Teaching word processing - the theory behind

Abstract

It is widely thought and believed that word processors-especially MS Wordare software, which everyone can use. However, if we take a closer look at the documents we find that the picture is not at all that clear. In most of these documents even the basic rules of word processing are broken. The question is how it is possible that most of the users are satisfied with their performance, and do not realize that they only use a less noisy typewriter, and not able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these software. In the search of clearing this misunderstanding I found that there are no publicly available sources, which would clearly set the rules to determine when the documents are properly formatted. Here I set three maxims which, together, are able to control the tools applied in word processing in order to create properly formatted texts. In summary, they state that the layout of a properly formatted text should be invariant to modification, that is, any modification of the body of text should not initiate its re-formatting. To prove that these maxims work and to show that we desperately need them I give examples of works of professionals from the administration, of those who passed ecdl exams, of teachers of various subjects, and finally of teachers of Informatics.

Thinking Fast and Slow in Computer Problem Solving

“…Research found that those involved in end-user computing-central corporate IT groups, general corporate management, information systems researchers [1] [2] [9] [10], education policy-makers, teachers, publishers, and end-users [3] [4] [5] [11]-seem to be blind to effective teaching methods, to error handling, recognition, and correction, to how the brain works, how it can be utilized effectively in digital environments. Even those methods are not adopted which have proved effective in real world problem solving in other sciences and in programming.…”

“…In the present paper, we argue that (1) end-user computing should not differ in nature from any other problem solving, (2) effective teaching methods and approaches can be adapted from other sciences (3) novel methods can and have to be invented and introduced, (4) what teachers do matters, and (5) what "some" teachers, the expert teachers, do matters [13] [14].…”

Placing Event-Action-based Visual Programming in the Process of Computer Science Education

“…In an ideal educational environment, the development of computational thinking is not only focused on the programming topic, but rather integrated into all topics of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) education, such as Sprego and ERM (Spreadsheet Lego and Error Recognition Model), respectively [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]. Teaching birotical software receives great emphasis in the Hungarian K-12 curriculum [8], but most educators miss the opportunity to develop students' algorithmic skills by using such software [16].…”

Teaching word processing – the practice

“…Others, that they can use word processors properly, has not yet been proved. To prove that their knowledge is satisfactory, that is, their texts created with word processors are correctly formatted, first the criteria of the properly formatted text had to be set ( [7]). According to this definition a text is properly formatted if the layout of the text is invariant to modification(s), in other words, any modification in the body of the text does not initiate its re-formatting.…”

“…By analyzing the texts of these two surveys, and other texts available on the Internet, I found that one of the reasons that we have not advanced much in the past ten years is that there is no clear understanding of the concept of the properly formatted text. As a result, a definition of the properly formatted text was published in 2009 ( [7]), in hope that this definition would clear up the mist on what is acceptable in word processing and what is not.…”