Rita will ask Yoshiki and Abe-san about japanese research
Rita Freudenberg: Cherry will send the draft

Rita Freudenberg: Randy reported that the NASA connect projects are not working on the NASA website, because the method on Squeakland has changed. He has to replace nearly 200 links with the new method to get it working again.

Rita Freudenberg: GSoC: Randy reported that Rico already did the graphing tool
Rita Freudenberg: Rico would like to do more, for instance, providing a tool that makes it easy to create their own tiles. Hehas been suggested by Bert to work on getting Etoys back to Squeak.
stevesargon: So is this the moving to Pharo and Monitcello issue?
Rita Freudenberg: steve, yes
Rita Freudenberg: we will have a software meeting on monday and talk about ideas with Rico

stevesargon: How can I get an XO?
Cherry Withers: Steve, it's through the contributor's program of OLPC
Cherry Withers: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program
Cherry Withers: they now have XO 1.5

Rita Freudenberg: Randy asked about language support in Etoys, especially for Haitian Creole. How will the text of his lessons be translated? Would it be possible to work with translatable text in Etoys? That could be a problem, since changing the language to ht isn't working.

Rita Freudenberg: Avigail tells how to leave pen trails on a map by stamping the map on the background and having it ready to stamp it again if needed.

Cherry Withers: How can you let an object flip over on the screen?
stevesargon: 1) Change Forwad Direction to 90
stevesargon: Then Search  for rotation
stevesargon: And Change <Rotation Style> to <flip left right>
stevesargon: Then turn 180

stevesargon: Idea for Squeakfest, have a "Bring us your Etoys Problem/Challenge Table"
It would help us (me at least) get a better idea of the challenges folks have using Etoys and help decide what kinds of support materials to develop. I would be willing to staff the table, assuming I can go

Cherry Withers: How do you recover from a deleted paint tool?
stevesargon: Bug, the paint tool should have "resist being deleted" checked
stevesargon: Also in World Viewer Category "playfield" has "round up strays"
Rita Freudenberg: We figured out how to get the deleted paint tool back: round up strays on the world, start painting. it will appear in the top left corner.
Cherry Withers: Or at the very least the trash can be accessed and the paint tool fished out from it.

Participants: Kathleen, Randy, Cherry, Rita

- Kathleen proposed to add certain organisations to our community page, especially Ceibal, UseIT and HPI Potsdam

- Randy suggested to use the event theatre in Etoys instead of screencasts, because it can be better integrated with the project. The students will not just see something they have to follow, but can try on their own and will get help if neede. To have this help available within etoys is preferred to having to open another program.

- Rita will ask BJ about a print-on-demand publishing of the powerful ideas book

- Cherry has wonderful ideas and is working hard on the Cooney Center Grant, Randy and Kathleen will also help and the three of them will apply as a team.

- Tim asked in his email if he should move the lessons he's done for the basic etoys unit and storytelling unit to Waveplace, the participants of this call agree with that. We think that the lessons fit well with workshops or after school courses, but not with classroom use.

Randy, Cathie, Christine, Cherry, Steve, Rita

Randy did send a paper with 10 lesson ideas for a mathematics unit around earlier this week and raised some questions:

#. Seymore Papert spoke about the difference between maths (rote approach often used in schools - example: worksheet on calculating area using A=lw) and mathematics (ideas - example: area is additive). I have concentrated more on mathematics. Should there be more worksheet-like activities or should teachers be encouraged to add them if desired?

We encouraged Randy to go on with focus on mathematics. Cathie said, that it is important for kids to see that there is more then one way to find a solution for a problem, and that math standards are also pushing this kind of learning now. Also, kids need a reason when doing things, so it is important to give a reason with every lesson. Randy already has some great ideas for that in his plans, like planting a garden, other ideas are setting up a new room or re-building regarding Haiti.

#. I would appreciate any suggestions for incorporating more Etoys objects and tiles into my plan.

We agree in not to do too much in one lesson, for instance, focus on perimeter in one lesson and on area in another, but also put both together later, because kids need to see it together to be able to distinguish it.

