[Edu-sig] re: Interactive learning: Twenty years later

[Terry Hancock]

On Sunday 29 June 2003 12:02 pm, Arthur wrote:
>  >For me, the point of these fancy input devices is *not* to replace
> Are we still talking about education, directly or indirectly?

In as much as the human computer interface* is important to the
student's experience of the computer, I think we still are.  I agree
that the textual interface is critical to something like programming,
where logic and a linear progression of steps are fundamental to
the subject.  But if you were teaching 2- or 3-D concepts, the ability
to simply point and select objects, and express your intent in a
visual-tactile mode is just essential.  In any kind of visual arts
application, whether artistic or technical, I think that's going to be
the case. And the mouse is the lowest-common-denominator tool
for doing that.

I know when we start teaching Gimp and Sketch apps, we're going
to be using mice (or trackpoints).   Moving up to a tablet would be
good, though.

Whether we're still talking about programming or python, though, I
don't know. ;-)

I do think that we're eventually going to see some kind of breakout
of visual programming methods for connectivist programs of some
kind in the next few years. So far, it's mostly a curiosity: nobody's
found a place where such methods are the clear winner for
developing programs (or they're such marginal applications that 
most people won't be affected by them).  But I think it will make
new things possible once it does happen, just like any new
programming language or paradigm has done.  And just like all
the others, it will have places where it's unbeatable, and places
where it's not appropriate. But people will try to use it wrongly
anyway. ;-)

Actually, I guess there is one exception -- the "spreadsheet". Hardly
anyone realizes it *is* a visual programming language, but it is. And
I think you could even say it follows a connectivist paradigm.

Cheers,
Terry

 * "man machine interface" was so much more poetic, if not very PC ;-)
--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com