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.IF DSK1.C-3 .CE 10 ~~~~~ TI-101 ~~~~~ OUR 4/A UNIVERSITY by Jack Sughrue Box 459 E.Douglas MA 01516 #5 McGUFFEY's Before we spend a class on the TI textbooks I mentioned at the end of our last session, I'd like to mention McGUFFEY's ECLECTIC READERS from the 1890's. They were the major source of formal, academic learning for young scholars 100 years ago. Today's McGuffey is Don Shorock. Let's analyze a bit of Shorock's eclecticism of the 1990's. Ms.^Bronte, I already gave you his address in my notes three or four classes ago. Very well. He can be reached for these educational goodies - mostly fairware (and let's hope I don't have to explainthatagain) at P.O.Box 501, Great Bend, KS 67530. Got that? Good. Now try not to interrupt with questions that have already been answered if you were paying attention during our other classes. I'm going to be using the overhead for this lesson, as some of the intricacies of this educator's materials are fascinating and unusual. Last session, Class, we had a couple questions from Mr.^Shakespeare over there by the window. He said he had a nephew in junior high and two elementary school grandchildren. I think Mr.^Shorock's eclectic disks will be of great help here. First, let me mention that Mr.^S has the most extraordinary data base structure built into his programs. Second, let me put up the menu of his first disk on the overhead here. He has four educational fairware disks: EDUCATION #1, 2, 3, and INVENTIONS. This is the first menu for #1: a) AMERICAN PRESIDENTS b) ENGLISH MONARCHS c) ANCIENT GREEKS && ROMANS d) JOYSTICK AMERICA e) WORLD MILEAGE f) STATES && CAPITALS (groups) g) SOLAR SYSTEM h) WORD MATH i) GAGGLES OF GEESE j) ESTIMATING TRIANGLES k) FACTORING l) AUDIO MATH m) CATALOG n) DOCUMENTATION o) EXIT There are 12 programs, plus a chance to look at the catalog from the disk, plus a chance to read all the documention. By using the alphabet instead of numbers, he is able to have the menu items lined up perfectly (as "10" and beyond would push everything one character to the right). Very neat is our Mr.^Shorock. If we pressed "a" for the President program another menu appears, as you can see on this transparency: 1) NAME YEAR 2) NAME PARTY 3) NAME PRESIDENT 4) NAME STATE 5) FOR QUIZ 6) LEAVE (to go back to main menu, which is nice, and only "d" and "j" are unable to within their activities) If, at this point, we press "1" and type in "1962" at the cursor, we get the following: "Year #2 of the Presidency of John Kennedy; 35th President; Democrat of Massachusetts; served 1961-1963." Typing "1963" would give both Kennedy and Johnson (who served from 1963 to 1969). Pressing "2" above will give you the listing of all the parties under which our Presidents have served: 1) Federalist 2)Democratic-Republican 3) National Republican 4)Democratic 5)Whig 6)Republican. And choosing "Whig," for example, will give you William Henry Harrison, 1841-1841; John Tyler, 1841-1845; Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850; and Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853. When choosing NAME PRESIDENT and typing "John," you will get all the Johns: Adams, Adams, Tyler, Kennedy with all their accompanying info. So you can enter first OR last names and have the program seek out the proper data for you. To enter STATE you must type in the full name, however, as the program will not accept MA or MASS for MASSACHUSETTS. When you type that full name, though, it will list its four Presidents and their biographical sketches. Entering the name of a state with no President will give you the cursor, just as typing in wrong info will. Now, when you have mastered this info, you will have the QUIZ (a yes/no job): "Did Benjamin Harrison Rule in the year 1811? (No. His term, as we all know, was from 1889-1893.) [I don't like RULED, however, which is the reappearing term for SERVED that Mr.