First tutorial on the revolution-education wiki

[Marielle Lange]

Dear Jerry,

Are you still on the revolution-education list? I hope so. I posted a  
message with a proposal similar to the one you wrote a few days ago  
(copied at the bottom of this mail) but on the revolution list (did  
not know about the education list). I was referred back to your email  
and this education sublist.

I created a wiki, this week, at http://revolution.lexicall.org/wiki/,  
feel free to use it as a support for your project of a "project-based  
approach to teaching/learning Revolution"... this will let you get  
comments and improve the content. If you do not want other persons to  
be able to modify your text (but be allowed to make comments), I can  
arrange that.

To give you an idea of what can be done, I have posted a first  
tutorial on the bookidea page of the wiki (see http:// 
revolution.lexicall.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=BookIdea). This was  
rapidly written and screen captures still need to be added (time to  
sleep for me). In case you are not familiar with wikis, know that the  
wiki philosophy is that you shouldn't wait to have something error- 
proof to share it. Waiting too long means depriving others from  
interesting information. Making "drafts" available early means that  
others can build on them, improve what you may possibly never had had  
time to finish. There is also the fact that a single person cannot be  
expected to be good at EVERYTHING. Some persons are good at starting  
projects... others are better at making sure everything is error-proof.


To the "confirmed revolutionaries", this will show the ease with  
which tutorials can be created on a wiki-web. No need to know any  
html to contribute... only very simple conventions that help to  
maintain a common look and feel throughout the wiki.

To the newcommers, this tutorial will hopefully give an idea of the  
ease with which revolution can be used to rapidly create interactive  
demonstrations to be used in a classroom context.

I have also posted on the homepage a few questions about what kind of  
projects educators hope to realize with revolution and what kind of  
resources (tutorials, pre-written stacks) they need to do so. That's  
your chance to encourage the production of resources better adapted  
to your needs.


Marielle

--------------

[Jerry's post]

I'm Jerry Balzano, a professor in the Music Dept and the Teacher  
Education Program at UC San Diego.  Once upon a time, I started  
writing something called *The HyperCard Projects Book*, a "project- 
based" approach to teaching/learning HyperCard.  (Wrote up 12
chapters/projects before I saw the writing on the wall for HyperCard.)
I have been toying with the idea of resurrecting this book, using  
Revolution/Dreamcard.  The "big idea" is that most people will learn  
better and more easily by creating meaningful projects, rather than
encountering a "systematic" approach that mostly makes sense from the  
standpoint of someone who already understands the thing to be learned.
I would identify closely with the "Game Creation" approach mentioned  
by Marty Billingsley -- indeed, a number of the projects I use are  
games -- but by expanding the view to "Projects" I can include things  
that have more educational bite, and within the games subtopic, not  
be overly preoccupied with "game-play" issues.


What about a "Dreamcard Projects Book"?  Any interest in such a thing?

- Jerry Balzano