[elearning] A tribute to Alan Kay

[Roland Gesthuizen]

Alan Kay is best known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented
programming and windowing graphical user interface design. The OLPC
computers (little green XO1 laptops you have perhaps seen Bill Kerr, Tony
Forster or myself lugging around) includes Alan Kay's Smalltalk / Squeak /
eToys environment, built around Python. You can tinker with this using Sugar
on a Stick.

>From my observations of his contributions to the OLPC project, Alan is
always emphasizing that computing not as an end in itself, but as a vehicle
for learning how to learn. The computer revolution is yet to really start
happening.

>From the IAEP mailing list I have read that supplies of the first printing
of the book "Points of View -- a tribute to Alan Kay" were depleted less
than six hours after the announcement.  A second book printing is available
in return for a small and worthy charity donation. A copy of the entire book
in PDF is available for download, for free, from the same page. For details
just visit:  http://vpri.org/pov

*Points of View* is a collection of previously-unpublished essays written to
> celebrate Alan Kay's 70th birthday. Twenty-nine luminaries from diverse
> disciplines contributed original material for this book.
>

Important stuff for ICT educators, check out the book. :-)

-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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