On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 2:53 AM, Greg Smith <<a href="mailto:gregsmitholpc@gmail.com">gregsmitholpc@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> 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.</blockquote><div> I don't think I said that, I think those three programs are great in many ways - wrt to this conversation the implication would be that adults can have fun with them too, which is true for me   </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I like your classification.. I would just add one general purpose tool to the first section: Browse.</blockquote> <div> Agree. I wasn't try to be complete - am working on a more complete list - I'm not sure that my classification is all that good but it might be good for more discussion   </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> 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!</blockquote><div> What I have argued and on carefully reading Minsky's book this became clearer - there is no single way of learning, there is no unified learning theory and I think it follows from Minsky that it is unlikely there will ever be one, well, not in our lifetimes (be wary of those who claim to have the best learning theory) I recently read Gleik's biography of Feynmann - the impression gained there is that we are unlikely to see a unified theory of physics either - as one layer of the problem is solved then a new set of problems emerges - again there were cautions there that once scientists start to try too hard to unify then they tend to lose their creative spark (not Feynmann but others) Minsky points that out too - any good physicist will half half a dozen models of how something complex works - same as for learning cheers   </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Thanks, Greg S<div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"> Bill Kerr wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Albert Cahalan <<a href="mailto:acahalan@gmail.com" target="_blank">acahalan@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Greg Dekoenigsberg writes: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Tue, 11 Nov 2008, Greg Smith wrote: </blockquote> I think that producing useful activities that are intended <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> solely for kids, with a strong pedagogical element, is still a largely unsolved problem. </blockquote> 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? </blockquote> 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 </blockquote> </div></div></blockquote></div>