^Shorock (probably a native of England) keeps using: Did Ronald Reagan Rule in 1818? (No. That's right, Class. Ronald Reagan RULED America from 1981 to 1989, though he may have behaved as if he RULED America in 1818).] Actually, I just listed the program and changed the RULE to SERVE, and it made the program so much better in our Democracy. Particularly if this program will be used with children. The English Monarchs and Ancient Greek and Roman programs are structured similarly. I don't intend to go through each of his delightful program packages for learners during our time today. Suffice it to say, Class, that you can see the amount of work that goes into a program like this and, by studying the program itself, the unlimited kinds of applications for which one may use these programs. I would, however, like to delve into a couple of completely different educational programs here. WORD MATH deals with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as the bane of all elementary and junior high students: Word Problems. The answers may be typed as "SEVENTEEN" or "17," as in this problem: "Ellen has nine dandelions and Kent has eight marigolds. How many flowers do Ellen and Kent have altogether?" At the menu you may choose specific processes (addition) or all. A running score is kept (as with most of Shorock's games and quizzes), and a wrong answer is corrected and explained. At the end of this program a flashy countdown in words from 100 to 1 takes place, using the TI's built-in wonders, and more options are given, including continuing the game. JOYSTICK AMERICA is a geography game. Kind of a precursor, in a philosophical way, to Mr.^S's highly successful AIR TAXI, his commercial venture which is a geographical masterpiece. I understand, Class, that he has a further development on even that one. When you write to him, ask. But J.A.^has a golf-like scoring system. You're given a par (how many moves itshouldtake you) to go from a random starting point in America (say Western Tennessee) to a random destination (say Ohio or Indiana). As you must move north and east in 3 moves here, you can judge how you are doing by the constantly updated "current location." Complex structure, simple execution. Although we've analyzed just three learning activities on the first disk, you can already see that directions are kept to a minimum, partially through superb sub menus; the structure is simple; the pathways direct; the learning concrete; the adaptive possibilities endless. A quick look at the transparency of Disk 2's menu (of math and geography activities only) will show you how Mr.^S jampacks these SSSD disks: GEOGRAPHY GAMES 0) North American Cities (comparisons: which is further north? west?) 1) Largest Cities (Chicago is the largest city in what state?) 2) World Capitals (multiple choice) 3) US Mileage (which is closer / how far is it to?) 4) Map: Eastern US (does Maine touch Vermont?) 5) Map: Europe (does France touch Luxembourg?) 6) Map: Latin America (does Equador touch Chile?) MATH GAMES 1)Patterns (math drill with wallpaper graphics) 2) More or Less (greater and lesser numbers) 3) Roman Numerals (teach, convert, quiz) 4) Chinese Numbers (teach, convert, quiz) 5) Tardis (strictly for us Dr.^Who fans;requires SS and TEII) PATTERNS is a flash-card-type arithmetic drill (3+17, 21X65, 14-11) on a solid background pattern that does not scroll when foreground "work area" does. The "wallpaper" changes and provides a nice 3-D effect. Score is kept as you go along; correct answers are given; a total is displayed at the end of each 10 questions before a new quiz with a new largest amount total being input again. Some toots and whistles here, also. Not a negative program. CHINESE NUMBERS has three menu options: T - Teaches Chinese numbers (graphically) from 1 to 9999; I - Interprets by translating any Arabic number of your choice into Chinese; Q - Quiz Giver lets you set the maximum amount and gives you 10 problems to solve, scores, and autoloads at end. Like so many of the Shorock activities, it is easy to get back to any part of the program (but not in some of these cases to get back to the main disk menu). WORLD CAPITALS has a wonderful menu that includes 1) Latin America 2) Europe 3)Africa 4) Asia 5) Oceana 6) Entire World 7) TI Answers (instead of asks) 8) Show Off Everything 9) New Player (instead of the person who typed name at beginning of game, as this will give game competition opportunities) I wanted to add one thing here, Mr.^Shakespeare, if you use these disks with your young relatives. This program, unfortunately, sometimes repeats questions back to back (and to back again, in some cases) within the 10-question activity. This should've been eliminated. That sort of problem does appear in some of these other activities, too. However, Class, a great opportunity to learn all those new former Soviet Union and other Eastern European and Western Asian countries would be to change this program to include just these "new" countries for flash-card learning. Mr.