Looking for a defined path to learn Rev (for new users)

[Alejandro Tejada]

Hi all,

Previously, i have wrote about my fellow teachers that
i have invited to use RevMedia in their classes.

If you read those comments, you had learn that
they expect to receive training from the source,
from Runrev, not unlike Microsoft and Adobe
offers with their certification programs.

The idea of learning on their own, do not attract 
too many of them. I know that this is the result of
previous experiences in trainings for other softwares.

This training should be offered in teacher's
native language. Although, revTalk should be keep
as an English-like programming language, without
trying to translate commands, functions, handlers,
messages and tokens to another languages.
(Different of Apple Computer, that actually localized
HyperTalk to many languages)

These teachers actually want that RevMedia, have an
interface more similar to Office programs like Word or
PowerPoint. The idea of scripting visual effects for 
transitions from a card to another, or hiding or showing
a control seems so alien to them, that i suspect that
this useful feature (for their specific kind of work), would
be underutilized or unused at all.

Now, i am looking for comments about this idea:

To make easier for Teachers (or users), to know in which level
of expertise they stand, divide clearly the learning experience
in different levels, just like HyperCard do.

The following paragraph was copied from this page:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.03/03.10/HyperCardProgramming/index.html

There are 5 user levels within Hypercard. The top most level,
and easiest to use, is Browsing. This allows the user to navigate
through Stacks and look at information but not to add or modify it.

(My comment:
Given that Rev is multiplatform, i should add another
ability to this level that should be carried to others levels:
The ability of making clear and understable reports of failures or
malfunction of stacks to their authors, using screenshots and
written reports. This is really important and should be so easy, that
do not become a burden.)

The next two levels Typing and Painting allow the user to add or modify
written and graphic information. The last two levels are Authoring
and Scripting.

(My comment:
The Authoring level requires very good tutorials about
each part of Rev interface, because, as i wrote before, many Teachers
expect to take advantage of their experience using Office Software, while
they learn to use Rev. In fact, editing text in Rev seems (to many of them)
really "primitive", because they compare this task with their counterpart
in other programs. Rev needs to add menu items for common text
transformation functions like Uppercase or Lowercase, Sentence Case, 
bulleted list, etc. or an accessible plug-in method to add them to a
palette.

My approach to tackle this fear to authoring have been teaching them first:
1) how to create a stack
2) how to create cards (i told them that these are pages...)
3) how to navigate between cards (and their visual effect transitions)
4) how to change stack and cards properties (size, background colors,
etc. This part serves to teach them about inheritance of properties.)
5) how to create fields, buttons, image canvas (yes, if you could paint
on them is an image canvas), vector graphics, etc.
6) Changing key attributes of these objects (Some key attributes, not all)
6) how to import text, images and graphics.
7) how to hyperlink (text hyper linking should be a lot easier for novices)
8) how to show and hide controls (Now they learn that all these objects
are called controls inside RevMedia)
9) how to group controls and show them in different cards
10) Optimizing and reducing the Size of stack content.

Final Project: Choose one of the Gutenberg Project ebooks and
convert many of their chapters in a stack that shows concepts
like: multiple cards, hyperlinks, text formatting, optimal use of images,
visual effects transitions, groups placed in multiple cards, use of
colors, textures and blends.

This is my what i want to teach them to learn authoring in
RevMedia. Did i miss some important points (that they should
learn) in previous description?

About reaching the Scripting Level, i could tell you the reactions that
i have observed when i show them five binders of printed documentation 
from Rev dictionaries and other materials. (Notice that i have not printed
all documentation available.)

My favorite remark: "Do you actually expect that i learn all this to use
this program?"

Obviously the answer is no, but i bet that this is the reaction of many
when they learn about the extension of the revTalk language.

I believe that they should learn to comment and debug other
people's code, while they start learning to write their own handlers.

By any chance, Have you seen the expression of fear when a newbie
choose "Quit" from the script editor and the whole program closes?
(He was expecting to "Quit" only the task that he was doing, that is,
quit scripting a control in the stack)

I believe that we could make a stack that "guides" newbies in this task
of commenting other people code.

I would like to read comments on the Authoring part, because
this is the topic of the tutorials i am working now.

Thanks in advance for your comments!

Alejandro

-- 
View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Looking-for-a-defined-path-to-learn-Rev-for-new-users-tp623008p623008.html
Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.