#. This item is mostly for Tim. Would this set of lessons be used in Haiti? Or should I think of developing the lessons only for the Squeakland web site?

Rita will send Randys paper to Tim, Chris and Allison to get an answer for that.

We talked about the upcoming "Google Summer of Code" and we would like to participate. We thought about project ideas. Randy came up with graphing tools for Etoys or tools for handling geographical information. Rita will ask on the next software meeting for a mentor, and we also need to find students who would actually do the project.
Randy mentioned that he got some tips on how to write text from an Etoys project, which he wanted to use for recording user actions. Steve suggested to think about "adaptive" projects, which can change depending on the actions of the kids.
We later came back to the first question about the constructionist way and Cherry said that we need to provide a way for the teachers from working with worksheets to support constructionist learning.
Steve said, that a suitable entry point would be having kids use Etoys instead of PowerPoint to demonstrate their understanding of ideas. This could be done with stories and animations.

from Cherry: Steve also said that another entry point for teachers would be to expand Etoys Challenge but refine the feedback for the kids (incorporating "bigger" rewards than just "Hey, you get to go on to the next page!". Having a good  transition from worksheets to project based learning will increase the teacher "buy-in" for Etoys. I agree on what Cathie said about finding several solutions to problems and presenting it several ways.
 

Kathleen, Cathie, Avigail, Randy, Stephen, Cherry, Christine, Rita

Rita gave a short summary of her talk with Tim from Wednesday, Feb 17: 

• Tim recently conducted together with others two pilots in Cambridge, MA

• Tim started a new outline for the Etoys Basic lessons on the wiki, according to his experiences in the pilots and regarding to the upcoming Haiti pilot

In the discussion was said, that the education will review Tim's lessons and decide, if these will work for the Squeakland courseware. The education team recommends not to neglect the other existing lesson plans and incorporate them in the new courseware. From the next week we will focus more strongly on courseware.

We talked about current state of the manual: we will have the first chapters for review next week! Randy recommended to start the review process, even if the chapters are not in the perfect shape, because it is not sure yet how the review process will work. So we will develop the process by doing the first reviews.

The next point was the introductory text on the squeakland website. The educaiton team feels stronlgy that these texts need improvement. Cathie already rewrote the first paragrah, we want establish a way on how to get changes on the website.

http://www.squeakland.org/about/intro/

Kathleen told us about her recent accomplishments regarding the Quick Guides: there are new translations available and she is asking for contributors for more languages. We discussed the two possible ways to do these translations: either by creating new Quick Guides for every language or by using Etoys' "translatable text" feature and having all translations in one set of Quick Guides.

1. New Quick Guides: there is an open issue because in the current version Etoys allows only one set of Quick Guides, so incorporation needs some programming

http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-60

1. translatable text: layout can be an issue because of different text length in different languages, screenshots will always be english, because pictures will not be changed

Showcase issue: Christine reported a problem with her uploaded project on the showcase: there was a comment, that the project was not opened at the starting page and scripts were already done. We have to figure out what happened and create an issue on the tracker if this is a showcase problem.

Cherry, Randy, Rita, Avigail, Kathleen

At January 21 we talked about ideas to have Etoys projects and workshops in museums. While working on courseware, we will think how we can use parts of it for workshops. The paint box issue came up (from Rita): when starting Etoys 4, the painting area will be smaller then the screen. There are different opinions: while some like the larger area because the kids have freedom to paint big pictures, others had problems with these big paintings, because they are too big to be moved on the screen. We found out that we can just turn "etoys frindly" off and get the larger paint area. But to find the menu is not easy. We will go through all the preferences and make a list which of them we would like to have in a "Etoys Preference Pane".

Avigail asked if we will change the introductory page on the website

http://www.squeakland.org/about/intro/

Cathie Galas already reviewed a chapter, and the education team strongly suggests to give it a revision. 

