[Edu-sig] Common Graphical Framework for Python Tutorials?

[Jason L. Asbahr]

Greetings,

Quick intro:  

My name is Jason Asbahr, I've been using Python since 1.3, and it's
now my favorite language.  I presented a paper on using Python in
interactive 3D environments at the 1998 conference in Houston, and
I'm currently developing massively multiplayer persistent virtual
world games at Origin Systems (http://www.origin.ea.com) -- using
Python, of course.  :-)  I have a strong personal interest in 
technology education, both the teaching of technology and how 
technology can be used to improve education as a whole.  

Paul Fernhout presented some good points about the strengths of
the Squeak Smalltalk environment.  I suspect that merging Python
and Squeak would be difficult, but building a Python learning
environment using Squeak as a model is a great idea.  

To quote myself (ahem) in an old email to Guido:
>There's a great video of Adele Goldberg's presentation at OOPSLA 1995
>called "What Should We Learn?  What Should We Teach?" that might have
>some application for the project.  She presents some terrific ideas 
>for teaching fundamental OOP concepts (in Smalltalk) using interactive
>2D graphical systems.  I immediately thought how cool it would be to
>port/rebuild such a system in Python for Python.  

It wasn't Squeak, exactly, but it looked like a good way to teach OOP
without getting hung up in syntax issues.  I need to review this tape
again and post more specifics.  :-)

Cheers,

Jason Asbahr
Origin Systems, Inc.
jasbahr@origin.ea.com