Assignment 1

The Universal Machine and The Analytical Engine

When trying to run the UMStars interface, I encountered several errors, mostly with loading icons and sound. The UMWords interface worked just fine.

1. The audience of both titles were computer science/engineering students.
2. UM was focused on teaching software development only, while AE taught basic computer tasks, programming, and some of the hardware involved in computing.
3. UM used multimedia to teach all of its lessons, AE used multimedia to support lessons in the textbook, through labs.
4. Because the bottom portion of both interfaces is the same, I'm guessing that the UMStars was too complicated in the way you navigate through the chapters. (I couldn't load the main part of the screen, apparently there are files missing on the LAN computers.) The UMWords interface is certainly simple enough, and it is easy to navigate through the sections.
5. UM uses multimedia to teach all its lessons, which I think is the most effective method for learning at home. AE uses multimedia to support the lessons that are in a textbook, which I think is more effective for learning from a teacher.
6. UM's strength is its step by step approach, using the multimedia to navigate, and lots of interactivity. However, I think it would benefit from a little more text, or a book to go with it. AE seems to have a great deal of content, but almost no interactivity. The labs and multimedia only serve to support a great deal of text. I think this book should use a lot more interaction, especially in the labs. The only labs that really had this were the hardware ones.
7. I think that AE could learn from UM to greatly improve its interactivity, and the overal asthetics and usability of their online content.
8. I would guess that it would take a team two months to come up with a chapter's worth of content.

Week One

Summary of this week: Introduction to course, and learned how to draw basic shapes and text in flash.

Assignment for this week: Compare the Universal Machine: A Multimedia Introduction to Computing and the Analytical Engine: An Introduction to Computer Science:
I could not find the website related to the AE book, the website that was printed on the back of the picture I saw of the textbook is no longer up. The information I found on the book says that it provides a general overview of many topics in computer science. At the time the book first came out, the lessons in the book were supported by multimedia on the website, as well as on a CD that came with the book. Both the website and the CD contained a number of labs to support the information in the book. The UM book sounds like it goes into a lot more detail about how to actually program, and focuses on C++. From the screenshot and small demo of content that I saw, the multimedia involved with this book is well organized and easy to use. Both books use both textbook content, a multimedia CD, and online content. It sounds like they differ on how much detail they go into in terms of actual coding versus theory and strategy for programming.



Project: not totally sure what kinds of ideas would be good, here is what I came up with ..
1. Title: Typing Teacher
Subject: to teach basic typing skills
Audience: anyone who wants to learn to type
Comments: more interesting than how I learned to type (a book), lends itself to a lot of interaction/games

2. Title: ??
Subject: basic physics (physics of motion)
Audience: high school students
Comments: turn classic problems into games/quizzes - like shooting a cannon, driving a car, etc.

3. Title: Understanding sports
Subject: rules behind some basic sports- football, soccer, baseball, etc.
Audience: anyone who wants to learn the rules of a sport, just to enjoy watching it more, or to start playing
Comments: my most fun idea, but would be hard to program games, other than in a quiz fashion, or maybe play calling ...

My favorite idea is the sports one, but I doubt I'll be able to program games of the sport itself. Play calling or maybe a type of quiz where you are a referee are possible ideas for games and quizzes.

Test

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