-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 16 November 2001 03:31 pm, Robert Schmid wrote: > [on Friday 16 November 2001 03:07 pm, Heather Martens wrote:]
> > differences. First, drawing with a drawing program involves using a > > mouse. A mouse is a rather blunt instrument. Six-year-olds can draw > > with it, but what they produce looks like what a three-year-old could > > do with a crayon. Still, we print it out and make a fuss over it as if > I'm not an artist but I have opposing thoughts on this. On the one hand, > I can't draw without a computer. I can do SOME visual art with a > computer. (FYI: I am biased. I have a BFA for which I did a lot of computer-aided art. I may give computers or art or both too much credit. *grin*) Most artists working on computers use a stylus designed to be pressure sensitive and to mimic some hybrid of real world pens, pencils, markers, etc. I don't think children should be using a mouse to draw on a computer. I do, however, think computers can form a valuable part of an art curriculum. Digital cameras allow dangerous chemicals to be avoided yet still to learn about photography (an equal opportunity art form in many respects)-- and more importantly visual self-expression. Plus computers make great photo labs, the effects are widely varied and mistakes can be corrected without wasting more than a few electrons. Also, computers make great typesetting and layout machines. This can be useful to incorporate artwork with text and such. What else can be done? The idea bin runneth over... > > But during my school tours last year, I found that computer use is not > > left up to the teachers. Computer time is a scheduled part of the week, > Well, this is part of an overall problem of trying to dictate curriculum But there must be some guidelines and if one of those guidelines includes computer use (which I support personally), then so be it. Once keyboarding skills have been taught (tough with smaller hands, but a good thing to have as early as possible), given a writing assignment in regular class, it is certainly better to have the student working with a text editor or word processor to produce a paper than to have to write the whole thing longhand. Oh, I suppose penmanship will suffer, but I'd like to see empirical evidence before I worry too much about that. I'd much rather see kids have the ability to make two prints of their work, to learn early on how to edit their work, etc. > limited. It would be interesting to try your experiment again with an > object-oriented language and really robust component library. - Heck, try > using Lego mindstorms, you'll accomplish a similar objective with > potentially interesting effects. Mindstorms are not a bad idea. I've read some success stories with those and there is at least one Minnesota enthusiast organization (they had a booth in the Tech bldg at the Fair). The specifics of a programming class I would leave to the person teaching, and are highly dependent on age of the students (who probably need to be 4th or 5th grade at least, just to have mastered some of the math and logic skills that are inherent in programming). - -Michael Libby (Cleveland Neighborhood/"Over North") - -- ===================================================== | My Public Key available from: keys.pgp.com | or http://www.ichimunki.com/public.key | | Its Fingerprint | D946 FE20 79EE 2109 161B FAFB E029 56F4 A330 AA73 ===================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE79bWG4ClW9KMwqnMRAgPgAJ9pOVFYYaMAV57HB3KVvS/avJ0+4wCfdW1t s67Wi7lEZyC61bEaRPi01vI= =dyba -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
