Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!marvel
From: marvel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Howard P Marvel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: HyperCard Improvements
Message-ID: <42187@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 7 Apr 89 12:57:43 GMT
References: <42120@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <28516@apple.Apple.COM> <42156@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <6603@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
Reply-To: Howard P Marvel <marvel@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science
Lines: 51

In article <6603@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
>In article <42156@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, marvel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Howard P. Marvel) writes:
(rantings about how I hide the Mac interface from students)
>
>What a shame.  It seems like a crime to hide the Macintosh interface from
>the user.  It's ease of use is one of its strong point.  I think that the
>effort would be better spent teaching the students how to make the most of
>the Finder and the rest of the "real Mac".
>
Wrongo.  I am NOT teaching computers.  I am teaching economics.  I
want an intelligent toaster, not a computer.  I want nothing to stand
in the way of a student being able to experiment with various values
input into an economics problem with visual feedback -- the dreaded
economics graphs.  If I were using the Mac to teach English via a
wordprocessor or statistics with something like DataDesk (both of
which are done at OSU), I would certainly spend some time on the
interface, but then I'd be reserving a lab for a quarter and teaching
the class in the lab.  I don't do that.  Instead, the students get a
one hour orientation and a set of diskettes.  The lab has public hours
and I treat it like a library -- the students are free to use the
resource if and only if they find it useful.  I want them to come
back, but I don't want to force them to do so.  That is why I have to
hook them immediately, which I do.

>> By the way, even though these students by and large haven't seen a Mac
>> before, most of them are hooked by the end of an hour.  In fact, for
>> most, they are hooked as soon as the computer addresses them by name.
>
>As of about a year ago, I had never seen a Mac before.  Within two months,
>I was using PageMaker, Microsoft Word, SuperPaint, HyperCard, etc.  Within
>a year, I accepted a job with Apple as their student representative on
>campus because of my knowledge.  Yes, it is easy to get hooked on the
>Macintosh.  But it is that fact that makes the machine so easy to learn.
>
>Most students don't need to be held by the hand.  They are in school
>(supposedly) because they have intelligence.
Of course students have intelligence.  They make intelligent choices
about how to allocate their time.  That is why I've got to convince
them that the approach is useful.  I could force them to do what I
say, but wouldn't that in fact be underestimating their
intelligence???

>Of course, some things may
>need to be explained to them (like how a mouse works).
Yeah, but this is what I want to keep to an absolute minimum
>
>This reminds me of the data processing classes here at Ball State.  Of course,
>they use IBM PCs and "teach" the students how to use Lotus 1-2-3, dBase III+,
>and Word Perfect.  
The operative term here is "data processing classes."  I do NOT want
to teach "data processing classes."