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Subject:Re: Re[2]: HTML Programming vs. PDF From:Scott Gray <scotty -at- CM -dot- MATH -dot- UIUC -dot- EDU> Date:Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:58:33 -0600
We have reached the heart of the matter! Learning.
Rather than point out the possibilities of interactivity with my own
long and boring disertation about the topic, I would like to issue the
following challenge to my new friend Arlen and the good people on this
list:
The challenge is this: Find two beginners in HTML, people who have never
written a web page before. Send one of them to the grand daddy of all
HTML tutorials at
These are highly regarded tutorials and on just about everyone's list of
places to go learn about HTML.
Send the other person to http://www.useractive.com/tutorial
After about an hour or two, ask each of them to see their web page and
ask them how much they've learned and how much they enjoyed it.
Then please report your finding back at this list.
"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand" --
Chinese proverb.
On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Walker, Arlen P wrote:
> Actually if if stay away from JavaScript 1.2 then both Netscape and
> MSIE work with JavaScript.
>
> Not quite. But you do have a good chance of getting the script to work in
> both. There are still differences in the functions each supports, as well
> as some syntax differences. But a determined scripter can work around those
> differences.
>
> Oh yes, Im sure they would they would rather go about reading page
> after page of written documentation rather than having a dredfully
> rich and interactive lesson where they actually LEARN something.
>
> Gee, I wonder how anyone managed to learn anything before multimedia tools
> were invented. It couldn't have been by *reading* now, could it?
>
> Sorry about the sarcasm there, but your comment makes the assumption that
> one can't learn anything by reading. As with most things, this varies by
> individual, and I also suspect it has far more to do with the design and
> organization of the lesson than the medium used to deliver it. I've seen no
> shortage of badly designed examples of both.
>
> We all know that efficiency of production is much more important than
> the users efficency in understanding and learning don't we?
>
> Scott, get real. Both are important. If the production isn't effcient, then
> either the company goes out of business and therefore the users are
> deprived
> of the opportunity to learn, or the lessons are so expensive that no one
> pays for them, so no one learns from them.
>
> Let go of the idea that there's only one way to teach a subject. That idea
> went out with Maxwell Taylor's old school of Scientific Management. A well-
> designed lesson will teach; a poorly-designed one will not. Beyond that
> it's
> all noise.
>
>
> Have fun,
> Arlen
> Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
> DNRC 224
>
> Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
> ----------------------------------------------
> In God we trust; all others must provide data.
> ----------------------------------------------
> Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
> If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
>
>
>
