ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/articles/Sughrue/TI-101/5mcguffy.txt

Text File | 2006-10-19 | 15KB | 448 lines

 .IF DSK1.C-3
 
 .CE 10
     ~~~~~ TI-101 ~~~~~

     OUR 4/A UNIVERSITY
 
     by Jack Sughrue
     Box 459
     E.Douglas MA 01516

    #5 McGUFFEY's

     Before we spend a class on the TI
 textbooks I mentioned at the end of
 our last session, I'd like to mention
 McGUFFEY's ECLECTIC READERS from the
 1890's.  They were the major source
 of formal, academic learning for
 young scholars 100 years ago.
 Today's McGuffey is Don Shorock.
 Let's analyze a bit of Shorock's
 eclecticism of the 1990's.
     Ms.^Bronte, I already gave you
 his address in my notes three or four
 classes ago.
     Very well.  He can be reached for
 these educational goodies - mostly
 fairware (and let's hope I don't have
 to explain
thatagain) at P.O.Box
 501, Great Bend, KS 67530.  Got that?
 Good.  Now try not to interrupt with
 questions that have already been
 answered if you were paying attention
 during our other classes.
     I'm going to be using the
 overhead for this lesson, as some of
 the intricacies of this educator's
 materials are fascinating and
 unusual.
     Last session, Class, we had a
 couple questions from Mr.^Shakespeare
 over there by the window.  He said he
 had a nephew in junior high and two
 elementary school grandchildren. I
 think Mr.^Shorock's eclectic disks
 will be of great help here.
     First, let me mention that Mr.^S
 has the most extraordinary data base
 structure built into his programs.
     Second, let me put up the menu of
 his first disk on the overhead here.
 He has four educational fairware
 disks: EDUCATION #1, 2, 3, and
 INVENTIONS.
     This is the first menu for #1:

     a) AMERICAN PRESIDENTS
     b) ENGLISH MONARCHS
     c) ANCIENT GREEKS && ROMANS
     d) JOYSTICK AMERICA
     e) WORLD MILEAGE
     f) STATES && CAPITALS (groups)
     g) SOLAR SYSTEM
     h) WORD MATH
     i) GAGGLES OF GEESE
     j) ESTIMATING TRIANGLES
     k) FACTORING
     l) AUDIO MATH
     m) CATALOG
     n) DOCUMENTATION
     o) EXIT

     There are 12 programs, plus a
 chance to look at the catalog from
 the disk, plus a chance to read all
 the documention.  By using the
 alphabet instead of numbers, he is
 able to have the menu items lined up
 perfectly (as "10" and beyond would
 push everything one character to the
 right).  Very neat is our
 Mr.^Shorock.  If we pressed "a" for
 the President program another menu
 appears, as you can see on this
 transparency:

     1) NAME YEAR
     2) NAME PARTY
     3) NAME PRESIDENT
     4) NAME STATE
     5) FOR QUIZ
     6) LEAVE (to go back to main
 menu, which is nice, and only "d" and
 "j" are unable to within their
 activities)

