Hi!
I'm a teacher (children between 13 and 16) and I try to teach them vector drawing basics using Inkscape. It would be great if there is anyone here that is doing the same and we could share some thoughts, techniques, or even try to make some project together.
I work in a school in Galiza, a country on the Northwest of Spain.

I'm not a teacher, but I did read about a kid's version of Inkscape, on this website/forum, but a couple of years ago. I think it's actually called Kidscape...? You may already know about it though, because I think I remember you from around that time.

Hi Brynn, yes, I knew about Kidscape thanks to this forum, but I'm trying to use straight Inkscape, since I think a boy or a girl of 13 is capable of understanding it and achieving some good results.
I started this post to get some ideas about how a boy of that age should learn to draw with Inkscape, everyone, teacher or not, is welcome to give his opinion about things like:
Which are the most important things to know to start drawing with Inkscape?
What exercises/activities/drawings would be suitable?
Which Inkscape tools would you use/not use?
How would you teach inkscape?
Do you know any specific resources to teach Inkscape for those ages?
Just to discuss a bit...

Can't answer all your questions; but I thought I would point you to what others have done before:

1) http://linuxgrrl.com/learn/Introduction_To_Inkscape
1a) http://mairin.wordpress.com/category/inkscape-class/
1b) http://opensource.com/education/10/4/in ... dle-school

2) http://www.pcworld.com/article/218864/s ... ogram.html
2a) http://www.digitalartforall.com/695/tea ... n-schools/

3) http://old.nabble.com/Students%27-art-p10938604.html

Wow! thanks for such a fast reply! now I need some time to read all that info...

Which are the most important things to know....

Even though SVG may be the state of the art by the time they are contributing members of society, I think it would be good for them to know the difference between raster and vector graphics. Or maybe I should say that I would like to have known the difference, when I first jumped into the computer graphics world (in my late 40's, lol) .

....to start drawing with Inkscape?

Object vs (closed) path; open vs closed path; path vs stroke; using Fill vs using Paint Bucket tool....I think those are all important to understand, when deciding how to approach whatever drawing one wants to make. ....OH! The info/status area at the bottom of the window (in the middle) is VERY important. It can help them learn AND learn to solve problems on their own!

What exercises/activities/drawings would be suitable?

Exercises -- present them with SVGs that they can open (like how Help menu > Tutorials are tutorials, but you can also practice directly on them, because they are SVG files themselves) which demonstrate the above listed topics, or any lesson. Or also, present them drawings that are intentionally made so that they don't work in some way, and their instructions are to fix them? Like for example, an area that can't be filled, they need to fix so that it can be filled; or a bunch of jumbled lines, they need to figure out how to connect them properly, or use them to create something. I guess I'm thinking of kids who have no prior experience, but maybe your students are more advanced?

Oh say, have you seen The Greys web comic, written by a member here, Xav? Here's a link to his topic (I'm assuming 'he' rather than 'she' but I could be wrong): viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3187 The authors hide "easter eggs" in their comics, which at first I was actually looking for eggs but they're really anything -- extra frames or conversation, etc. -- generally anything that you can't see in the publicly posted comic. Anyone can download the comics, and take them apart to find the "easter egg". That would be a fun teaching tool too, although honestly, there are a couple of comics that I haven't "cracked" yet (can't find the surprise), so they're not all easy. But it would be fun to make your own kind of 'hidden surprise' files too!

Which Inkscape tools would you use/not use?

Well, in the beginning, I think I would stick to objects and paths. You know, the basics.....like have them manipulate already existing things. Then move on to creating things. Also, I know over the last few years, some new tools have been added to Inkscape, which really are raster-based tools, that have been modified to work with Inkscape ( and the filters ) (I'm not sure if the gradient tool would fall into this category?). I don't know if it would be proper to teach them purely vector techniques, I guess that would be up to you. But to me, in some ways, using these raster-ish tools are somewhat like shortcuts, when thinking in a pure way about vector graphics. And my last thought on this is that the 3d box tool and the calligraphy tool seem like pretty advanced tools. And also some of the options for the Pen and Pencil tools are pretty advanced (spiro splines, et al).

How would you teach inkscape?

Oh gosh, I think this depends on the teacher's own style of teaching. I think I would enjoy making up sample SVG files, that represent different kinds of problems, for students to try to fix. Also, I don't know how much of your class is more "art education", or if it's purely Inkscape. But I guess Inkscape has tools that could be used in many different types of professions, besides "artist". So that might be an interesting approach, or maybe just have like a week focussed on different professions that might use Inkscape??

Looks like tomh turned you on to some resources. And that's about all I could say, as a non-teacher, but perpetual student of Inkscape. Except that....I don't know about in Spain, but in the US, that age is all about social interaction. They couldn't care less about school and learning, and I know that teaching that age is seriously challenging! Perhaps a very careful selection of drawing subjects would help.....not that I immediately can think of any..... I'm too old to know what kids are into these days

Thank you Brynn!
As you say, I teach the way I learn. First, I did my drawings using boolean operations combined with , but then I realized how important path transformations are, and I think that you are right. Explaining the kids differences between path and stroke, and how to interact with them, may be the most important thing to start.
Also, the difference between raster and vector is very important. They all know some raster drawing tool (windows paint, mainly) and, in some way, they have to unlearn the way they use it to start understanding vector graphics and Inkscape.
I loved your idea of easter eggs, now I'm dealing with The Greys, trying to find something I can easily use in my classes. The same happens with the exercises about fixing things, now I'm thinking about it and I'm sure next course they will have to do some.
Unfortunately, my curriculum is quite restricted to techniques, so we should not focus too much on the "arty" thing.
And in Spain is the same as in US, I assume almost anywhere, teenagers are more interested on social interaction and that's the way it has to be, but, in my experience, they like inkscape, I've seen them put some drawings made in our classes on their social network's avatars, and that fills me with pride!
I'll tell you how it goes with these new ideas!!

I also think it would be a very good activity to draw maps using Inkscape. I don't teach geography and I can't go deeper in that aspect, but it would be really interesting to work on that.
I mostly focus my work with Inkscape in easy artistic drawing, and a bit of logo and poster design.
Inkscape would be a great tool for many subjects, but Galician school system does not make interaction between subjects easy, so I teach Inkscape but we don't get all the juice of it, as it would be if our students could apply their knowledge in different environments.