[IAEP] Volunteer-driven development of educational software

[Greg Smith]

Hi Bill,

I'm glad you followed up on this. I wanted to send an e-mail saying that 
there is great learning software and I agree with the ones you list.

It sounds like you are not convinced that its all great stuff but I can 
say that eToys, Scratch and Turtle Art are all very popular and well 
used in our deployments.

I like your classification.. I would just add one general purpose tool 
to the first section: Browse.

The hardest part for me is figuring out what is "learning". If we really 
knew what that means then I think choosing or building the right 
software would be relatively easy!

Thanks,

Greg S

Bill Kerr wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Albert Cahalan <acahalan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Greg Dekoenigsberg writes:
>>> On Tue, 11 Nov 2008, Greg Smith wrote:
>> I think that producing useful activities that are intended
>>> solely for kids, with a strong pedagogical element, is still
>>> a largely unsolved problem.
>> It's worse than that.
>>
>> It's not a problem restricted to activities. It hits Windows
>> and MacOS as well. It's not merely an unsolved problem, but
>> a very poorly defined problem.
>>
>> Put aside the platform for the moment, and the implementation
>> details. (note: "requires a strong AI" is not just a detail!)
>> Simply try to imagine some purely educational software that
>> wouldn't be dreadful. Got any ideas?
> 
> 
> 
> I can't think of any educational software that is "intended solely for kids"
> that is worthwhile.
> 
> new slogan - improve the quality of your dog food so that you want to eat it
> 
> 
> eg. Scratch or etoys or turtle art or logo is designed largely with kids in
> mind (it is deliberately cut down in some way, not fully featured) but
> nevertheless is still fun and offers new learning ideas for adults
> 
> software that is "intended solely for kids" is phoney, eg. maths blaster
> (lets make maths fun for kids by rewarding mundane arithmetic activity with
> something totally unrelated to the task), aka dressing up the dog
> 
> it might be useful to classify "educational software". Here is a very rough
> first attempt which I'm sure could be improved on but might help get
> discussion moving:
> 
> *group one - extending reach*
> most software fits under generalised groupings of extending the reach of
> humans
> 
> word processing - better than previous writing tools
> spreadsheets - better than previous maths tools
> image manipulation - better image tools
> wikipedia - more accessible encyclopaedia
> dr geo II - geometry is more accessible
> simulators - x2o, inspired by the incredible machine
> Moodle claims to have a social constructivist theory but I think it's really
> just for incremental improvement on what schools already do (still looking
> at moodle though for more information), social constructivist is a fairly
> meaningless phrase anyway
> etc
> 
> *group two* *- great leap forward*
> what bits of software have a specific educational focus based on a more or
> less worked out theory, ie. software that can make a claim to being a big
> leap forward in educational computing, more so than making something we can
> already do more accessible (yes these claims are often dismissed as
> grandiose)
> 
> cmap - concept mapping, Novak
> hypercard - ? (now defunct)
> logo, turtle art - Papert, Piaget
> etoys - Kay, Bruner
> scratch - Resnick
> some games (Gee's semiotic domains theory)
> 
> *group three - simple training *
> (necessary but not very interesting)
> eg, typing tutors
> 
> *group four - dressing up the dog *
> - cute software that pretends to be interesting but isn't:
> eg. maths blaster type
>