In the next week we talked about the upcoming book sprint and Tim's Haiti videos.

http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/haiti/waveplace_foundation_haiti_reb.html

We will focus on the book sprint right now to get the manual finished, which then can be translated. After that, we will go on with our courseware. We will get help from a teacher who knows Haiti and who will give us feedback how our courseware copuld be used there.

participants

We used etherpad this time, and started playing with it a little at the beginning.

http://etherpad.com/ep/pad/view/jNqzRz9GwV/rev.1058

hello all from Randy
Hello this is Cherry and I'm in.
This is Avigail's color
cathie

book sprint December 7 until 12

http://wiki.squeakland.org/display/sq/Book+Sprint

http://en.flossmanuals.net/booksprints

for a face-to-face book sprint 2010

when would you have time?

maybe around Squeakfest?

Randy about Virginia:

CK-12 flexbooks will host a chapter on the Launch Abort System (LAS) in the Virginia Physics Flexbook. The simulations of the LAS will be done using etoys. I will make a self-contained version all in etoys that can be used from etoys-to-go. NSF will do a review of the current chapter on modeling and simulation - half of which is etoys. The Obama administration education group is having NSF do the review because they are interested in the approach as a model for education.

CK-12 wants me to put the chapter content in the Creative Commons. Does anyone have guidance for the best choice?
Best choice for..? They should automatically license you under CC.
Etoys is MIT licensed, I'm not sure how the relation is between MIT and CC.
CC: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
GPL is a problem with Etoys because..

courseware blurbs
Tim will email a sample pbskids.org blurb for guidance on the type of language to use.
why Etoys?

next Etoys release in June 2010: Etoys 5

• user interface improvements
• interconnection (screen sharing, object sharing) Will you start from Nebraska?
• layering complexity

• unit tests
• back to Squeak

http://wiki.squeakland.org/download/attachments/16766/newNapkin.png?version=1

http://tracker.squeakland.org/dev

featuring projcts:

each meeting decide which projects to feature each week

one of the ideas from a previous meeting about look of the courseware webpage

http://studentaffairs.uoregon.edu/planning/images/curriculum1.png

"Randy, John, Cherry, Rita

We talked about the nigerian geology project. From Hassans report about his meeting with local teachers in Nigeria we know that children in nigerian schools are probably less prepared for working with etoys than children in wetern countries. We need to have this in mind when preparing projects for them, e.g. what kind of pictures would be appropriate? John said we should more focus on creativity in this project.

Randy said that we probably can not use the same Etoys Unit for all children, one idea is to extend the basic unit for places where it is needed. For the basic unit, we will go through Alan's "steering a car" project and Abe-san's Etoys challenge, to include the main ideas in our unit and to provide tasks for the kids. Randy also mentioned "quadrivium" in an email he did send some days ago. He mainly says

"Arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Arithmetic explains relations between numbers. Geometry explains numbers in space. Music explains numbers in time. Astronomy explains numbers in space and time.

Visual art should be added, maybe as part of geometry - explaining numbers in space."

We will try to include these ideas into the courseware, make it visible on the website and mention it in the lessons, using references.

The next steps for the courseware are testing Randy's lessons in Brazil and Uruguay with Bruno and Fabiana, hopefully get feedback from there. Then we will do the videos and everything else we want to have for every unit to finish Randy's unit and put it on the website.

Cherry asked how we can add/reference to additional knowledge, which is important for a lesson. Rita said, that for the courseware we will try to focus on content which is part of the curriculum anyway, so there should be not much additional knowledge needed, because teacher have to teach the topic anyway and will probably already have their knowledge sources. But it is an important problem to consider, because we will not restrict our units and it could be useful to add links or files with information. So we have to think if e.g. wikipedia would be the way to go? At least there is a wikipedia activity on the xo. Ideas are welcomne here!

We also talked about how and where we will make our courseware available. Rita can contact OLPC via support-gang to make known once we have the first lessons online. Sugar-labs  has a moodle system, Rita will find out how it is used and if it would be an opportunity to put our courseware on it. Cherry requested that we have an offline-version of the courseware also, especially for regions without internet access.

Cherry also talked about eBooks and that with Etoys we could do interactive books. These books could be done by kids for other kids, or include several projects from a kid like a portfolio.

