what is needed ...

[Richard Gaskin]

Stephen Messimer wrote:
> Well you are in good company.  Probably most of the folks who are on 
> this list are not professionally trained programmers. That leaves us 
> all with holes in our skill sets.

I'll put myself out on a limb and ponder whether a professional with 6 
to 8 years of specialized higher ed training could be said to have holes 
in their skill set.  :)

Could it be the case that their skills are just fine, but what's needed 
is perhaps a different tool?  One that doesn't require another several 
more months of specialized training in an otherwise-unrelated field? 
Why should a history teacher be compelled to also learn programming?

Don't get me wrong:  I love scripting and feel that among those with an 
interest in such things Transcript is arguably the world's most 
accessible language to learn.

But what about everyone else?

This is sometimes an unpopular observation, yet it's as honest as my 
eyes can show me:

    For all the educators who USED HyperCard,
    only a minority did any serious SCRIPTING with it.

Having watched and even taught folks scripting since '88, I've seen a 
usage pattern that breaks down by personality types something like this:

   Scripts anythings that's needed    Few

   Scripts simple things, uses        Many
   scripts from others

   Little or no scripting, using      Most
   mostly prefab parts and
   point-and-click options like
   the Button Link tool and
   HyperGASP


In most environments I've seen, whether businesses, schools, or 
universities, I see that for every person who does scripting there are 
at least a dozen who use the products of that person's scripting but 
don't script themselves.  Sometimes that's several dozen.

So while we can count a large number of "HyperCard users", on closer 
inspection we see that many were "authoring" without scripting, and most 
weren't authoring at all.

This should not be surprising given the distribution of the programming 
gene in any gene pool.  People have varying interests, and it's not a 
qualitative assertion about them to notice that some are inherently 
attracted to programming and others aren't.

I think tools like your Preceptor Tools, HyperGASP, FileMaker, Flash, 
and other point-and-click systems represent a category of opportunity 
that may be more significant for RunRev than sticking with scripting only.

Most educational needs fall into a subset of all possible things that 
can be made with Rev.  Identifying that subset and scripting prefab 
components for them can get them to their goal far faster than any 
tutorial on how the components work.

Best of all, we don't have to work all that hard to identify such 
things: the various standards (SCORM, AICC, etc.) have already listed 
them for us, and in some cases already defined reference IDs for 
component types making them suitable for machine handling.

Of course Rev is inherently a layered proposition, so those interested 
in programming could dive into the scripts of components and revise 
them, even writing their own, to their heart's content.

But for many more the goal is less about learning programming than 
building courseware and having supporting tools.  Crafting a tool that 
serves that goal rather than introducing a different goal may better 
resonate with the market.


>> How to reach out to the unwashed masses?

Maybe they're already washed, and it's the tool that's unclean.

It seems one can capture a market more readily by shaping the tool to 
fit that market's goals, rather than attempting to shape the goals to 
fit the tool.

> In our context the Change Agent should be a Revolution employee who has 
> experience in education and programming.  His or her job should be to 
> attend all the major education conferences demoing education solutions 
> built with revolution, teaching teachers how to use their equipment, 
> conducting and promoting seminars on computers in education, and 
> finally doing market research with end users and department heads to 
> keep the product offerings up to date and congruent with their needs.

A starting point would be participation in this discussion.

Have there been any posts from RunRev folks since this list began?

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  __________________________________________________
  Rev tools and more: http://www.fourthworld.com/rev