ESSAYS, and ARTICLES
SQUEAK ETOYS AUTHORING (PDF only)
by Alan Kay
Squeak Etoys was inspired by LOGO, PARC-Smalltalk, Hypercard, and starLOGO. It is a media-rich authoring environment with a simple powerful scripted object model for many kinds of objects created by end-users that runs on many platforms, and is free and open source. It includes 2D and 3D graphics, images, text, particles, pres-entations, web-pages, videos, sound and MIDI, etc. It includes the ability to share desktops with other Etoy users in real-time, so many forms of immersive mentoring and play can be done over the Internet. It is multilingual, runs on more than 20 platforms bit-identically, and has been successfully used in USA, Europe, South America, Japan, Korea, India, Nepal, and elsewhere. See companion article Squeak Etoys Children & Learning.
Squeak Etoys in Nepalese village.
SQUEAK ETOYS, CHILDREN & LEARNING (PDF only)
by Alan Kay
Squeak Etoys was inspired by LOGO, PARC-Smalltalk, Hypercard, and starLOGO. It is a media-rich authoring environment with a simple powerful scripted object model for many kinds of objects created by end-users that runs on many platforms, and is free and open source. It includes 2D and 3D graphics, images, text, particles, pres-entations, web-pages, videos, sound and MIDI, etc. It includes the ability to share desktops with other Etoy users in real-time, so many forms of immersive mentoring and play can be done over the Internet. It is multilingual, runs on more than 20 platforms bit-identically, and has been successfully used in USA, Europe, South America, Japan, Korea, India, Nepal, and elsewhere. See companion article Squeak Etoys Authoring.
Creativity Education by distance Learning Connecting Kyoto University and UCLA (PDF Only)
Hideyuki Takada and Hajime Kita
Education on creativity is getting more and more important as the human beings proceeds toward the knowledge society. To think on how computers can perform for supporting the education on creativity is an important issue. We are carrying out two advanced projects: TIDE project and ALAN-K project. The former is to provide distant education between Kyoto University and UCLA, while the latter is to develop a new education environment to foster young children’s creativity through computing.
New Challenge of Information Science Education Based on PBL Using Squeak eToy: ISEC-SeT (PDF Only)
Takeshi Fujioka, Hideyuki Takada, Hajime Kita
In this research, we have designed a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum called ISEC-SeT (Information Science Education Curriculum with Squeak eToy). This curriculum is designed for education of information science in high school using computer programming as a tool of problem solving. We adopt Squeak eToy as a programming environment for the PBL, which has GUI programming environment, so that even a beginner can make programs easily.
Kentaro Yoshimasa, Hideyuki Takada, Tetsuro Sakai
The recent improvement of the Japanese standard curricula requires fostering children’s ability to find and solve problems more actively. Although education with computers is thought to be able to play an important role to realize this requirement, there are little well-defined curricula and experience on how to conduct a class with computers for this purpose.
HOW WE LEARN
By Alison Gopnik
Everything developmental psychologists have learned in the past 30 years
points in one direction – children are far, far smarter than we
would ever have thought.
PDF Version
THE LAST TIME YOU THOUGHT
CLEARLY WAS...
by Alan Kay
A rebuttal to an article about mathematics from the Sunday New York Times, Sunday, Dec 12th 2004 (included at the end of the page).
THE POWER of the CONTEXT
by Alan Kay
In his remarks to the National Academy of Engineering in acceptance ot
the Charles Stark
Draper Prize, Alan stated that, "The ARPA/PARC research context
and community catalyzed researchers to be incredibly better dreamers and
thinkers. This context was itself a great work of art, confirmed by the
world-changing results that appeared so swiftly, and almost easily."
"COMPUTERS,
NETWORKS, and EDUCATION".
By Alan Kay
Abstract: Computers can amplify yearnings in ways even more profound than can musical instruments. But if teachers do not nourish the romance of learning and expressing, any external mandate for a new "literacy" becomes as much a crushing burden as being forced to perform Beethoven's sonatas while having no sense of their beauty.
BACKGROUND
ON HOW CHILDREN LEARN
By Alan Kay
Abstract: Math and Science literacy has been devalued in our schools, or at best inappropriately taught. And yet it’s vital, not just for vocational reasons, but to develop critical thinking skills needed by all world citizens. Based on a constructivist learning model, Squeak school examples show surprising ways of reaching math and science resistance and helping children develop powerful thinking skills.
THE
DYNABOOK REVISITED
A Conversation with Alan Kay
Abstract: When you sit down at your computer to access this site -- moving your mouse to point and click at an icon that opens a window -- you owe a debt of gratitude to Alan Kay. These actions are second nature for us today and it's difficult to imagine that this wasn't always how we used computers.
FACE to FACE:
WAITING for the REVOLUTION
an Interview with Alan Kay
Since inventing much of the technology behind personal computing in the late 1960s, Alan Kay has dedicated his work to developing better learning environments for children. Now a senior researcher at HP and the president of Viewpoints Research Institute, Kay is launching Squeak, a multimedia authoring tool that allows children to construct dynamic simulations of real—world phenomena. We spoke with him about the unfulfilled promise of technology in schools—and about what computers have in common with pianos.
By Alan Kay
Squeak is a project by some of the original pioneers of personal computing and networking, joined by enthusiastic more recent colleagues, to get wide spectrum authoring for all back into the mainstream of computing. We hope you enjoy it!
By Jeff Read of World Tech Tribune
The programming environments that are available are often goal-directed, with steep learning curves, and do not encourage the exploration and discovery that is at the heart of many people's interest in programming. Enter Squeak.....
By Cathleen Galas
Squeak can serve students and teachers as a powerful tool to amplify learning. Kids can construct their own deep understanding of big ideas as they interact with objects in Squeak.