     If, at this point, we press "1"
 and type in "1962" at the cursor, we
 get the following:
     "Year #2 of the Presidency of
 John Kennedy; 35th President;
 Democrat of Massachusetts; served
 1961-1963."
     Typing "1963" would give both
 Kennedy and Johnson (who served from
 1963 to 1969).
     Pressing "2" above will give you
 the listing of all the parties under
 which our Presidents have served: 1)
 Federalist 2)Democratic-Republican 3)
 National Republican 4)Democratic
 5)Whig 6)Republican.  And choosing
 "Whig," for example, will give you
 William Henry Harrison, 1841-1841;
 John Tyler, 1841-1845; Zachary
 Taylor, 1849-1850; and Millard
 Fillmore, 1850-1853.
     When choosing NAME PRESIDENT and
 typing "John," you will get all the
 Johns: Adams, Adams, Tyler, Kennedy
 with all their accompanying info.  So
 you can enter first OR last names and
 have the program seek out the proper
 data for you.
     To enter STATE you must type in
 the full name, however, as the
 program will not accept MA or MASS
 for MASSACHUSETTS.  When you type
 that full name, though, it will list
 its four Presidents and their
 biographical sketches.  Entering the
 name of a state with no President
 will give you the cursor, just as
 typing in wrong info will.
     Now, when you have mastered this
 info, you will have the QUIZ (a
 yes/no job): "Did Benjamin Harrison
 Rule in the year 1811?  (No. His
 term, as we all know, was from
 1889-1893.)  [I don't like RULED,
 however, which is the reappearing
 term for SERVED that Mr.^Shorock
 (probably a native of England) keeps
 using: Did Ronald Reagan Rule in
 1818? (No. That's right, Class.
 Ronald Reagan RULED America from 1981
 to 1989, though he may have behaved
 as if he RULED America in 1818).]
 Actually, I just listed the program
 and changed the RULE to SERVE, and it
 made the program so much better in
 our Democracy.  Particularly if this
 program will be used with children.
     The English Monarchs and Ancient
 Greek and Roman programs are
 structured similarly.
     I don't intend to go through each
 of his delightful program packages
 for learners during our time today.
 Suffice it to say, Class, that you
 can see the amount of work that goes
 into a program like this and, by
 studying the program itself, the
 unlimited kinds of applications for
 which one may use these programs.
     I would, however, like to delve
 into a couple of completely different
 educational programs here.   WORD
 MATH deals with addition,
 subtraction, multiplication, and
 division as the bane of all
 elementary and junior high students:
 Word Problems.  The answers may be
 typed as "SEVENTEEN" or "17," as in
 this problem: "Ellen has nine
 dandelions and Kent has eight
 marigolds. How many flowers do Ellen
 and Kent have altogether?"  At the
 menu you may choose specific
 processes (addition) or all.  A
 running score is kept (as with most
 of Shorock's games and quizzes), and
 a wrong answer is corrected and
 explained.  At the end of this
 program a flashy countdown in words
 from 100 to 1 takes place, using the
 TI's built-in wonders, and more
 options are given, including
 continuing the game.
     JOYSTICK AMERICA is a geography
 game.  Kind of a precursor, in a
 philosophical way, to Mr.^S's highly
 successful AIR TAXI, his commercial
 venture which is a geographical
 masterpiece.  I understand, Class,
 that he has a further development on
 even that one.  When you write to
 him, ask.  But J.A.^has a golf-like
 scoring system.  You're given a par
 (how many moves itshouldtake you)
 to go from a random starting point in
 America (say Western Tennessee) to a
 random destination (say Ohio or
 Indiana).  As you must move north and
 east in 3 moves here, you can judge
 how you are doing by the constantly
 updated "current location."  Complex
 structure, simple execution.
     Although we've analyzed just
 three learning activities on the
 first disk, you can already see that
 directions are kept to a minimum,
 partially through superb sub menus;
 the structure is simple; the pathways
 direct; the learning concrete; the
 adaptive possibilities endless.
     A quick look at the transparency
 of Disk 2's menu (of math and
 geography activities only) will show
 you how Mr.^S jampacks these SSSD
 disks:

     GEOGRAPHY GAMES
     0) North American Cities
 (comparisons: which is further north?
 west?)
     1) Largest Cities (Chicago is the
 largest city in what state?)
     2) World Capitals (multiple
 choice)
     3) US Mileage (which is closer /
 how far is it to?)
     4) Map: Eastern US (does Maine
 touch Vermont?)
     5) Map: Europe (does France touch
 Luxembourg?)
     6) Map: Latin America (does
 Equador touch Chile?)
     MATH GAMES
     1)Patterns (math drill with
 wallpaper graphics)
     2) More or Less (greater and
 lesser numbers)
     3) Roman Numerals (teach,
 convert, quiz)
     4) Chinese Numbers (teach,
 convert, quiz)
     5) Tardis (strictly for us
 Dr.^Who fans;requires SS and TEII)

     PATTERNS is a flash-card-type
 arithmetic drill (3+17, 21X65, 14-11)
 on a solid background pattern that
 does not scroll when foreground "work
 area" does.  The "wallpaper" changes
 and provides a nice 3-D effect.
 Score is kept as you go along;
 correct answers are given; a total is
 displayed at the end of each 10
 questions before a new quiz with a
 new largest amount total being input
 again.  Some toots and whistles here,
 also.  Not a negative program.
     CHINESE NUMBERS has three menu
 options: T - Teaches Chinese numbers
 (graphically) from 1 to 9999; I -
 Interprets by translating any Arabic
 number of your choice into Chinese; Q
 - Quiz Giver lets you set the
 maximum amount and gives you 10
 problems to solve, scores, and
 autoloads at end.  Like so many of
 the Shorock activities, it is easy to
 get back to any part of the program
 (but not in some of these cases to
 get back to the main disk menu).
     WORLD CAPITALS has a wonderful
 menu that includes 1) Latin America
 2) Europe 3)Africa 4) Asia 5) Oceana
 6) Entire World 7) TI Answers
 (instead of asks) 8) Show Off
 Everything 9) New Player (instead of
 the person who typed name at
 beginning of game, as this will give
 game competition opportunities)
     I wanted to add one thing here,
 Mr.^Shakespeare, if you use these
 disks with your young relatives. This
 program, unfortunately, sometimes
 repeats questions back to back (and
 to back again, in some cases) within
 the 10-question activity.  This
 should've been eliminated.  That sort
 of problem does appear in some of
 these other activities, too.
     However, Class, a great
 opportunity to learn all those new
 former Soviet Union and other Eastern
 European and Western Asian countries
 would be to change this program to
 include just these "new" countries
 for flash-card learning.  Mr.^Shorock
 has made a great base into which it
 is fairly easy to plug new data.
     I see people peering at their
 watches.  Before we go today and
 before I assign homework, I have a
 couple more overhead transparencies
 to show you, such as this projection
 of the menu from Education Disk #3:
 Misc.:

     A - STATES 50
     B - SEMAPHORE SIGNALING
     C - FAMOUS PHILOSOPHERS
     D - FAMOUS COMPOSERS
     E - CHEMICAL ELEMENTS
     F - GEOLOGY TERMS
     G - CANADIAN PROVINCE CAPITALS
     H - MEXICAN STATE CAPITALS
     I - FLAG QUIZ && DEMO
     J - PRES. INAUGURAL DATES
     K - SUBJECT/VERB AGREEMENT
     L - SHORTWAVE TUNING SIGNALS
     M - JULY 4TH DEMO
     N - CATALOG
     0 - DOCUMENTATION
     P - EXIT

     When I look at FAMOUS COMPOSERS,
 Class, I'm reminded of the time a
 group of music historians dug up
 Beethoven's grave.  When they opened
 his coffin, up popped Beethoven,
 shouting, "What is the meaning of
 this?  Can't you see I'm busy
 decomposing?"

     L is interesting.  The signature
 tunes which are played by different
 countries before they begin their
 shortwave broadcasts are played
 (Switzerland, Canada, Kuwait, South
 Africa, etc.).  Once learned, there
 is a quiz, of course.
     After all the playing and using
 and trying and testing, I finally
 found an error, Class.  In STATES 50
 the program says New Hampshire does
 not touch Massachusetts.  It does.
 Not bad.  One small mistake in four
 jampacked disks of educational
 programs.
     Most of the programs I think you
 can figure out from the titles.  Now
 this last overhead.  Has two menus
 shown on it: the main and the one by
 pressing 3 on the main:

     1) USE PROGRAM
     2) PRINT DOC
     3) LOOK AT DOC
     4) SEE DISK CATALOG

     ^^^1) A word about Fairware
     ^^^2) Why I wrote this program
     ^^^3) How to use this program
     ^^^4) Programming techniques
     ^^^^^^^^segmented array items
     ^^^5) Programming techniques
     ^^^^^^^^randomly filled array
     ^^^6) How LOOK AT DOC works
     ^^^^^^^^you may leave docs
     ^^^^^^^^for menu any time

     From these menus you can see,
 Class, that these educational
 programs by the McGuffey of the
 1990's are not just for children.
 The things you can learn about
 programming and data structuring from
 the INVENTIONS disk, alone, is worth
 the price of admission; which, being
 Fairware in the TI Marketplace is
 always the best buy in the computer
 world.  So, if you are like
 Mr.^Shakespeare or Mr.^Bell over
 there who are always looking for
 educational materials for youngsters
 or even like Ms.^Bronte who always
 wants to get some adult learning
 materials, you would all be wise to
 order these disks right away from
 Mr.^Shorock.  They are not available
 in the campus bookstore.  Send what
 you think is a fair amount for each
 of these disks ($5 to $10 per disk
 would certainly be fair, particularly
 when you know what is charged for
 commercialware elsewhere) and help
 yourself or your young learners in
 ways that the original McGuffey never
 dreamed of.
     There will be items from each
 disk on the final.
     No, Mr.^Shakespeare, Mr.^Shorock
 is not the only person or company
 making educational materials for the
 TI.  Chris Bobbitt's ASGARD SOFTWARE
 (P.O.Box 10306, Rockville MD 20850)
 and Ken Gilliland's NOTUNG SOFTWARE
 (7647 McGroarty St., Tujunga CA
 91042) are two companies that still
 put out various kinds of educational
 materials, too, and their catalogs
 are free.
     And don't forget Jim Peterson's
 TIGERCUB SOFTWARE (154 Collingwood
 Ave., Columbus OH 43213), the very
 best source for excellent,
 inexpensive, very specific
 educational software on disks,
 including more adult learning
 materials for you, Ms.^Bronte.  The
 $1 catalog fee is redeemable with
 your first order.
     But your homework, Class, is to
 look through all your disks and
 cassettes (which we'll discuss the
 class after next) and search for the
 10 most educational items you can
 find - the best; ones you personally
 feel are the most educational, that
 do the learning task successfully.
 Bring them to class next time and be
 prepared to give  5-minute talks on
 why you chose these 10.
     If you belong to a user group,
 have everyone in the group do the
 same and put together some master
 educational disks and cassettes.
 This could be a great service to all
 the newtimers coming into our TI
 World Community.

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