We shortly talked about the age range and decided to drop the "18 and older category" to not give the impression this could be adult content. We also want to stick with "minimal age and older" and not use "and younger", therefore Rand's suggestion for "age 4 and older". A comment has been added to the tracker. http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-533

Christine already started to write the etoys reference manual at FLOSS manuals. Cherry suggested to organize a book sprint to write the documentation. We like this idea and will propose the week after Thanksgiving for the sprint. The invitation will be out next week.

Randy, Avigail, Cathie, Cherry, Christine, Hilaire, Rita

We started discussing two questions Avigail raised in an email, which are now related to tracker issues.
1. How to edit/change a project that is already in the showcase? Find more details and comments in the tracker here:

http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-534
2. How to choose appropriate age recommendation for projects? As it turns out, the current items to choose from (up to 8 years, 9-11, 12-14, 15 and older) are very hard to use. Especially the upper limit can descourage older kids to even try the project. And when choosing the target age for projects, it is ok to choose the minimal age, but often the upper limit is not appropriate. Since we want to have target age for the projects in featured showcase, the options should be changed. The result of our discussion is this:

• ages 8 - older

• ages 12 - older

• ages 15 - older

• 18+

Here is the related tracker issue:

http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-533

Related to that we think that every project in featured showcase should have target age. We have to find out if it is possible somehow to add categorization to projects which are already uploaded. If this is impossible, we will at least add the relevant information using comments.
Featured projects should cover all age groups from elementary school to college level.
Since it seems to be hard to add target age later, we talked about how to encourage people, and especially kids, to choose a target age for their projects (withour pressing them to do so). Cathie came up with a nice text:

If you would like to share your project with the most people possible, please indicate what age person might be most interested in looking at or using your project.
3. We discussed which projects should be featured for the new release. Currently on our list are:

• all projects from the gallery, which are not in the tutorials section on the website:
  salmon sniff
  fish and plankton
  simple springs
  lunar lander game
  ball drop analysis
  bouncing ball animation
  make a movie
  speed acceleration
  random racing
  computer logic game
  turtle geometry

• other projects to feature:
  rabbits and grass
  butterfly queen
  seymour quest
  sun earth moon
  add relative integer
  Pling
  Ant Colony
  Morphing
  Spirograph
  nBody

Every project should have a description what it is about, especially projects like butterfly queen (story telling), which is the winenr of the waveplace awards. We also discussed if we should add more information about the developer of the project, like age and gender, to encourage and motivate other kids, but we should probably not publish such information about younger children, so we will not do this.

4. During our discussion about target age we again hit the point of having two different kind of projects: projects which are "just for fun" and projects with a sopecial purpose and how to distinguish between these.

5. Courseware
We are working on short descriptions for the courseware units.
We discussed examples of how the startpage for the courseware could look like. The design of the page is important also from an educational point of view. Avigail suggested to look up other education websites. Randy suggested to use a circle and put the categories around it, with arrows showing the relations between the topics. In the middle we can write up the main ideas of Etoys.
We looked up some examplary websites:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5sNE5ktPHQ4/Rrz-RLNHnFI/AAAAAAAAACc/WOHdV-NoUXU/s320/matrix.jpg
http://studentaffairs.uoregon.edu/planning/images/curriculum1.png
http://www.cast.uark.edu/assets/images/Research/Geomatics/geomatics.jpg
http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/pubs/katzsym/dodge2.gif

The second link was best appreciated. Cherry will make a first draft based on the example, using our list of units.
6. Cherry told us that John Stout is asking for help using the mesh network with Etoys. Rita advised that he should ask his questions on the squeakland mailing list.

