HyperStudio Reached Teachers

[Mark Greenberg]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2005, at 06:48 AM, 
education-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com wrote:

>> As a somewhat adept HyperCard scripter back when,  I could never 
>> figure
>> out HyperLogo from the tutorial that came with it.  Maybe it was just
>> me, but I was a motivated user with previous experience.  What I saw
>> HyperStudio doing for students was basically... PowerPoint.

Mark, you are mistaken about what HyperStudio can do.  It can display a 
randomly generated geometry problem, graph it on the fly, ask the 
student the measure of one of the angles, monitor the keystrokes as the 
student types, and immediately reward a correct answer.  It can present 
a geographic map of the far east and prompt students with a randomized 
list of names like “Himalayas,” “Yangtze River,” “Tibetan Plateau,” 
etc.; highlight the area if the student clicks correctly; and instantly 
reward her with points and a display of the elapsed time.  It can 
simulate a laser reflected off two mirrors and through various 
transparent media like diamond, oil, or vacuum, rewarding the student 
who calculated where the beam would land.  It can draw recursive 
fractals on the fly (using real recursive script) according to the 
parameters that the student typed in.  It can….  Well, I doubt that 
continuing with more examples would do any good.  You may have guessed 
that these are all examples of actual HyperStudio stacks I used in my 
classroom.  Some I made and some my students made.  There were scores 
more.  If you would like, I could send you a few of my old HS stacks.  
I was an expert user of both HyperCard and HyperStudio, and, IMHO, 
HyperStudio was better in nearly all ways.

Jim Hurley, one of the amazing programers who frequents the use-rev 
list, wrote a whole set of handlers to add HyperStudio functionality 
(turtle graphics) to Rev.
	But your overall point is correct.  Almost nobody USED HyperStudio 
that way.  Though HS was capable of that level of scripting, there is 
no void for Run Rev to fill.  That is unless we stoop to the lowest 
level and show teachers how RR can be used.  Yes, we’d have to begin 
with navigation, hide/show, move, etc.  That is the starting point for 
teachers.  From there we could demonstrate sprite animation, random 
question selection, inks, math problem generation, regular expressions, 
science simulations (like the black planet sim posted on the other list 
recently), and on to the more advanced capabilities of Rev.
	I, for one, am in favor of doing just that, showing teachers how to 
begin and guiding them as high as they care to go.  I’m also in favor 
of possibly selling Rev stacks to lighten my own grading load and feed 
my family.  Ah, but that’s another issue for another message.

Mark