Creating Virtual Laboratories Using Squeak Etoys

Since effective instruction requires student engagement in experimental processes, educators need to identify safe environments that support reasonably realistic experiments. For example, investigating the actual propagation of a virus is well outside the scope of acceptable experimental processes for many middle and high schools. Fortunately, the media authoring environment called Squeak Etoys affords a context within which many laboratory processes may be readily simulated. This roundtable session will use the motivating example of safely modeling and studying the major factors affecting virus propagation to demonstrate how educators can use Squeak Etoys to create virtual laboratories. Participants will be led through a process of identifying features to model, designing objects and behaviors to represent those features, implementing the selected representations, and instrumenting a model using Squeak Etoys.

Creating Virtual Laboratories Using Squeak Etoys Presentation