Cathleen Galas, Christine Murakami, Cherry Withers, Randy Caton, John Stout, Tim Falconer, Rita Freudenberg

We started discussing the misison and role of the education team.  Tim copied parts of his document:
The education director will manage a team of "ambassadors" ... people who represent Etoys in their local region, encourage content creation, and promote training workshops.
He mentioned that the ed team mission has expanded. Rita's position (from invitation email): Are we primarily developers of content and documentation? Are we mentors for Etoys users? Are we supporters for whatever need arises in the community regarding use of Etoys in the classroom or at home? What is most important?When we agree on our role, we also need some rules for processes. For instance, what happens when the education team makes a decision which effects the software, website etc.? If another team needs a decision, do they have to write a proposal for us to decide? I personally prefer as few rules as possible, we all are volunteers and I believe that this kind of project can only be done in a starfish organisation [*] .
Randy pointed out that interaction with the software team is very important. Cathie made a point that not every changes someone would like to have should go into the system. It is important not to disrupt the user experience. We agreed that the education team should balance the need for changes and the responsibility for user experience. Tim said, that changes only go into the software, if all teams agree. Education team are the "stakeholders" and decide which change requests to consider.

Cathie said: 
I believe that the ed team should include both pieces for formal and informal learning environments.  This would include giving teachers use tips for classrooms, and looking at content creation for formal learning, which is different from working with kids that find the site on their own and need mentoring individually. balance is important-and then the changes might only be made once in a while-at certain points in time that are pre-ordained? 

Randy:
The education team should serve as a moderator for changes to Etoys and examine or suggest changes from an educational standpoint after careful deliberation and suggest associated documentation. I also believe that the education team should have input on the decision to add items to the featured showcase. The education team should be involved in planning Squeakfest as we have been.

Rita:
The education team will decide what goes to the fetaured showcase.
Tim told us about Squeakfest planning, announcement will coming soon. Also, we will add links to USEit project and Project Ceibal to the website.

Cathie: 
Tim-are you going to be posting the Wilmington projects to the Community page? I wonder if there should be something on the site also referencing the OLPC project and noting that EToys is part of the package.

We discussed what has to be done regarding courseware. SQ82. Tim sets the goal for the courseware to "training wheels to get them to "i can do anything!" lightbulb".

Cathie pointed out one of her articles on the old Squeakland website:

This article that I wrote in 2001 also talks about projects and gives ideas for teachers to use the tool in the classroom. http://www.squeakland.org/resources/articles/article.jsp?id=1012 Maybe this could be posted to the education section for teachers?

Tim:
what i need in two weeks: 16 titles, 16 paragraphs, specifically ... picking topics that could be taught in 2 weeks for a 4th grade teacher
3 for math, 3 for language arts, 3 for science, 3 for social studies, 1 for visual arts, 1 for music, 1 for health
Cathie: outline of topics that a fourth grade teacher would recognize.
Cathie said, that we need a guide for teachers how to do projects (not Etoys projects) in the classroom and how they can include Etoys animations/simulations.
Randy:
I agree with what Cathie says and that is where my heart lies. I think it would be good to look at something concrete to develop guidelines for the courseware.
Rita: randy, that's why I want to develop one unit, we can discuss what kind of projects we will use by doing this one unit
Cathie lists skilld which can be learned with the courseware: learner engages in scientifically oriented questions, learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions, learner formulates explanations from evidence, learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge, learner communicates and justifies explanations,
Tim--look at the above article to take to principals also: http://www.squeakland.org/resources/articles/article.jsp?id=1012 fourth grade math core standards http://www.uen.org/cc/uen/core/pub/displayCoreCourse.action?ccId=5040

Randy:
Etoys is a revolutionary computer-based learning environment that works well with the Universal Design for Learning approach and can be used to support the three recommendations of the How People Learn study. It is important to integrate mathematics into the development of science concepts to allow the levels of mathematical, conceptual, and science reasoning to rise together. This integration leads to a spiral process of understanding science through mathematics and building conceptual knowledge. The Etoys environment allows learners to use mathematics in simulations of science concepts. The ability of students to author their own projects or build on projects created by others supports an authentic approach to learning provides near instantaneous feedback to students while they are authoring. These features open the door for students to learn like experts learn.

We had a look at the old drive-a-car tutorial, which is on the old website: http://squeakland.org/content/oldsite/. Tim suggested to have an courseware unit with drive-a-car. Rita suggested to use it for the basic unit, where beginners learn about Etoys. Randy advised to especially highlight the philosophy behind the tutorial, which is described by Alan Kay. Rita will redo the drive-a-car for the courseware.

