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[Judy Perry]

Many kind thanks to all who have thus far replied :-)

Tim:

<snip>

> The usual hyperCard tutorial stacks included address books, index your CDs (now DVDs or MP3s). These were good learning experiences that could produce truly useful stacks.

--This was another matter I was pondering:  exactly what kinds of 
scaffolding materials to provide.  I clearly don't have the time to 
duplicate all the ReadyMade template stacks provided, but remember with 
particular fondness the "ReadyMade Fields" and "ReadyMade Buttons" stacks.

For example, one of the things we will be discussing that unit is the 
disaster of the Therac-25, in which a mechanical safety lock was removed 
which prevented the device operator from inadvertently inputting a lethal 
amount of radiation.  I might give them an assignment to create a card 
that has a button requesting the user to input a radiation amount and have 
them check the char count or some such thing of anything beyond a 
therapeutical amount; have it check minimum and maximum.  This is one 
example of the sorts of learning outcomes I'm looking to reinforce.  The 
problem of division by zero is another.  (These are admittedly uncool, 
unengaging examples, but they could be sub-assignments that teach a 
concept that lead to their creating something pertaining to their own 
interest using certain concepts taught.)

And thank you for mentioning TTS.  Anybody can type "Hello World" into a 
field, but not everybody knows how to make their computer talk, much less 
using goofy Mac OS voices ;-)  No, it's not very important in learning to 
program but it IS engaging and thus possibly want to try harder things.

Judy