The Weekly Squeak

Category: Etoys

  • See Bert and OLPC on German TV (in German)

    Bert and Olpc on German TV

    Check out Bert and Olpc on the tagesschau.de. The video is in German. Notice the link on the left “100-Dollar-Laptop” that will take you right to the clip. Feel free to skip the computer salesman’s comments. Who knows where they got this guy from! The project must be looking up if this is the best they can do. It’s like the debate about global warming in the U.S.A. For a long time we’d hear that scientists have reached a global consensus, all except Joe – from the Wyoming Science Club who says global warming doesn’t exist.

    This is a very exciting time for olpc. Congratulations everyone.

  • OLPC on TV

    OLPC Size

    From: Michael Haupt,

    The German/Swiss/Austrian TV station 3sat has a weekly 30-minute show called “neues” (roughly translated “new things”) which deals with IT-related information. Yesterday’s show was focusing on bringing IT to isolated regions and emerging nations as well as developing countries. The show featured an article on mesh networks in Ecuador and the Linux4Africa project.

    Linux4Africa is a German project collecting old but functional hardware. The components are cleaned, repaired (if necessary), bestowed with an Edubuntu Linux installation, and sent to Tanzania and Moçambique.

    12 of the show’s 30 minutes were dedicated to an extensive coverage of the OLPC project. Etoys and Squeak were mentioned several times during the feature. The project itself was introduced, and Bert Freudenberg was interviewed about the technical features of the XO laptop, which was presented in detail.

    There were also two interviews in the studio. Two members of GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit; German Society for Technical Cooperation) responsible for XO distribution in Ethiopia talked about the project in general and about the impressive progress children made when working with the XO.

    The other interview – which filled the first slot in the OLPC coverage – featured two students from Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, who have developed strategic and skill-improving games for the XO in the Software Architecture Group‘s course on software architectures.

    All in all, the editorial staff at 3sat did a tremendous job in preparing this show. To the writer’s knowledge, this was the first time the OLPC project was presented at such a level of detail in German television. Germany being a country where the the project has no actual lobby, it is important to have such media coverage – it would be nice to see much, much more of it.

    The entire show can be watched online (in German).

  • OLPC – The $100 Laptop – Goes into Production

    https://i0.wp.com/newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44015000/jpg/_44015059_galadima_416.jpg

    Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Check out the BBC Article.

  • SqueakFest ’07 – Register Now!

    SqueakFest 07 Official

    Register for SqueakFest ’07.

    From Kim Rose, Viewpoints Research Institute:

    Greetings —

    Online registration is now available for SqueakFest ’07!
    http://imamp.colum.edu/eceim/squeakfest07/index.php

    We’re putting together a great three day program including hands-on workshops, panels, presentations, casual sharing time and fun social events.

    Alan Kay will give a talk about the One Laptop Per Child Initiative, the “xo” machine and Squeak Etoys on this platform.

    Registration for the entire program is $125.00. Please register
    early as this will be helpful for our planning. We also encourage
    you to BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM(s) EARLY! Chicago will host numerous summer events and hotels are already near capacity for August 1-3.

    Some suggested accomodations appear on the SqueakFest website:
    http://imamp.colum.edu/eceim/squeakfest07/accommodations.php

    Please forward this email to anyone you know that may be interested in attending.
    Come join us in Chicago! We look forward to seeing you there.
    cheers,
    Kim

  • Squeak at the Salón de la Educación 2007

    Antonio Moreno just let us know of this Youtube video featuring a demonstration of Squeak use in education. The demo, taken at the Salón de la Educación 2007, shows Randall Caton explaining to teachers, students and politicians how he uses Squeak with his students as part of the Nasa Connect program.

  • If you can’t take the HEAT!

    Taking the heat

    You know what they say, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the laptop for the worlds children business!” Pictured above is the OLPC computer running day and night (look closely and notice the Squeak E-Toys running) at scorching temperatures 52C (125F) during the day time and 22C (72F) at night. Just image running your computer laptop in an oven all day!

  • Sophie-Croquet?

    Sophie-Croquet

    By Daniel Lanovaz

    I’m ready! Sophie, Croquet, Seaside, Scratch, Plopp, OLPC … The Era of Squeak and Smalltalk is upon us!

  • Squeak in North Carolina Schools

    The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) has published the following press release:

    Wilmington, N.C. – While demand for Information Technology (IT) professionals is projected to increase over the next five years, a dwindling number of American students are choosing to specialize in IT fields. Now, a grant-funded partnership between the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick County schools is addressing that issue by infusing IT skills into the curriculum in grades 7-12.

    […]

    The three-year-long project will work directly with about 75 educators who teach the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) curricula and 150 of their students in grades 7-12. Teachers and students will learn to use “Squeak” software to create virtual models that simulate actual science and math-related experiments. For example, students could create a computer model to study the transmission of a disease, an activity that could be too dangerous to study in a physical laboratory.

    “It may be difficult to study the spread of a virus for real in middle school,” said Gene Tagliarini, associate professor of computer science and grant coordinator. “But you can simulate an epidemic using the Squeak tool, which can create models to study things as abstract as balancing equations or as concrete as building a bridge.”

    […]

    You can read the complete press release on the UNCW website.

  • Minding Your Business With Smalltalk (Part 3 of 4)

    Castle

    Previously we spoke with Michael Rueger and Steve Hunter. From Michael we found out about the perspective of writing and supporting open source software. From Steve we found out what it is like being a consumer of open source software. Today we talk with Bert Freudenberg. From Bert we hope to learn what it is like being a Smalltalk programmer contributing to open source.

    (more…)

  • Help improving the Smalltalk experience on the OLPC machine

    As you may now, the XO laptops produced by the One Laptop Per Child project include a Squeak/Etoys image in the base software. The OLPC developers decided to hide the Smalltalk development enviroment and highlight the Etoys subsystem, since that’s the part that matters in a kids machine such as the XO.

    But the power of a full-fledged Smalltalk system is still there, and you can help. As Bert Freudenberg writes to the Squeak Beginners mailing list:

    So everybody interested in making the “Smalltalk experience” on the OLPC machine an enjoyable one, please help. The VPRI group focuses on etoys and system integration, but you are invited to contribute. And, in case this has not been clear, you do *not* need an OLPC prototype to run this. It’s Squeak, after all.

    More info on how to run the OLPC version of Squeak and Etoys on your system may be found here.

    Update: changed a misleading statement.