Hello everyone, I'm back from Haiti, both literally and figuratively. Since the earthquake, nearly all of my time has been spent on the seven Etoys pilots that have started or will soon start in four different regions of Haiti. To follow our progress, read the Waveplace blog and see the two videos at http://waveplace.org/news/. We'll be adding a great many photos in the next few days. Connectivity was very bad, so we are only uploading photos now. While it may appear that Haiti has benefitted at the expense of Squeakland so far this year, I think quite the opposite is...

We are happy to announce another opportunity for a face to face gathering and sharing of experiences and materials relative to the usage of Etoys. Squeakfest USA August 10, 11 and 12th Los Angeles, CA at the Faculty Center, UCLA Campus We'll have more info on the Squeakland website shortly, but until then, please save the date! Please forward this email and share with friends and colleagues. This will be a gathering of users and practitioners of Etoys -- teachers, researchers, and developers to share and learn. Newcomers to Etoys are most welcome too! We hope to see you in...

Try adding this to your favorite webpage: <iframe style="border: none" src="http://squeakland.org/squeakers/squeakerButton.jsp" width="270" height="143"></iframe> It'll look and work like this: We'll be promoting this, along with it's static cousin at: http://squeakland.org/linking/ Want to make sure the flash button (the first one) works on many browsers & websites before going public with it. And yes, I know Flash doesn't work in various places. I'm asking to test this button in the places where Flash works (aka, anywhere you can see a YouTube video)....

If you're reading this message, and you like Etoys, please take a minute and let us know you're listening: http://squeakland.org/squeakers We're trying to get a better idea of the size of the Etoys community. Also, please forward the link to other Squeakers that you know....

Hi everyone, Our spring newsletter is out! If you aren't subscribed, you can read it here: http://squeakland.org/news/newsletter/web.jsp?id=10 If you'd like to subscribe, click here: http://squeakland.org/subscribe/...

Right after attending C5 conference, the VPRI Etoys group visited a workshop with Etoys at the Toshiba Science Museum. There are workshops at the museum and Showa Elementary School every month, organised by Toshio Miyasaka from Digital Hollywood Graduate School. At the moment they have a project called "Minnade Tanoshiku Squeak", which means "Let's all enjoy Squeak" in English. The website http://mts-j.hiho.jp/ is in japanese, but one can use Google translation. The objective of the project is to develop teaching materials and test them through conducting workshops for children. Toshio Miyasaka says " I am impressed every time I conduct...

This year we hope to hold two Squeakfest conferences, one in Brasil and another in the United States. While US details are still pending, we're very pleased to announce Squeakfest Brasil! WHEN: July 24th and 25th, 2009 WHERE: Porto Alegre, Brasil WHO: Hosted by UFRGS and Pensamento Digital WHAT: a teacher-oriented, hands-on conference, showcasing Squeak Etoys use throughout Brasil and the rest of South & Central America LANGUAGES: Portuguese and Spanish, with English translators We've timed our conference so you may also attend the 9th World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE): WHEN: July 27th to July 31st, 2009 WHERE:...

(by Rita Freudenberg, from newsletter) When I first got word about the creation of a new organisation with the mission of taking the gift of Etoys and helping it evolve, I was very interested. I thought about it a week and then spoke up, "I definitely wanted to be a part of this." That was last November and since then I have spoken with so many interesting people about Etoys and and the Squeakland Foundation. I'm very enthusiastic about our plans. One of my chief goals will be the development of the online Etoys community for every Etoys user out...

(by Mike Lee, from newsletter The OLPC Learning Club of Washington DC, a diverse grassroots group of XO laptop users with a passion for education, held its first content jam session as part of our January meeting at the Arlington Career Center (ACC) in Virginia. Though OLPC-style jams are typically intensive work sessions focused on producing content for the laptop, this time we chose to ease into the world of Squeak and Etoys by conducting a qualitative review of a series of Etoys-based activities created several years ago for the NASA Connect series. Our project took on the name "Etoys...

Here is a link out of Uruguay showing how to use Etoys to create "books": http://ceibalflorida.blogspot.com/search/label/etoys They are still using XO SW release 656 in Uruguay and I'm not sure which version of Etoys they have (maybe you can tell from the screen shots?). Its great that they have learned how to create books, include images from the XO camera and post that to the Web. That's not trivial with XO 656! There are also some posts on using eToys to teach geometry. Lastly, I saw a thread on using EToys to create concept maps on our Spanish language list....

Our friends at Waveplace have organized the first Waveplace Awards program where children from the U.S. (Florida), St. John, Haiti and Nicaragua have created Etoy storybooks they will share live via the Waveplace website. www.waveplace.com/awards Judges from several continents will participate in a live webcast today starting at 1 PM Pacific Time, 4 PM Eastern Time. Watch live or check the site later to see all of the projects!...

Here's an interesting piece of news. As of last weekend, XOs have been deployed,or soon will be, in 31 countries around the world. They are: Afghanistan, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia,Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Niue, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Thailand, United States and Uruguay....