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scala in schools

Posted: 13 Aug 99 16:53:16 GMT -- by beneventi. Subject: scala in schools


Brescia, 13.8.99

Hello!
I don't know if it is the right address, but this message can be delivered
to the right
one.

I recently upgraded to Scala MM200 after working for years with MM300 and
400 on
my Amiga, MM100 on my PC and MM200 on other machines. I am now
working at my first serious CD ROM, a non commercial produce, but going to
be
widely distributed for children of Legambiente, one of the most important
environmental association in Italy.
Before putting some technical questions, let me write a little of my profession,
and of
things I thought about Scala.
I work as a free lance with schools, libraries, public administrations, with
children and
boys from maternal to high school, developing projects in education based
on
playing, discovering, co-operating, and using a wide range of languages,
from
creative dramatics through writing and painting, and technical devices such
as audio
recorders, photo an video cameras, computers. For boys and children, experience
in
naturally multi-disciplinary as well as multi-medial!
I published books about children's theatre, creative dramatics and recently
Come
usare il computer con bambini e ragazzi, writing about people using computers,
more of people than of computers. I wrote about actual experiences, from
the baby
simply moving the mouse around, through the easy discovery of multimedia.
The
book was prefaced by Luca Toselli, a professor of the University of Torino,
and
Roberto Maragliano (professor in Rome and very closed to the Italian Education
Minister) e-mailed me he has chosen it for next year in Universitą 3 in Rome.


This is the point. Most of people, and most of teachers, think they must
learn
computers, not they can use them. I do not know exactly elsewhere, but most
of
teenagers I meet in Italian schools know a lot of things about processors
and graphic
cards, and totally ignore what actually with a computer they can do, but
just
playing videogames, writing, studying school subjects and watching at the
Internet. I
go in schools, and see huge computer rooms often totally under used. So I
show some multimedia production made in a maternal schools with my old Amiga

and Scala, and suddenly ideas come. They simply didn't know!

See an example of my work:

http://www.softwork.it/ulisse/

I know Scala is not very popular here in Italy, and generally people think
that
multimedia is a professional, difficult subject. I show Scala in schools
and then
schools
buy it. I spoke about this with the Italian reseller, and I got the impression
there was
not a good policy of marketing in that direction.
Schools are often a slow, but surely huge market. And it is important, for
the
education of young generations as well as for the future of the whole society,
that
people grow knowing they can tell machines what to do, not the contrary.

Windows is an apparently friendly environment, but it force users to think
another way
as they usually do, in normal life. So most of people do not think of computer
as powerful tools, but as strange unknowable things they must undergo.
Scala OS - I think you do know - is different, and it gives also a demonstration
of how
a PC hardware could be differently and much more efficiently handled (only
think of screen resolution, sound frequencies etc.)
Now I ask if you are interested in some way of promoting Scala in Italian
schools? I
am working, with a publishing house and a computer company, about selected
pieces of software to propose.
Stop rattling on, I think the meaning of this message should be clear.

Now, some technical questions.

1. Is it possible running Scala productions on a Power Mac, under Virtual
PC?
2. Do you plan anything about the announced Amiga NG running Linux?
3. I found difficult to give the possibility to users of my multimedia to
write on
something, for example their names, and have they back when they run the
CD ROM
again. Now I am studying about on the manual, variables and Scala Script,
but if you
give me a by-way I'll be pleased.

Last question:
On the Amiga I got Scala MM300 in bundle with an A1200, and then I found
last
year MM400 in a CD ROM by German NightShift, where I didn't find all
featured I expected, nor a registration card or other. Was it a non official
distribution,
due to the vanishing of Amiga market?

Thank you four your patience, reading this long message

Best regards

Paolo Beneventi



Posted: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:20:24 -0700 -- by Mark D. Manes. Subject: Re: scala in schools



<[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
> I know Scala is not very popular here in Italy, and generally people think
> that
> multimedia is a professional, difficult subject. I show Scala in schools
> and then
> schools
> buy it. I spoke about this with the Italian reseller, and I got the
impression
> there was
> not a good policy of marketing in that direction.
> Schools are often a slow, but surely huge market. And it is important, for
> the
> education of young generations as well as for the future of the whole
society,
> that
> people grow knowing they can tell machines what to do, not the contrary.

Scala agrees with this. In my prior life I worked as the educational
software coordinator for Norfolk State University. It is very clear that
the software the students use in school tends to be the software they use
outside of school.

We have, through our VAR in Austraila, a educational program that is working
quite well. We are introducing an educational program in the United States
and Canada shortly through a well known educational distributor. We will
have more news on that soon.

>
> Windows is an apparently friendly environment, but it force users to think
> another way
> as they usually do, in normal life. So most of people do not think of
computer
> as powerful tools, but as strange unknowable things they must undergo.
> Scala OS - I think you do know - is different, and it gives also a
demonstration
> of how
> a PC hardware could be differently and much more efficiently handled (only
> think of screen resolution, sound frequencies etc.)

I think that looking at our current products you will see how we have spent
a great deal of effort to remove the arbitrary differences from HumanTouch
(that is what we call our user interface) and Windows. The new user
interface found in iplay studio and Designer reflect the new
direction Scala has taken.

> Now I ask if you are interested in some way of promoting Scala in Italian
> schools? I
> am working, with a publishing house and a computer company, about selected
> pieces of software to propose.
> Stop rattling on, I think the meaning of this message should be clear.

Of course we are interested! :)

>
> Now, some technical questions.
>
> 1. Is it possible running Scala productions on a Power Mac, under Virtual
> PC?

I have heard of cases where this worked with MM200. I am not sure where we
stand with InfoChannel Designer or iplay studio. It clearly comes under
the category of "not supported, but may work".

> 2. Do you plan anything about the announced Amiga NG running Linux?

We are watching the Amiga situation. However Amiga has not contacted Scala
in regards to a port.

> 3. I found difficult to give the possibility to users of my multimedia to
> write on
> something, for example their names, and have they back when they run the
> CD ROM
> again. Now I am studying about on the manual, variables and Scala Script,
> but if you
> give me a by-way I'll be pleased.

Investigate the use of the disk operation functions in the branch menu.
This should do what you need.

>
> Last question:
> On the Amiga I got Scala MM300 in bundle with an A1200, and then I found
> last
> year MM400 in a CD ROM by German NightShift, where I didn't find all
> featured I expected, nor a registration card or other. Was it a non
official
> distribution,
> due to the vanishing of Amiga market?

I am not sure about what happened there. :(

>
> Thank you four your patience, reading this long message

Thanks for posting!

>
> Best regards
>
> Paolo Beneventi
>

-mark=

Mark D. Manes
Product Manager, Scala, Inc.
[email hidden]




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