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#26 2008-07-24 09:20:24

the3rdage
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-07-20
Posts: 100+

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

newareagle wrote:

The difference between Scratch an Squeak is the fact that Scratch uses coding in a visual matter. You can see what each block is, and it is explained clearly. Squak uses mainly words and symbols which would be much harder for most kids to understand. I have looked at some more advanced programs than Scratch, and i dont like the way you make scripts. I am a visual learner and by seeing what going on I know how to fix it and sometimes I even learn how Squeak Works Itself.

same with me
my brother is a pro-programmer and he tried to  teach me java one time and it did not end up good
it took him like 10 minutes just to make java count to 10
(i couldnt figure out he did it so fast) lol

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#27 2008-08-19 15:37:02

teachcomputers
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-07-11
Posts: 25

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

If your kids are 12 to 14,
Alice would be appropriate
This page compares Scratch, Alice, and Greenfoot
http://www.kidslike.info/computer_programming_educational_programming_languages

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#28 2008-11-16 22:48:13

rauscher
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-30
Posts: 16

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

So, I "coach" (teach?) a tech club that contains 2-4 graders and one 7th grader.  My goal for next year is that the kids will be ready to participate in a mobile robot competition (e.g. FIRST Lego competition or some such).  To that end, they've been learning to program in Scratch for most of the time in the club.  I've also been introducing them to basic electronics -- circuits, switches, lights and motors.  I've also been using a Scratch board to teach them about sensors. I have several HandyBoards so it's my intention to show them how to build small robots next semester. 

How often do you meet?  we typically meet for a little over an hour after school ever two weeks.  The kids seem *really* into it but I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the year after year stuff.  The experienced kids are far ahead of the "rookies."  I'm fearful that, as this goes on, the diversity of the experience of the kids will be its undoing.  Any advice?

thx,
-Rich

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#29 2008-11-17 11:47:18

chrisg
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-03-15
Posts: 10

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

Hi, I 'coach' a Scratch after-school club at the middle school level (grades 6-8). We meet weekly for about an hour each week. I'm just starting the third year of the club, and I have to say you're definitely thinking about the right issues for the long term. I definitely do not have the answers, but here's what's happened at our club.

The second year I had a lot of returning scratchers along with a bunch of new students. I was hoping that the experienced scratchers would help to show the new scratchers how to do things. Things didn't quite work out that way - there are pretty big barriers between 6th graders and 7/8th graders. The mix of old and new also made it very difficult to present the basics to new students.  It's hard to pay attention to a presentation when the person next to you is playing their latest game. I felt like the new scratchers as a whole, did not progress to the level that the students the first year had in their first year. Often times I was not quickly answering a 'simple' question because I would be in the middle of helping a more advanced scratcher with something more difficult.

So after last year I changed how the club started up this year.  The first two weeks we met were for new students only. This allowed me to do some basic instruction and to have everyone work on some simple projects. One of the difficulties last year was getting the new kids to start on a basic easy project when they saw someone next to them doing a complicated side-scroller game. They wanted to be doing the advanced projects too. This year I also have several high school students (former club members) who are helping as mentors. They've been able to help answer the simple questions, and when a student is really stuck one of the high schoolers can concentrate on helping that one student leaving me free to help more kids.  It's still early - our first combined meeting is today, but I'm feeling better about how things started this year. I'll try to give an update on how it's going in a few more weeks.

I would definitely be interested in hearing how others deal with this issue.
--Chris
p.s., my goal for the very long term is to develop a culture of the graduating 8th graders coming back the following year as mentors. Then pretty much any parent could run the club as the scratch experience comes from the mentors.

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#30 2009-01-09 16:28:17

legaou-net
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-12-26
Posts: 22

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

Hello,

I really think you should try http://processing.org
if you need something after  scratch

see this : http://processing.org/about/basics.html

there are other versions for robots and mobiles phone programming

---------------------
http://legaou.net

Last edited by legaou-net (2009-01-09 16:31:30)


My little page - Mon petit site internet : http://legaou.net

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#31 2009-04-25 16:45:38

Sparky9292
Scratcher
Registered: 2009-04-25
Posts: 1

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

teachcomputers wrote:

I've made a comparison of scratch with squeak here.

http://www.kidslike.info/teaching_children_how_to_program_computers_comparing_squeak_and_scratch

Yeah, I taught Alice 2.0.7 for about two years.  It's perfect target is middle school/junior high school.  It does have a very sophisticated math library, and does pretty decent job of methods and parameter passing if you get that far.

The big draw with Alice is that it's the only 3D environment of the bunch, so it's really sexy program to advertise to students. 

However, a couple of concerns: You'll need a 256MB graphic cards (very cheap these days) which are usually not standard in even todays school labs.  On top of that, Alice DOES have memory management problems, despite what the authors say.  Students will have to save their work often, and simply restart the program when things start slowing down to a crawl.

Alice has the most aggressive auto save feature, which is sorta a confession of how poorly built the code base is.

So the big news about three years ago was that Alice was to be ported by Maxis to use the Sim's engine, but that's been vaporware so far.

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#32 2009-05-11 22:41:03

ScratchX
Scratcher
Registered: 2009-05-05
Posts: 1000+

Re: Scratch versus Squeak

of course poeple here at Scratch would choose scratch over speak


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