Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley March 3, 2014 Deadline April 2014 Issue More Than a Typewriter: The Power of Word Typewriters still amaze me, especially the antique mechanical models. There’s something wonderful about the feel of levers, gears, springs and rollers working together to transmit thoughts into words. Typewriters possess a romance computer keyboards and touch screens lack. But, please, stop using your word processor like a typewriter. Word processor abuse mars many otherwise good documents. Bad habits people develop over time lead to documents that are ugly and difficult to edit and revise. The numerous excuses for improper word processing deserve dismissal. It does not take days or even hours to learn to use tabs effectively. Paragraph styles take minutes to understand and appreciate. Even a complex looking table of contents takes only a few mouse clicks to create if you construct a document properly. When you know more about your software tools, you also kno...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley August 2, 2010 Deadline September Issue Learning to Program, Learning to Think Several times a month I create or modify computer code, but I use the skills I have gained from programming on a daily basis. The more I learn about computer languages and programming, the more I learn to think creatively to solve problems. Our schools are asked to prepare students for standardized tests, primarily on English and math skills. We frequently claim we want students to learn creative problem solving, but we test memorized knowledge. State and national tests focus on knowing such things as the meanings of words and how to solve math problems with memorized equations. I don’t question the value of memorizing Latin and Greek roots or the quadratic equation, but teaching how to think is essential to the future. Computer programming requires analyzing a problem, breaking a possible solution into small parts and then writing the code to perform the steps requir...