Educational uses for Rev (was Re: Plea to sell Dan's book widely)

[Richard Gaskin]

Marielle Lange wrote:
> Do you know of konfabulator (http://www.konfabulator.com/)? They are 
> highly succesfull despite the fact that they are exactly the opposite... 
> limited potential but dramatic shop-window full of jaw dropping little 
> time-savers or friendly desktop fillers (yes, most of them are useless, 
> but Konfabulator lets you develop small applications, in one or two days 
> and proudly show it on the net, which apparently appeals customers).

While it generated a fair amount of buzz when it came out, it's worth 
noting that according to the Support page there the two folks who make 
Konfab never left their day jobs.

In the dot-bomb era mindshare was more important than revenue, but now 
that we've had a roadside sobriety check on the information superhighway 
we've returned to more traditional definitions of success. :)

But where Konfab's eye-candy-over-utility is an inherent part of their 
security model, Rev's greater flexibility has no such limitation.  With 
user-definable security options, the Rev Player can be used for net-only 
apps with no file I/O or full applications.

> I suspect that your decision to develop a less expensive player is a step 
> in that direction. But its not a good option for a lecturer who cannot 
> ask each one of his students to buy a player to benefit from the 
> courseware material he has developed.

The Rev Player is free.

And for more than a decade the engine has had the ability to create 
standalones that can run other stacks, so one can make their own 
learning tool to run any number and variety of courseware, royalty-free.


> I should maybe take this opportunity to add that the university lecturer 
> I am is seriously considering moving to a career of developing tools for 
> teachers (so many  university teachers do not even know about HTML, 
> believe me, there is a HUGE market for tools that let them easily 
> develop courseware material and put it on the web, as encouraged more 
> and more by Universities) and courseware for students (believe me, there 
> is a HUGE market there too... even more when small tablets/ebooks will 
> begin to appear).

The Web can be fine for relatively simple presentations, but is limited 
for more sophisticated interactions.

Send the lecturer to:
<http://www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/netapps.html>

There are links there to many other resources as well.

This is not to suggest that using the Web for distance learning is 
necessarily a bad idea, but that most of its strengths are equally 
applicable to custom client software such as one can make in Revolution, 
Director, or REBOL, and many of the unique benefits are largely based on 
misconceptions (such as helper apps being somehow more trouble than 
dealing with the limitations of a browser plugin).

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________
  Rev tools and more:  http://www.fourthworld.com/rev

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