^Shorock has made a great base into which it is fairly easy to plug new data. I see people peering at their watches. Before we go today and before I assign homework, I have a couple more overhead transparencies to show you, such as this projection of the menu from Education Disk #3: Misc.: A - STATES 50 B - SEMAPHORE SIGNALING C - FAMOUS PHILOSOPHERS D - FAMOUS COMPOSERS E - CHEMICAL ELEMENTS F - GEOLOGY TERMS G - CANADIAN PROVINCE CAPITALS H - MEXICAN STATE CAPITALS I - FLAG QUIZ && DEMO J - PRES. INAUGURAL DATES K - SUBJECT/VERB AGREEMENT L - SHORTWAVE TUNING SIGNALS M - JULY 4TH DEMO N - CATALOG 0 - DOCUMENTATION P - EXIT When I look at FAMOUS COMPOSERS, Class, I'm reminded of the time a group of music historians dug up Beethoven's grave. When they opened his coffin, up popped Beethoven, shouting, "What is the meaning of this? Can't you see I'm busy decomposing?" L is interesting. The signature tunes which are played by different countries before they begin their shortwave broadcasts are played (Switzerland, Canada, Kuwait, South Africa, etc.). Once learned, there is a quiz, of course. After all the playing and using and trying and testing, I finally found an error, Class. In STATES 50 the program says New Hampshire does not touch Massachusetts. It does. Not bad. One small mistake in four jampacked disks of educational programs. Most of the programs I think you can figure out from the titles. Now this last overhead. Has two menus shown on it: the main and the one by pressing 3 on the main: 1) USE PROGRAM 2) PRINT DOC 3) LOOK AT DOC 4) SEE DISK CATALOG ^^^1) A word about Fairware ^^^2) Why I wrote this program ^^^3) How to use this program ^^^4) Programming techniques ^^^^^^^^segmented array items ^^^5) Programming techniques ^^^^^^^^randomly filled array ^^^6) How LOOK AT DOC works ^^^^^^^^you may leave docs ^^^^^^^^for menu any time From these menus you can see, Class, that these educational programs by the McGuffey of the 1990's are not just for children. The things you can learn about programming and data structuring from the INVENTIONS disk, alone, is worth the price of admission; which, being Fairware in the TI Marketplace is always the best buy in the computer world. So, if you are like Mr.^Shakespeare or Mr.^Bell over there who are always looking for educational materials for youngsters or even like Ms.^Bronte who always wants to get some adult learning materials, you would all be wise to order these disks right away from Mr.^Shorock. They are not available in the campus bookstore. Send what you think is a fair amount for each of these disks ($5 to $10 per disk would certainly be fair, particularly when you know what is charged for commercialware elsewhere) and help yourself or your young learners in ways that the original McGuffey never dreamed of. There will be items from each disk on the final. No, Mr.^Shakespeare, Mr.^Shorock is not the only person or company making educational materials for the TI. Chris Bobbitt's ASGARD SOFTWARE (P.O.Box 10306, Rockville MD 20850) and Ken Gilliland's NOTUNG SOFTWARE (7647 McGroarty St., Tujunga CA 91042) are two companies that still put out various kinds of educational materials, too, and their catalogs are free. And don't forget Jim Peterson's TIGERCUB SOFTWARE (154 Collingwood Ave., Columbus OH 43213), the very best source for excellent, inexpensive, very specific educational software on disks, including more adult learning materials for you, Ms.^Bronte. The $1 catalog fee is redeemable with your first order. But your homework, Class, is to look through all your disks and cassettes (which we'll discuss the class after next) and search for the 10 most educational items you can find - the best; ones you personally feel are the most educational, that do the learning task successfully. Bring them to class next time and be prepared to give 5-minute talks on why you chose these 10. If you belong to a user group, have everyone in the group do the same and put together some master educational disks and cassettes. This could be a great service to all the newtimers coming into our TI World Community. ÇçÇ¼çïÉòƒ⌐╒╒╒╒╒╒╒╒╒╒Çïáááááááááááááááááááááá