At Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:15:40 -0400, Timothy Falconer wrote:
The usefulness of the target age is one thing, but pre-set list of ages is another. If you say, "8 to 12", or "9 to 11", it means different things from a region to another with different school systems. We can't dictate globally there, I think. And some put the target age based on the relevance with the school curriculum, but others put some other criteria. Some want to put the grade number but some want to put the age.
So, having the age part is ok but probably better to be a free-form field.
Just my $0.02.
Having it free-form, or tag-based, will make it nearly impossible to usefully group, which will be a problem for people looking for relevant content.
Think ... 1000 projects and I have twenty minutes to try 5 projects ... I'm a 3rd grade teacher in the united states wondering how I could include Etoys throughout my school day.
Sure. Are you saying that I don't understand this kind of constraint?
500 different ways of saying 3rd grade will all but prevent that person from finding 5 great projects in 20 minutes.
But if you are a 3rd grade teacher in the US and looking for projects, you are effectively saying that there should be a better tagging mechanism than pre-set age groups.
BTW, Kathleen is a teacher and she described what she does. What is your comment on that?
You might say, "well, they need to spend more time", but THEY WON'T.
I wouldn't *just* say that.
-- Yoshiki