Tim will prepare a webpage for the curriculum, which should be the page where new users will linked to. The education team has time to work on this page, it's contents and look before it will be public. Tim wants to have the description for the courseware by October, 22. Randy prepares the units for math&science (he did that alerady), Cherry will do social studies, Tim will do language arts and music.

At the end of the meeting Tim told us about his idea to send out emails to the whole community and asking them to click a link and put their names on the website. The goal is to get to know, how many people actually read the mails on the mailing list.

Kathleen, Avigail, Randy, Cherry, Bert, Tim, Rita

1. Release notes

The release notes for the new Etoys version have to be written. There is a list of what has changed in the new version: http://etoys.laptop.org/src/ChangeLog

And then there are some other changes (like added languages ec.) which is here:

http://etoys.laptop.org/src/NEWS

http://svn.squeakland.org/installers/NEWS

Our task as the education team would be to tell the users what has changed in the new version, but in a way they can understand it. This is what Kim wrote for the last Etoys version:

http://squeakland.org/download/releaseNotes.jsp

Rita will go through the list and write up a first version.

2. Showcase

The second part of the meeting was devoted to discussions about the showcase.

Randy suggested to have an explanation on the top of the screen about how to vote and to have a submit-button on the page. Tim pointed out that this is related Issue SQ-472 in the tracker.

http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-472

Cherry asked, if there will be a button to enable or disable ranking.

We then had a longer discussion about if we want to rank projects or not. Kathleen and Avigail are strongly against ranking (mostly because they don't want to discourage children, and it is very difficult to rank a project from a child and a project from an expert because these cannot be compared to eachother), Randy, Cherry, Bert and Tim are in favour of it (feedback will help children to learn more, ranking will help users to find good projects easily). Rita would like to not have every project ranked.

Tim pointed out four points without consensus yet:

1) whether the "featured" and "everyone" sections should have different names, different looks, different rules, and different navigation

2) whether "everyone" projects should be ranked at all

Kathleen wrote an email where she explained the reasons why ranking projects could be dangerous. Rita pointed out that submitters should decide if they want their projects ranked to lessen the burden of the rankers.

3) whether moderation (hiding a project due to inappropriate content) should be separate from ranking (giving points to projects to allow sorting)

Tim asked, if just moderating really could be faster then ranking.

4) whether to show account levels with colored dots, and if so, how to calculate them

We didn't get to this point in the meeting.

Regarding #1:

Randy suggested to follow Kim's idea of having the best projects with proper guidance and explanation in the featured section.

The teams agrees on that.

There is no consensus yet about the other projects. Should they be ranked, and how? There was a lot of discussion.

Tim explained that there will be groups, where all members of the group could put projects without any ranking (good for use in classrooms).

We discussed about approving/unapproving projects some more. A suggestion was to rank with negative numbers could mean rejection. Bert strongly recommended not to mingle moderation and ranking, which would happen because these negative numbers would be used when calculating the rank. Tim agreed to put a veto-button in the ballots, which is used to reject projects, so that no other person has to look at that project.

We agreed on this process:

• when a project is uploaded, ballots are being send
• in the ballots you find a veto-button to reject projects with inappropriate content (we will write down what is considered inappropriate).
• The person, who rejects a project, has to write a comment why it has been rejected.
• The project will be send back to the submitter, who will read the comment and a nice email that he/she please should change the project and upload it again
• if the project is uploaded again, a new ballot for this project will be generated, so that not necessarily the same person will look at that project (but of course that can happen)

To make ranking easier, Randy will write up a list of labels which can be used instead of just numbers.

This last point is crucial and needs a bit more detail. Tim wanted to unify grading with moderation, so points were given from -10 to 10, and an overall negative score means the project gets rejected. The group said that rejection should be either-or, so another idea thrown into the mix was to rate from -1 to 10, where -1 would mean reject, and the non-negatives a rating. But even assigning points merely on a 0 to 10 scale was deemed difficult (5 should mean "average"). So Randy brought up the idea to do away with the numbers and rather have "rubrics", that is textual labels to choose from. And not surprisingly he was tasked with creating the list

Three points further points that were made . . .

