Re: MicroWorlds Instruction Book/Help Resources

[WendyPetti@xxxx]

In a message dated 4/15/01 4:55:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
dale-reed@xxxx writes:

> Chris, why don't your OWL students start a cybercourse? Would be a way of
> earning some bucks for them and for OWL. Apparantly Wendy is going to 
study
> the subject to death rather than simply wading in and risking one of her
> nine mathcat lives.

Dale, you crack me up!! Believe it or not, I really am planning to take the 
plunge and wade in already, any day now. But I've been hoping that we would 
all view this group as taking the plunge together. Why isn't anyone else 
plunging in?

But Chris and OWL have inspired me to take the plunge.

You have made some very good points about the need for an instruction book. 
I do think that most of the earlier help manuals are applicable to MWPro. 
However, anyone purchasing MWPro who does not own an earlier version is out 
of luck. And there are some new facets of MWPro, of course (such as the use 
of spreadsheets), which certainly deserve some printed instructions. I have 
spoken to the folks at LCSI over the years about the need for more printed 
materials, and they just are not interested in being publishers. It seems 
foolish to me, because their product would be much more marketable if they 
provided a lot of helpful supplemental materials.

I personally think that a MicroWorlds cybercourse should be offered for free, 
but of course people would expect to pay for published materials. But I get 
squeamish anytiime someone refers to money in relation to any of this 
endeavor. For myself, I just want to do what I can to get more people 
involved with the joys of enhanced thinking through exploring with Logo 
programming/MicroWorlds. After all the years of getting generous and free 
help through the Logo-L/LogoForum, it would seem very crass to me to be 
thinking about the commercial aspects of this thing. 

I am simply amazed that the MWPro Help has to be printed out page by page. 
That is absurd. I will contact LCSI and ask if they will give us permission 
at least to compile and distribute a print version of their Help as a prelude 
to a more extensive guidebook/project book. I much prefer holding a user's 
manual in my hands instead of sifting through online help.

Wendy