Changes

Bert Freudenberg showed an eloquent way to make animations in Etoys. I am inspired to finally add animation to my sprite library (the one I use for all of my activities: Turtle Art, Abacus, Visual Match, etc.) "Simply" a matter of adding paths and a timer. Yeah right.

Bert Freudenberg showed an eloquent way to make animations in Etoys. I am inspired to finally add animation to my sprite library (the one I use for all of my activities: Turtle Art, Abacus, Visual Match, etc.) "Simply" a matter of adding paths and a timer. Yeah right.

Avigail Snir, a teacher from Illinois showed a great example of exploring the modeling of gravity based on a simple basketball simulation. A remarkable thing was her use of a "book" to show the progress of her thinking along the path to discovery – the closest to a "lab notebook" as I have seen with Etoys (or any other learning program, for that matter). Lots more at [http://www.etoysillinois.org/].

Avigail Snir, a teacher from Illinois, showed a great example of exploring the modeling of gravity based on a simple basketball simulation. A remarkable thing was her use of a "book" to show the progress of her thinking along the path to discovery – the closest to a "lab notebook" as I have seen with Etoys (or any other learning program, for that matter). Lots more at [http://www.etoysillinois.org/].

Mahnaz Moallem talked about the challenges of making a transition from a well-defined, one best answer, discourage making mistakes classroom into an ill-defined, many answers, making mistakes and developing problem-solving skills classroom. She and her colleagues use extensive use of scaffolding and guiding to help kids stay motivated. Etoys "Flaps" are used for documenting what the kids have done. The consensus among North Carolina teachers at the conference is that there is terrible constraint in the schools in terms of tightly-scheduled problem-based requirements imposed on the teachers.

Mahnaz Moallem talked about the challenges of making a transition from a well-defined, one best answer, discourage making mistakes classroom into an ill-defined, many answers, making mistakes and developing problem-solving skills classroom. She and her colleagues make extensive use of scaffolding and guiding to help kids stay motivated. Etoys "Flaps" are used for documenting what the kids have done. The consensus among North Carolina teachers at the conference is that there is a terrible constraint in the schools in terms of tightly-scheduled problem-based requirements imposed on the teachers.

Chandra Roughton posed a tough question: "Is this a model or is it [just] a visualization?" Etoys teachers think and do and demand a lot of each other and their students. What a breath of fresh air.

Chandra Roughton posed a tough question: "Is this a model or is it [just] a visualization?" Etoys teachers think and do and demand a lot of each other and their students. What a breath of fresh air.