[LONG] Re: Language Arts Stack

[Marielle Lange]

Hi Mark,

I agree on all your comments...

> You and I disagree on this point.  I'd rather the student guess,  
> given that the teacher has introduced the basic sentence patterns,  
> etc.  I don't think that there is a right way here; as a teacher, I  
> just like to bite my tongue and watch the student come to a  
> conclusion of her own.  Of course, I'll monitor and help her if she  
> is hopelessly lost.

Even on this, I agree with you. But  you will note that your  
justification relies on a class context. My comments were a reaction  
on the fact you consider to sell/distribute it (which I sincerely  
believe you should consider, you have a very clever application  
there). In that case, you cannot control the "classroom" context. You  
cannot either assume that a kid will ask his neighbour for advice. My  
concern was about the situation where a kid got "hopelessly lost".

Constructionist solution: why not distribute your game as such and  
you adjoin it a forum, where users can discuss their tricks, share  
their discoveries. Of course, you don't want the complete beginners  
to have access to the "advanced" combinations. You could try some  
agent system, with access to information dependent on the score you  
got. When you improve your score by a significant amount, you get  
access to new "secrets" (which have been contributed by other users).  
We are in the (very successful) computer game model here. The reward  
the kids get is extra knowledge in a social context.

I have no idea how this could be implemented (practically) but I  
would be interested in taking part in a working group if anybody is  
interested. The generic solution we could come up with could be  
applied to many different "educational" game situation. For hobbyist/ 
educators, this is a viable solution as this prevent us to have to  
write a very complete textbook to accompany the application. Taking  
care of user support is delegated to the users.

Marielle