Etoy workshop ideas for new users

[martino]

Has anyone designed and or implemented an etoys workshop with new users? I'm looking for ideas for teachers who are not at all familiar with etoys - specifically ways to ease into the program so it isn't overwhelming and discouraging. Thank you for your contributions!

[Julianob]

Hi all,

In 2007, when I was working at OLPC Porto Alegre Pilot in Brazil, we used a lot of etoys to develop workshops both with children and teachers. During this experience we created several small tutorial that helped them to master a specific technic in etoys. The tutorials were developed to be support material to sessions of 1 or 2 hours. As a side note, at that time Scratch wasn't available for the XO.

When we came to Rwanda in 2008, we translated those materials to english and developed a few more ideas. You can download the zip file with all the tutorials in english at:

http://www.gc4ll.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/etoys.zip

All the files are in doc format.

One thing that we noticed is that kids really enjoy technics that allow them to create games and other animations. Teachers are usually more focused in what they can use immediately with their students.

By that reason, during our workshops, we usually introduce the book feature for teachers first as a starting point. From there we grow to other technics as movement and animation. We found out that teachers usually relate more to the Etoys book than other tools inside etoys and even Scratch. By this same reason sometimes they try to trivialize the use of this feature, thinking about it only in the simplest ways. As important as starting from something meaningful for the teachers is to slowly open new possibilities for them.