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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN
LIMA NEWSLETTER -- 1993
~~~~~ 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 that again) 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 it should take 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.