(random comments are bolded)
(all quotes and ideas expressed in this post are intellectual property of Robert Winter)
As I sit in this under-seated venue, I am listening to Robert Winter enthusiastically talk about a problem with education, he wants to write programs for people aged "12-dead", which is pretty clever. My previous blog (around 130 hits a day) seems to have been deleted, this makes me sad. Hopefully, I can regain my previous blogging status. Mr. Winter needs to write for skilled age, not just normal age, to get a useful program made. He's discovered that the divide for education (high and low culture) is destroyed online, people explore the key ideas behind things. He worked with Bob Stein, whose notes I will upload soon, on interactive CD-ROM software. He's about to show us a program with 22000+ files, 18000+ content files, 60000+ words. He doesn't have to worry about "there's no place to put everything", he can put in whatever will work. He tries to create programs that are author created, but user-driven. "There are a limitless number of paths to follow." Mr. Winter has spent 4000 hours on the presentation and program he's about to show us, truly a triumph in complexity, detail, and ideas. His whole idea is that his programs are all interconnected, a web/network if you will. His program starts up with the sound of an 1895 train, majestic music follows with a few images of turn-of-the-century idols. These icons are clickable, and you can then read about them, trains, statue of liberty, women, farris wheel, instruments, it's a table of contents. Clicking on an icon will forward you to a page dedicated to that idea with text and pictures about that idea. There are video clips you can watch, revealing that this is indeed a DVD-ROM program. Winter wanted it to be a themed-project, so key-ideas and sub-ideas are named "Main-Line" and "Side-Trips", the Side Trips are for non-linear learners. Clicking on something will have a little sprite of Winter begin to talk to the learner about the item. Everything in the program is scalable, and you can non-linearly explore the information. You can watch videos of owls with 180 degree head turns and ear-piercing screeches, all about Prague, the city where a 19th century man named Dvorak lived. The DVD focuses on Dvorak and his music, pleasent dramatic pieces that tie the rustic frontier-esque project together. Various links in the text open up a page, Wiki-style, it'll also highlight the text that you're looking for. Winter jokes that, if he dies, he wants to be remembered for this. He says people came to America for various reasons, and links to "projects" are supplied for students. Clearly an intellectual production. He refers to the green hyperlinks as "hot". He has various artworks in the western-themed program for children to draw on a piece of paper. Clicking on things displays paintings, and there is AV media for almost every idea and facet of Dvorak's life. If Dvorak liked a certain type of bird and put it in his music, you can see the picture of the bird, listen to its call, and listen to the music. You're impulsive in this program, says Winter. All of this information can be retrieved instantly. Listen to sound-clips of interviews about Dvorak taped 45 years ago in a discussion, truly get a good idea for how Dvorak was. Winter then shows how you can skip through music with titles and headings, to listen to the differences in various majors and tempos, being able to grab sections that are 10 minutes apart instantly for comparison. He plays a sound clip everyone in the audience has heard, and explains that kids can now explore these familiar sounds. Winter has fused sound, technology and learning to create a majestic learning application. It turns out that the past twenty minutes of sound, video, pictures and text is in one of the 10 or so "sections" or icons, the one we chose being Dvorak. Winter accesses the "Women" file, and you can listen to certain works, which are truly amazing. The simple ability to tie music and picture together with your eyes and ears is an amazing experience, truly an awesome way to learn. He plays a video of modern-day Carnegie hall, for the children who are interested in what the theater is and was like. You can pull up individual instruments and listen to their sound in the orchestra in different pieces, amazing. You can then watch video of modern-day orchestra instruments play the sections of these pieces. Winter jokes that he has another hour to show us, even though he has about six minutes, he's an excellent speaker. "You can always 'break out' on things you don't know" or understand, comments Winter. He says he's collected information for 30 years, astounding. 15000-20000 hyperlinks in the program, he says.
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