[Gllug] App development for children

[David L Neil]

Avi,

On 05/20/2011 01:23 AM, Avi Greenbury wrote:
> David L Neil wrote:
>> BTW let's not be too arrogant about FLOSS in this. Learning the
>> mechanics of OOo Writer is no better than memorising the keystrokes for
>> MS-Word! Tools is 'tools' and neither pkg does more than illustrate
>> 'concepts'. Learning the concepts of word processing equips one to
>> tackle either - or both - products, AND whatever other is thrown at you
>> into the future!
>
> This I can't argue with, but I think use of a word processor should be
> taught in the same way as writing itself is.
>
> Writing large tracts of English in a word processor should, in my
> opinion, be taught in English lessons. Manipulating statistics in
> spreadsheets should be taught in statistics modules. IT teaching should
> really be about computing in the same sort of way that maths teaching is
> about maths.

Agreed.

The trick is often to separate the 'chicken' from the 'egg'. It is 
difficult to teach spreadsheets (per your example) without having some 
'math' problem to solve; so to a degree both the subject (concepts and 
methods) and the tool (concepts and methods) need to be taught 
concurrently - I mentioned earlier "like mindedness" and "team 
approach". Perversely, remember the flurry when pocket calculators 
became widely available - should we first learn our times-tables, should 
we still learn how to use a slide rule, is it "cheating" to use a device 
during an exam?

At one stage I ran a course for computer programmers, and whilst a 
colleague handled 'Programming in COBOL' I handled aspects of design and 
structure. At times my content seemed to be 'ahead' of hers, and at 
others vice-versa. Despite this concerning us, the trainees handled it 
quite happily, they interrelated the two steams of knowledge and took no 
care about directing clarification of COBOL syntax and semantics to me 
or the coding of diagrams to her. In fact their feedback was that they 
had no trouble seeing the relevance and relationship between the two 
'courses'. (and that was before Gen-X and Gen-Y and the claimed rise of 
human "multi-tasking")


Returning to your point, if we present the problem on the 
blackboard/whiteboard/projector... and start talking in terms of 
"columns" and "rows", and how they can be aggregated and manipulated; as 
soon as the trainee fires-up OOo Calc, MS-Word, Symfony, Gnumeric, ... 
they simply 'see' how the tool works - which is why us old-timers so 
eagerly grasped at VisiCalc and Lotus-123 in the first place!

In short, you build the 'mental map' first, then show how the tool can 
do the grunt-work - oops did you learn your times-tables before your TI/HP?

It is NOT the vaunted commonality of the GUI or WIMPS that makes 
software "intuitive", it is the applicability of the tool to the task!

Whereas if you start with the tool (open almost any MSFT text to prove 
this point), the initial lesson is totally wiped-out by a boring list of 
menus, tool-bars, icons, status lines, cells, column and row 
labels...blah, blah, techno-jargon, pocket protector... none/few of 
which have any apparent meaning or relevance. In short an illustration 
of "a problem looking for a solution"!

NB this observation applies to the presentation of any tool/application!


>> In short, learning concepts equips for 'change' whereas training targets
>> only a certain, specific, and temporary environment.

Having said all that, there is room for some tool-specific lessons 
(whether we are talking about spreadsheet processors generically or 
(say) Gnumeric specifically). It would be hard to build a math lesson to 
provide a structured view of keyboard short-cuts, for example. So there 
are 'computer' topics. Whether they should be covered as a component of 
a math lesson, a whole math lesson set aside for a series of technical 
topics, or a separate (but integrated) 'ICT' lesson stream is another 
matter...

Typing/keyboarding skills is another example. One of the best things I 
did whilst at high school (educational measure, not ...) was attend an 
'option' class on typewriting (yes, they were manual and a room-full all 
operating at speed was ear-splitting!). Admittedly I only applied 
because I'd done car maintenance and whilst nothing else seemed 
interesting this class at least had an over-representation of girls!!! 
Despite all the attendant (and pleasant) distraction I (almost 
unintentionally) learned a lot more than the QWERTY layout, such as 
working by series of letters, where/how to hold my hands, and typing to 
a rhythm (yes, 'music and movement' for those who remember even further 
back). I haven't touched COBOL for years or FORTRAN for even longer and 
can't remember a scrap of calculus beyond my car's accelerator and brake 
pedals, but here I am writing to you at a rate that even Mr?Mrs?Miss 
Pitman would approve!

-- 
Regards,
=dn
--
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug