Amoszine 7

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Amoszine 7 / Amoszine 7 (Disk 1 of 3).adf / ARTS / TL_Column.asc.cm / TL_Column.asc.cm

Wrap

Text File | 1992-09-02 | 11KB | 432 lines

<>P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P4 This column is an attempt to delve into the obscurities of some of the users to which P3AMOS P4can be put. Presented to you by the Editor of P7Worlds P3(the best Science Fiction, Fantasy and RPG disk magazine on the Amiga) P4and a regular contributor to Amoszine. P5 Well how did you like the new column heading then? I thought it might serve as an introduction to the many new readers who will no doubt be joining the P3Amoszine P5crew every month. For those of you who noticed something different about the heading, well done. There's no prize for writing to me and telling me what it was, but I'll try to write back if I can. P5 Anyway today's look at P3AMOS P5is going to focus on the powers of P3AMOS P5as a teaching aid. I'll attempt to look into areas which you might not have considered all that deeply before. Topics for future columns are of course very welcome, it takes an idea to get a column out every couple of months. Oh and if anyone would like me to write anything for up and coming fanzines then feel free to ask. I write quite a lot nowadays, maybe sometime soon I'll break into the paper market. P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P5 P1-Teaching Aid- P5 Yes, you've read that correctly. P3AMOS P5can be used as a teaching aid. In fact it is probably more suited to such a purpose than may other languages around. Why? Well obviously the ease of use and the natural gaming environment make it an obvious choice. It is plausible to think about using P3AMOS P5to write a teaching aid for P3AMOSP5, although such things rarely get past an on disk manual with a few example programs. Still if you ever have a few moments free it may be just the type of thing that you'd like to consider. P5 There now follows a list of possible ideas of the ways in which P3AMOS P5can be used for teaching. Well, something more than a list, but, after all, that is what the column's about! P1-Game- P5 What better way to help children to learn something than in a game? After all it is no secret that children enjoy playing games. Many have even used an Amiga. Some C64 owners may just get envious of you however badly the finished product turns out. P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P5 Basically there is one major problem with turning learning into a game. And that is the problem of where the learning starts and the fun ends. By definition such a place shouldn't exist. But normally it does. So what you need is a game that a child will feel familiar with and not be too scared of. Something with learning embedded, but to the child not the main reason for playing. What you need is an idea! Perhaps the most widely known game of this sort is the old favourite hangman. Originally a pencil and paper game there have been hundreds of clones and few have ever captured the full power of the original. So P5 this is one place where such a learning system may just fit in. A capital city hangman game, with the country concerned as a clue maybe? Or how about having a historical game with Kings and Queens of England. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there's no reason why a game couldn't be the perfect method for a young child to use a computer for learning. P1-On disk manuals- P5 I briefly mentioned such a scheme earlier on, but it is possible to create huge databases of information on your Amiga. Commodore's P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P3AmigaGuide P5system has made this very simple. It can be even easier to use P3AMOS P5if you know how to. Some magazine engines are written using P3AMOSP5. In fact you are looking at an example of one now. That's right! This humble magazine about P3AMOS P5actually practises what it preaches. And the whole system isn't all that difficult to create. All that's needed is a bit of patience and a complex system can be set up. Basically it consists of three main parts: (i) A text viewer-A program to display the text. This is fairly easy to write. P5 (ii) An article loader-I'm using article in a generic sense to suggest any piece of text that you may want to display. This should be able to take in an article from disk and understand it ready for displaying. (iii) An index-Basically this should describe how the files are stored, the name they are stored under on disk and the links between them. This will vary between different uses. It is also plausible to write a program to actually set up the magazine so that the links can be created manually. This is quite a complex process but it may well be worth it. P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P1-Knowledge Base- P5 A knowledge base is an attempt to dump a particular expert's knowledge onto a disk, so that it can be used by others both when the original expert is unavailable and in training a new expert. Really an expert base should be as good as the original expert. That is, after all, the reason for having one. However it would be rather bizarre to expect all of an expert's knowledge to be translatable onto a disk. In the construction of such a system a subject needs to be decided on, an P3AMOS P5debugger's guide for example. P5 Then care has to be taken into translating the expert's knowledge into a number of meaningful files. Then the program is consturcted to understand the differences between the records in the files and distinguish between the bad solutions and the best ones. Typically this can all fit within a single loop, which is repeated until a sensible decision is made. The usual set up for such a file is on with a combinations of questions, records and pointers, but a points system can also be used to select information. This could be an interesting project for someone with P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P5 an interest in passing their knowledge on to others, or indeed for finding out about something that interests them. P1-Quizical- P5 As a final idea you cannot help but notice the increasing popularity of quiz shows by television. Often it is because they're cheap and easy to make for a particular time slot, however there are also some quiz games which are designed to be of particular interest to those wanting to learn more about a particular subject. Now, racking my brains for an appropriate model, what about P5 P4Busman's Holiday P5as an example of something where teams learn about holiday destinations. Perhaps not all that useful an example, but then again it may just be convertable to help with other ideas. Or what about P4University ChallengeP5, for good, tough general knowledge. That could perhaps be an interesting type of game show to convert for more specialised purposes. But really I was thinking of any type of quiz game for a learning situation. Why? Because quiz games cannot help but encourage friendly competition and a reason for people to attempt to learn more and outdo the other players. Well, P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P5 maybe that's a bit extreme, but such a situation can easily be converted to the P3AMOS P5programming language that we all so know and love. Basically the front end needs some care during the design, as there should be an element of enjoyment in running a round of the quiz game. Thinking up questions can also be difficult, but a fair method needs to be employed to tell the player whether or not he is correct. I remember one game where each answer had to be a word. Some sort of spelling program was then used to see whether the answer was correct even if the spelling was wrong. P5 Other popular input methods include multiple choice and other players confirm whether the answer was right ones. You would have to choose which would work most successfully for a particular situation. However there is no reason to worry too much about this if the game is good enough. (Hint-if you want a good game don't copy televised ones). All in all it can be quite possible to construct an input and output system and in doing so have a quite presentable quiz game. P2R0 ROTHOMAS' COLUMN P3R0 RMBy Thomas Lancaster P1 -Afterword- P4 Well that's all we have time for this month. Or should that be bi-month? Either way it's just a bad pun in an attempt to say bye, all comments to the usual address. P6Thomas Lancaster "Editor Of P7WorldsP6" P5 Thanx for yet another interesting article Thomas. You mentioned a subject close to my heart and that is QUIZ GAMES. I have written three of these type of games (two of which are available from F1 Licenceware) and I can safely say that thinking up questions is no easy task ! Especially when you have to think up the multiple choice answers. Trying not to make the answer easy to get etc. They are great teaching games in their own right and I find them very entertaining. So much so that I even have fun researching all the questions ! P5I don't want to brag about my productions in your column, but I must stress that compiling 1000 questions each with three answer options isn't as easy as you may think. Especially when you want good quality questions. I had to ask some good m8s of mine to write questions on subjects they are familiar with ie. Star Trek and Red Dwarf etc. for THE ULTIMATE QUIZ Volume 1. Volume 2 of the game went one step further by relying on DATA disks that hold 500 questions each and I have written and released 3 of these so far. (F1 again) P5Each DATA disk covers a different subject/category and compiling 500 questions on a single subject is not easy as I said before. It's not so much the questions, but the multi-choice answers. See the adverts or article on this issue of Amoszine for more details on my games and I challenge you all to write at least one DATA disk for use with volume 2 of THE ULTIMATE QUIZ ! The reward is a royalty fee from F1 for every copy of your DATA disk sold so you know it makes sense. P1:) Andy Gibson P4 Purchase Volume 2 (F065) to get hold of all the utilities and information to write your own DATA disk - no coding experience required.