What's Really Important?

[MGreenb551 at aol.com]

Judy,
     I am a high school teacher.   I taught myself and my students to use 
HyperCard, then HyperStudio, and now Revolution.   Programming is not something 
that I have formal training in, but I have been able to make or direct my 
students to make just about anything we desire in stacks -- mostly educational 
stacks to teach other students one concept or another.
     The educational stack design would be a bit ambitious for elementary 
students, IMHO.   But my students have had fun with another simpler approach.   I 
make a stack that they can modify, usually something with graphics like 
geometric shapes, recursive trees, color wheels, and the like.   They find RGB 
colors and speech especially attractive.   Drag-drop puzzles would also be 
interesting to elementary students.

> I'm finishing up a program in instructional design and technology and
> would like for my final project to be a new Rev interface ala Hypercard's
> that will make the program more accessible to new/novice programmers
> (think: elementary school teachers and/or children).
> 
> My questions to you, especially any of you who are not "real" (that is,
> formally educated in the discipline) programmers:
> 
> 1.  What do you think should be presented in terms of programming
> concepts?
> 
     Programming concepts?   Hide/Show, move, resize objects.   Inks.   Play 
movies & sound files.   Transitions, sliders.   My students like recursion, 
but it's tricky and prone to crashes.   Speech.   Drag/Drop.   Roll-Overs.   
Each of these requires a minimum of programming for a maximum immediate 
gratification.   Math commands are necessary to place objects, so include them... even 
things like sin and cos that the students would not understand.
     Definitely teach them about naming conventions, or at least meaningful 
names, because kids tend to name their variables and objects HairBall and 
JasonsBloodyEyeballThingy just because they can.
     Control structures?   if... then, repeat, and switch.   I would not mess 
with Try.
     Commands?   Try building a stack or two like you would want them to 
build, and see which commands are necessary.
> 
> 2.  What sorts of 'ready-made' tools (such as the ready-made buttons and
> fields in HC; the contacts list/date book, etc.) do you think would be
> beneficial in making the program intrinsically useful even at the end-user
> level as well as at the level of transitioning from end-user to stack
> creator?
> 
     I'm not a big fan of ready-made tools.   The students don't have to go 
through the process of figuring out exactly what they want their stack to do.
> 
> 3.  Any other ideas/suggestions?  (recalling from your own, early days of
> the cave how you learned an x-Talk?)
> 
     I have 14 years of teaching experience and 7 using stack-metaphor 
programming to teach my students.   My masters is in using technology in the 
classroom.   If you want, contact me off-list.

          Mark Greenberg