One of the "Hypercard killers" was a knockoff called HyperStudio, which replaced scripting by features.
This was very popular in schools because most people (Americans especially) are driven by pragmatism rather than interest in understanding. They don't have the desire or will to try to understand if something already does a function.
Needless to say HyperStudio created a disaster of learning even as it seemed to be a good idea to many
Cheers,
Alan
From: K. K. Subramaniam kksubbu.ml@gmail.com To: etoys-dev@squeakland.org Cc: Steve Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com; Bert Freudenberg bert@freudenbergs.de; Kathleen Harness kharness@illinois.edu; squeakland squeakland@squeakland.org; Alan Kay alan.nemo@yahoo.com Sent: Thu, August 12, 2010 9:42:21 AM Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] (SQ-749) and Kathleen's question on "What do you mean by Artifacts?"
On Thursday 12 Aug 2010 8:41:46 pm Steve Thomas wrote:
The challenge in a system where everything is done from "First Principles" is that when you are designing an"educational environment" "lesson", or "Artifact" ( better terms might be "playthink" and/or "tool to think with"), it can take a lot of work to build those preferably translucent boxes.
The learning env may have become digital today but the challenge is not very different. Ever tried to help 5-8 yr olds learn basic arith ops with a electronic calculator around? I found that they figure out the tool faster than basic ops and then are not motivated to work through long additions. Kids spend long hours adding a string of numbers like 3+3+3 .... and then suddenly the mult tables start making a lot of sense. Or after exploring multiple ways of solving 792 - 598 and stumbling on an unconventional solution - like boosting both by 2 and solve 794 - 600 ;-).
It is tempting to build "convenience tools" and drop them into Etoys for kids to use. But a much better way is to let them plod through and figure it out for themselves. Tips and shortcuts can be offered later after basic comprehension is in place.
Subbu