Re: [seul-edu] Re: perl or......

[Tom Hoffman <rid00654@ride.ri.net>]

on 12/5/00 1:41 AM, Michael Totschnig at michaelt@supernet.ca wrote:


> 
> - because it helps to learn principles of structured document
> preparation
> - because a local community can develop its classes of style, which
> are then easily usable by everybody.
> - because it helps to develop an ethics of computing based on open
> standards of communication
> 
> For example educational computing provides many standardized text
> genres like exams, homework, reviews of assigned readings. With Latex
> an educational community can develop styles for this genres that
> improve the logical and typographic quality of these documents.
> 

As a secondary English teacher, I think that a robust and simplified Lyx
with community developed and freely shared Latex class definitions would be
very useful.  Even from the standpoint of teaching students to use MS Word
more efficiently.  Once a student understood the basics of Latex, he or she
would be able to also understand and use the styles features in Word.

Unfortunately, as a few people have mentioned, it isn't clear who will be
motivated to develop this tool.  I think it is too abstract a notion for
most English teachers to get excited about, unless it was presented to them
as a complete package.  On the other hand, just making a simplified version
of Lyx, removing many of its technical features and irrelevant (in a K-12
context) classes and templates removed might be a start.

--Tom