1) if we don't rank projects at all in "everyone", how will users find good projects when there are thousands of projects in "everyone". Both Cherry and Randy made points in favor of ranking within everyone ... Cherry, "I don't want to have to click on each of the 100 "geometry" projects to find one I like. Randy, "It'll make it easier for the ed team to pick projects to feature."

2) if we allow users to choose not to be ranked, what rank will we give them? Without a rank, they have a rank of zero unless we choose something else. In a list of 1000 projects, 900 of which are ranked and 100 that are not, where do the 100 get put? If the bottom, is this fair to the 100? If somewhere else, is this fair to the 900?

3) ranking is invisible to the project author. Yes, ranks control where in the various lists a project will appear (overall rank, subject rank, target age rank, region rank, tag rank). But these will be completely different. There is no obvious score apparent to any child or adult. Tim believes people are missing this point as they object to ranking, either in part or in whole.

<!-- @page

1. Release notes

The release notes for the new Etoys version have to be written. There is a list of what has changed in the new version: http://etoys.laptop.org/src/ChangeLog

And then there are some other changes (like added languages ec.) which is here:

http://etoys.laptop.org/src/NEWS

http://svn.squeakland.org/installers/NEWS

Our task as the education team would be to tell the users what has changed in the new version, but in a way they can understand it. This is what Kim wrote for the last Etoys version:

http://squeakland.org/download/releaseNotes.jsp

Rita will go through the list and write up a first version.

2. Showcase

The second part of the meeting was devoted to discussions about the showcase.

Randy suggested to have an explanation on the top of the screen about how to vote and to have a submit-button on the page. Tim pointed out that this is related Issue SQ-472 in the tracker.

http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-472

Cherry asked, if there will be a button to enable or disable ranking.

We then had a longer discussion about if we want to rank projects or not. Kathleen and Avigail are strongly against ranking (mostly because they don't want to discourage children, and it is very difficult to rank a project from a child and a project from an expert because these cannot be compared to eachother), Randy, Cherry and Tim are in favour of it (feedback will help children to learn more, ranking will help users to find good projects easily), Rita and Bert would like to have it different from how it is now (especially split the process of ranking into moderating and rating).

Tim pointed out four points without consensus yet:

1) whether the "featured" and "everyone" sections should have different names, different looks, different rules, and different navigation

2) whether "everyone" projects should be ranked at all

Kathleen wrote an email where she explained the reasons why ranking projects could be dangerous. Rita pointed out that submitters should decide if they want their projects ranked to lessen the burden of the rankers.

3) whether moderation (hiding a project due to inappropriate content) should be separate from ranking (giving points to projects to allow sorting)

Tim asked, if just moderating really could be faster then ranking.

4) whether to show account levels with colored dots, and if so, how to calculate them

We didn't get to this point in the meeting.

Regarding #1:

Randy suggested to follow Kim's idea of having the best projects with proper guidance and explanation in the featured section.

The teams agrees on that.

There is no consensus yet about the other projects. Should they be ranked, and how? There was a lot of discussion.

Tim explained that there will be groups, where all members of the group could put projects without any ranking (good for use in classrooms).

We discussed about approving/unapproving projects some more. A suggestion was to rank with negative numbers could mean rejection. Bert strongly recommended not to mingle moderation and ranking, which would happen because these negative numbers would be used when calculating the rank. Tim agreed to put a veto-button in the ballots, which is used to reject projects, so that no other person has to look at that project.

We agreed on this process:

• when a project is uploaded, ballots are being send
• in the ballots you find a veto-button to reject projects with inappropriate content (we will write down what is considered inappropriate).
• The person, who rejects a project, has to write a comment why it has been rejected.
• The project will be send back to the submitter, who will read the comment and a nice email that he/she please should change the project and upload it again
• if the project is uploaded again, a new ballot for this project will be generated, so that not necessarily the same person will look at that project (but of course that can happen)

To make ranking easier, Randy will write up a list of labels which can be used instead of just numbers.