[IAEP] versus, not

[Albert Cahalan]

Kathy Pusztavari writes:
> Caroline Meeks writes:

>> 3. Improved authoring tools and other automation tools might
>> reduce the level of effort required to create this content.
>
> *Yes, this will be key.  I really liked some of the ideas that
> Albert Cahalan put forth - even if I didn't fully understand them.
> I'd love to hear more of his ideas (hint, hint, prod, prod, wink, wink).

Thanks. :-) I'd like to point out that I was really delighted
to see your email mentioning Project Follow Through. Around here
it often seems I'm the only person willing to accept that the
independently reviewed evidence favors Direct Instruction. It's
like some kind of idealistic reality denial is going on.

Authoring tools are indeed a problem. Last summer I got together
with somebody to convert some paper-based math worksheets I have.
It's not so easy! I took a few photos, he proved that bitmap to
vector conversion could work OK, and... nothing more happened.
Getting things into a nice practical format is not trivial. So you
have some art, but... unless you print it out for use as a normal
paper worksheet with a human grader, it's just not usable.

(these were sheets used to turn an 8-year-old who only did single
digit addition and subtraction into a 9-year-old studying calculus)

Making a nice sheet of math problems with pen and paper is easy.
Getting that to be useful without paper is much harder. Is it
going to take a week or more of custom software development to do
what can be done in 10 minutes with pen and paper? It seems so.

That's not even counting the stuff that is impossible to preserve.
For example, unambiguous writing is very important for math. You
can't expect to handle math in college if you have sS5 confusion,
1|I confusion, zZ2 confusion, etc. -- and that includes Greek letters.
Students still need to master traditional graphing and sketching.
Long division normally requires an ability to keep numbers aligned.
Kids who don't practice these things are not getting prepared.