The disclosure of the power

This page provides more details about the artifacts that are related to the ideas and practices outlined in this article.

• My model of human-computer interactions
• Contemporary to ancient Greece:
  Propylaea
  Guides -- Stella and Steve
  The Excavations of ancient artifacts

Allegory

Interfaces

I.D.E: Many programmers use C++, Pascal and other high level languages (rather than low level languages) to write programs. Additionally, many experienced programmers use I.D.E.'s that are built around higher languages like C++ and Pascal to help them develop complicated programs.

Lingo: Multimedia designers use a scripting language like Lingo, along with a sophisticated development environment like Macromedia's Director, to create interactive applications.

Applications: People who know little or nothing about computer programming use applications to interact with their computers for production or entertainment.

Using this model, I suggest that the programmers are less dependent on interfaces to interact with computers, since they have more programming skills and the knowledge to deal with the interactions between binary computing and human interactions. Multimedia Designers use programs written by programmers to create interactive applications for end-users. They might not have complex programming skills like programmers have, they depend on tools, like Lingo, for creating applications for end-users. End-users use applications which are available to them, they are at the bottom of this hierarchy. They are more dependent on interfaces to communicate with computers than media designers. It is the programmers and the designers' job to make human-computer interactions transparent, intuitive for end-users. That's why it is important to understand the appropriate attitude of learning computer languages.

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Propylaea -- monumental gateways It constrains visitors' view and the entrance when they enter the sanctuary. It is an interface between the outside world and the monuments.

Stella's model of ancient Greece -- Stella used the artifacts archived in National Archaeological Museum of Athens as an index to different stages in ancient Greece. As we walked through the museum, we had an overall idea about the big picture of ancient Greece. It is good in several ways, but the most significant is we, novices of Greek culture, had a common ground of understanding, we had the vocabularies for discussion. It was this common understanding that we could immediately refer to when we visited different sites in Greece.

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Steve's model of ancient Greece -- Steve used "Aegean civilizations" as the topic of his class. He covered different stages of civilizations in the Aegean sea, he marked each important events with time, so that we had a quick and complete reference of the civilizations that took place in that area. It was a broader view the Greek culture that made sense to me. Steve also spent a few hours with us in The Ancient Agora of Athens, he gave us a different perspective of looking at those rocks. They were not just rocks, they were the culture, the history and the life style people still have in many places in the contemporary Greece.

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Reasoning

The Excavation of ancient artifacts -- How do archaeologists excavated the site? There were virtually infinite possible places to dig up. During the years, wars and natural catastrophes buried the sites before the archaeologists could excavate. Archaeologists searched for the preserved records, went through lengthy on site observations and then began to dig and reconstruct.

The Terrace of the Treasuries in Olympia (red lines represent different levels of the excavation).

Allegory -- A discussion between Socrates and Glaucon. Socrates used an allegory to talk about the truth of knowledge. What interests me about this article is its potentials in stimulating us of learning a computer language. Whatever angle you use to look at an object always leads to the unseen part of the object. How do we see? Could we be limited by what we see because of what we know? There are merely infinite possibilities in the universe, how do we not get caught by our limitations and pursue the truth of knowledge.

Conclusions

The design of a mediated environment to teach multimedia designers Lingo can be guided by the excavation and reconstruction metaphor and can use allegories to convey complex ideas.

This learning environment would have many of the properties of cognitive apprenticeship and case-based reasoning. The cognitive apprenticeship would be heavily influenced by what we learned about tour guides. Some of the cases would be allegorical and all of the cases would be structured using the excavation and reconstruction metaphor. For example, the learners could be initially introduced (through a propylaeum) to a site (a site of decayed programs) and be guided through it by a tour guide (explaining what the programs used to do). The learners' goal could be to reconstruct the programs and ultimately have those programs combine to make a larger program (this is a goal-based scenario type learning environment). Learners could be presented helpful allegories during their tour that help them understand more complicated programming concepts.

It is not Greek to me anymore.

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