The Missing Link between LiveCode and Teachers

[Richard Gaskin]

Alejandro Tejada wrote:

 > The Missing Link between LiveCode and Teachers is
 > Hypermedia Learning.
 >
 > Recently, I was consulting EBSCO database:
 >
 > http://search.ebscohost.com/
 >
 > for articles and publications about
 > Hypermedia.
...
 > My request to Kevin&Co. (RunRev) and Richard,
 > as Community Manager is:
 > Contact by email every author of Hypermedia
 > books, article, tutorial and publication.
 > Request them to test and use LiveCode
 > as a Hypermedia learning tool and send
 > directly to the mothership their comments
 > about the suitability of LiveCode for
 > this specific task.

I recently corresponded with Dr. Robert Horn, whose book "Mapping 
Hypertext" was one of my favorites back when it was first published in 
'89.  The problems designers were facing back then were very new, and 
Horn's richly-illustrated book covered the cognitive and technical 
aspects of creating navigable hypermedia.

When I first started Fourth World my company description was "Hypermedia 
Development Tools".   Around the turn of the century I changed the 
description, because even by 2000 the word "hypermedia" was sounding dated.

Today hypermedia is alive and well, bigger than ever really, just under 
a different name: the Web.

In the 25 years since Horn's book so much has happened.  Decades of 
familiarity with hyperspace, first in HyperCard, then in other xTalks, 
then in the Web, has made most folks using computers today almost 
uncannily comfortable with mentally mapping non-linear hyperlinked media.

I do think you're onto something important.  My only reluctance is to 
use the word "hypermedia" in any contemporary context, as it's a lot 
like trying to discuss water with fish - they have no concept of what it 
is as distinct from anything else because they're so familiar with it.


Education, or more broadly, knowledge transfer, is the key to a better 
future, not just for the learner but for the economy and even 
civilization as a whole.

The power of computing to assist mental tasks, along with the global 
interconnectedness computers are so adept at helping people do these 
days, offer nearly unlimited potential to improve knowledge transfer 
beyond anything previously conceivable.

And of course as a LiveCode fanboy, it seems to me that having a 
programming language that makes true ownership of both local and global 
computing accessible to anyone with a few weeks' time to invest in 
learning it has the potential to be a major catalyst as this 
still-nascent Internet Era unfolds.

When LC had their Kickstarter last year I reached out to pretty much 
everyone I knew from the old "hypermedia" days, and even a few I'd only 
heard of.  At this point they're either using LC, considering it, or are 
invested in something else.

I think the biggest potential for helping the world realize the role 
LiveCode can play in knowledge transfer today is to look in the opposite 
direction:  the next generation.


As one example of a powerful intersection of interests coming together 
well, check out this thread in the forums:
<http://forums.runrev.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=19248>

The Raspberry Pi is helping young people all over the world understand 
that computing isn't some rarefied special thing other people make and 
we merely use, but instead computing is cheap, ubiquitous, and something 
we all can make.  The 21st century isn't about users, it belongs to makers.

In that thread Hermann has been posting a series of stacks designed 
specifically to run on the Pi build of LiveCode.  Beautiful work, 
thoughtfully crafted.

And that's just one small corner of a world of possibilities.

I hope we can see a group of community members who have an interest in 
using LiveCode in educational contexts come together to identify goals 
and the tools needed to satisfy those goals, and then set about making 
them and sharing them with the world under an open source license so 
everyone on the planet can help enhance and proliferate them.

Maybe you'd like to help with that effort?  If so drop me a note - we 
have the forums, many servers, and a free and open LiveCode Community 
Edition at our disposal.  Everything is possible.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys