Re: On line MW Lesson

[Frank Caggiano <odonata_00@xxxx>]

> Frank, I am fascinated by your approach to the problem. I think your layout 
> has real possibilities for the online lesson format. (I was, however, 
> confused as to why you have the second (chalkboard) textbox and the cut, 
> copy, and paste buttons... wouldn't it be easier if the user just entered 
> commands directly into the "instructions" textbox?)

Wendy,

Thanks for feedback. The chalkboard is just a place to store code on a
temporary basis. For example if the user wanted to play around with the
logo code in the instruction box but wanted to be able to restore the
code after he was done with his modifications. He could copy it to the
chalkboard, make whatever changes he wanted to in the instruction window
and when he was done he could copy the code from the chalkboard back.
Basically I'm lazy and will do anything I can to minimize typing. The
cut, paste and copy buttons are needed because when you're in the
project the browser's normal edit functions don't work.

> I think your pull-down menus on the left are a great idea, and perhaps there 
> could be an entire menu of pull-down lessons

I had planned top add separate html pages and MW projects for later
lessons (hence the lesson1 designation) however I could see a pulldown
with separate logo snippets of code which would load into the
instruction box. Square, polygon, etc. to give the learner a starting
point.

Looking at the project today (I hadn't looked at it in awhile) another
thing I think would be useful would be a third pulldown at the top left
for help on commands specific to MicroWorlds. Then the 'LOGO' help
pulldown would have generic logo commands and the new pulldown would
have things like setc, color, etc.

> In your introductory material you stated that the user could write Logo 
> commands and procedures. That is my stumbling block. There doesn't seem to 
> me to be any way to name and save an actual procedure with an online 
project. 

Did you mean to write 'that the user couldn't write' instead of 'could'?
Your right that it is a stumbling block with MW. There isn't a define
command to allow procedure definition on the fly (at least not
documented anyway. Since I started playing around with yellow brick logo
from MIT for Lego's MindStorms I'm not sure what is possible with MW
anymore! They do some very strange and undocumented things. So far MW
support isn't being to open about these)

You're right in saying that someone using the course probably has MW
installed (or will be installing it) and that they would run it locally.
However I don't think the course would have to be in textboxes in that
case. The course could still be html the pages would be what they
download (or read in off a cd). Html and browser's seems to be the way
more and more information is being presented even if it isn't online.

> You mentioned that ultimately a cybercourse should probably make use of the 
> interactivity of Flash.

I would see flash (or some other software) just as an authoring tool to
create the html content. There will always be some descriptive text for
the course outside of MW (like my pulldowns and such) and a course
authoring tool just makes it easier to create it. While it is possible
to do some of what you can do in Flash in MW the MW plugin is just not
at the same level of sophistication or integration with the browser that
Flash is. However it would in no way replace MW and using MW as much as
possible is a good thing to do for the reasons you write.

> Thanks for sharing this rich format for online MicroWorlds lessons! Would 
> you mind sharing the code for the whole page so that members of this group 
> could possibly try their hand at modifications of the layout (resizing the 
> frames, etc.)?

I'm glad to help. As for sharing the html remember if you view a page in
your browser you already have it loaded on your machine in your
browser's cache. You could also do a 'save frame as' from the file
pulldown (in netscape anyway, I don't know IE well enough to say if that
would work in it). If that all fails let me know and I could send a
copy.

-- 
Frank Caggiano	"The best education for the best
caggiano@xxxx	is the best education for all."
http://www.crystal-objects.com/	Robert M. Hutchins

Logo Users Ring
http://www.crystal-objects.com/logo/logoring.html